What if materials could defy gravity, so that we could leave them suspended in mid-air? ZeroN is a physical and digital interaction element that floats and moves in space by computer-controlled magnetic levitation.
by Jinha Lee, in collaboration with Rehmi Post, and Hiroshi Ishii
leejinha.com/zeron
tangible.media.mit.edu
Posts tagged "science"
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Source sagansense
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Tomorrow, we’re live streaming the 2012 Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate, hosted by Hayden Planetarium Director Neil de Grasse Tyson. Tune in at 7:30 pm EST. This year’s debate will pit some of the experimentalists who have reported the discovery of faster-than-light neutrinos against their strongest critics.
Photo by David Gamble
(via quantummodulus)
Source amnhnyc -
(via abcstarstuff)
Source angelatronics -
These phenomena are also known as Von Karman vortices. “Von Karman vortices form nearly everywhere that fluid flow is disturbed by an object.”
The images show a cloud vortex swirling behind Jan Mayen Island in the Greenland Sea, another one near Heard Island, in the Indian Ocean and two formed by the winds rushing over the Cape Verde Islands.
The animation shows how a von Karman vortex develops behind a cylinder moving through a fluid.
(via abcstarstuff)
Source scipsy -
Navigate the brain in a way that was never before possible; fly through major brain pathways, compare essential circuits, zoom into a region to explore the cells that comprise it, and the functions that depend on it.
The Human Connectome Project aims to provide an unparalleled compilation of neural data, an interface to graphically navigate this data and the opportunity to achieve never before realized conclusions about the living human brain.
(via rossexton)
Source poptech.org -
Hydrogen Bonding
Hydrogen bonding is a common “force” in nature, it’s what holds your DNA and proteins together and what makes water so weird and wonderful. Without it you wouldn’t be you, in fact you probably wouldn’t be anything. Hydrogen bonds are both inter and intra molecular forces in that it can act between different molecules (in the case of DNA bases) or within the same molecule (such as single chain proteins). Hydrogen bonding arises from polarity within a molecule, for this to happen a hydrogen must be bonded to an electronegative atom such as oxygen, fluorine or nitrogen (or be part of something like CHCl3). This causes the probability of an electron being around the hydrogen to decrease thus leaving it with a partial positive charge whilst the electronegative species has a slight negative charge. The slightly positive hydrogen is then attracted to other electronegative atoms that neighbor it. This causes an attractive force between them and gives an organized structure such as the crystalline form of ice or the hexagonal shape of a snowflake.(via cromosfera)
Source 14-billion-years-later -
NASA spacecraft detects ‘alien’ matter from beyond our solar system
The ‘interstellar material’ is the leftovers of older stars that have ended their lives in a supernova.(via scinerds)
Source mothernaturenetwork -
(via sagansense)
Source glitchthemachine -
Plasmodesmata
Plasmodesmata (singular, plasmodesma) are small tubes that connect plant cells to each other, establishing living bridges between cells. Similar to the gap junction found in animal cells, the plasmodesmata penetrate both the primary and secondary cell walls, allowing certain molecules to pass directly from one cell to another.
Source expose-the-light -
How Bubble-Rafting Snails Evolved
Image 1: A female violet snail, Janthina exigua, hangs from a float of homemade mucus.
Image 2: A large female snail in the Recluzia cf. jehennei species preys upon aPortuguese man-of-war while perched on a raft of mucus bubbles. A tiny snail of the same species clings to the underside of the female’s float.
Image 3: A bubble-rafting violet snail feeds on a Portuguese man-of-war in Hawaii.
Image 4: A female violet snail, Janthina janthina, is the most common species of bubble rafter. J. janthina is also the only bubble-rafting species in which females brood their young inside their bodies instead of laying egg capsules on their floats, Churchill noted.
Photograph Courtesy: 1, 2 and 4 Denis Riek, 3 David Fleetham
Source the-star-stuff -
Vast Web of Dark Matter Mapped
Astronomers have created a vast cosmic map revealing an intricate web of dark matter and galaxies spanning a distance of one billion light-years.
(via fyeahcarlsagan)
Source news.discovery.com -
Scientist creates lifelike cells out of metal
Researcher says he has created living cells made of metal instead of carbon — and they may be evolving.Source mothernaturenetwork -
The Most Anticipated Space Missions of 2012
It’s not just GRAIL probes, secret spacecraft and a new Mars rover. We’ve got solar-sailships to look forward to, as well!
(via Boing Boing)
(via itsfullofstars)
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The density of the known universe is estimated at roughly 1 proton per cubic meter.
(Image Via)
(via astrotastic)
Source newscientist.com -
Small Spiders Have Big Brains That Spill Into Their Legs
by Rachel Kaufman
They’re not fat, they’re just big-brained: Tiny spiders have such huge brains for their body sizes that the organs can spill into the animals’ body cavities, a new study shows. Such big brains may explain why very small spiders—some less than a millimeter across—are just as good at spinning webs as bigger arachnids.
For the study, a team led by Bill Eberhard, a staff scientist at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and a professor at the University of Costa Rica, examined nine spider species from six web-weaving families. The researchers found that the smaller the spider, the bigger its brain relative to its body size. In some spiders, the central nervous system took up nearly 80 percent of the space in their bodies, sometimes even spilling into their legs…
(read more: National Geo)
(photo: female jumping spider Phidippus clarus, by Don Johnston)
Source rhamphotheca
