RSS
Archive: Science
January 7, 2009
The Naked Scientists explain the science of snot
I love the Naked Scientists site - they explain things so well. And snot is always interesting.
The average sneeze can propel a mucus missile and its microbial passengers at up to 100 miles per hour, hence the saying "coughs and sneezes spread diseases", and as well as sneezing there is of course nose blowing. But much to the disgust of many a reader, the vast majority of our mucus is in fact eaten! Our airways are lined with millions of tiny hairs, called cilia. These beat in synchrony to produce waves of movement, a bit like how a Mexican wave moves around a football stadium. These waves sweep the mucus to the back of the throat where it is swallowed. Stomach acid then takes care of most of the things inside that could be infectious. But if the mucus dries out and hardens before it can be ferried to the throat it can produce an unsightly bogey!
Posted by Patti Schiendelman |
Jan 7, 2009 07:00 AM
Kids, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
January 6, 2009
Clean a toilet with Coke
I'm not sure what's more disgusting, that a toilet can get as nasty as the one pictured, or that you can clean said toilet with the fluid you typically flush down your throat. According to wikiHow, you can just pour the tasty beverage over any stubborn stains or lime deposits, let it stew for a few hours, brush it, and flush it.
The carbonic, citric, and phosphoric acids in the Coke will break down stains. For extra cleaning power, let the Coke sit in the toilet overnight.
Enjoy!
How to Clean a Toilet With Coke [via Lifehacker]
Posted by Jason Striegel |
Jan 6, 2009 06:00 PM
hacks, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (7)
| Email Entry
The making of a triode
One of our most viewed and discussed postings of '08 was Claude Paillard's stunning triode video where he makes a vacuum tube triode from scratch. While poking around the Web, looking for other videos he might have done, I bumped into this documentary about the 2006 European Triode Festival in the Netherlands, celebrating the 100th anniversary of this game-changing electronic component. To celebrate, a copy of the DeForest Audion (the first triode) was replicated. This video documents the build.
More:
Revisiting Claude Paillard's triodes
Make your own vacuum tubes?
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jan 6, 2009 02:07 PM
Electronics, Retro, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
January 5, 2009
Next Dorkbot SoCal, Jan 10
My friend Thomas Edwards, Dorkbot DC founder and former Overlord (now living in LA), wrote to tell us about the next Dorkbot SoCal meeting on January 10, featuring three bio-inspired artists.
Deborah Aschheim (above) creates works that blur biology and technology, exploring concepts of memory, architecture, and neural networks through drawings, sculpture, writing, installation and sounds.
Brian Evans explores the intersection between reductivist sculptural form and the aesthetics of behavior, where structure and thought are fused. He creates simple moving objects with seemingly life-like qualities- electromechanical life forms with motivations only just beyond our understanding.
David Guttman (above) creates interactive works that generate unique colors and shapes from sound and EEG.
More details at:
http://www.dorkbot.org/dorkbotsocal
Posted by Gareth Branwyn |
Jan 5, 2009 02:10 PM
Announcements, Arts, Events, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
Wastricity
Wastricity is the use of electricity in a way that provides no personal or public benefit.
There is no public benefit to the money spent lighting streets and the exterior of buildings during the daytime. Who should you talk to when you see municipal money being spent on electricity or other utilities for zero constructive use? How will they respond when you point out that they are burning their budget? Are they planning on going in front of the voters asking for some emergency reprieve in the budget meltdown of the year?
By having devices use electricity and providing no value in return, we are squandering a public resource of fossil fuel derived and grid delivered electricity.
In our personal lives, we use wastricity whenever we leave our phone chargers plugged in to the wall when the phone is not attached. We also use wastricity by leaving gaming systems running while we are out of the house. Leaving lights on in the room when nobody is in the room is classic wastricity.
Do you have enough money in your household budget? Could you find some more money by hunting down wastricity? Does your school system or town have a policy about preventing wastricity? How can your kids or students join the fight against wastricity? Could you create an incentive for people to reduce wastricity?
Wastricity. What can you do to stop it?
Posted by Chris Connors |
Jan 5, 2009 01:00 AM
Culture jamming, Electronics, Green, Remake, Science, Something I want to learn to do... |
Permalink
| Comments (10)
| Email Entry
January 2, 2009
Takira shows the thermistor
Thermistors are pretty cool little items. They convert heat into resistance. By having the temperature available as resistance, you can use the value to control other things like circuits and programs. Photo cells do the same thing with light, and they are in lots of common devices from night lights to dimmers on clock radios.
How could you use a thermistor with your shiny new Arduino? What could you measure with a thermistor? Have you got any videos like this where somebody demonstrates an interesting device? This video came from a summer youth program in Boston. Does your community have a similar opportunity for teenagers to learn incredible things and work on neat projects? Show your ideas in the comments, and iinclude your photos and video in the Make Flickr pool.
Posted by Chris Connors |
Jan 2, 2009 12:00 PM
Arduino, DIY Projects, How it's made, Interviews, Kids, Science, Something I want to learn to do..., Toolbox |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
Neave Planetarium
Paul Neave has a wonderful site to wander through, it's full of little toys and wiggly kind of stuff. I really liked the Neave Planetarium; you can virtually explore the sky from any point around the world.
Posted by Patti Schiendelman |
Jan 2, 2009 07:00 AM
Kids, Online, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
Meatricity
Meatricity is the electricity generated by the muscle power of humans or other animals. After a great day working on project ideas for Alternative Energy module in next summer's Learn 2 Teach / Teach 2 Learn program at the South End Technology Center, I drove by a huge workout gym sort of filled with beautiful people transferring energy.
The idea of using people and animals to generate electricity is nothing new. Hand cranked or shaken flashlights are pretty popular, there are even examples of bicycle powered generators to illuminate holiday decorations. In Make 5, the Made on Earth column features a project where a person's backpack generates electricity as the wearer moves around. The Rodent Powered Night Light is an excellent example of the pet power version of Meatricity.
Certainly westerners have a much larger appetite for using power than they have desire to generate it, but many of our devices now have small rechargeable batteries that could be reloaded by having a passive or active generation scheme available.
So how about it? Could we as a culture generate more of our electricity from the muscle we carry around? What kinds of benefits would meatricity provide to us and our kids? How would exercise equipment need to be redesigned to capture the energy of the user? Could we see it as morally superior to use Meatricity than power generated from burning fossil fuels? Add your ideas in the comments, and contribute your photos and videos to the Make Flickr pool.
Related:
- Rodent Powered Night Light
- Power Pack - Generating power with the motion of a back pack
- Pedal power to light up Times Square New Year sign
- Revolving door in Netherlands train station generates power per revolution
- Makeshift #1
Posted by Chris Connors |
Jan 2, 2009 02:00 AM
Bicycles, Culture jamming, DIY Projects, Electronics, How it's made, Remake, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (9)
| Email Entry
Electricity Exploration Kit Concept
This morning, Ed Baafi, Amon Milner, Jacob William, and a number of the youth leaders at Learn 2 Teach, Teach 2 Learn developed an idea of how to teach electricity to youth with a new kit idea.
What we are looking to do is reinvent the Alternative Energy module in the summer program. The kit will be flexible enough that experimenters can have hands-on experiences with power generation, storage and output. We also hope that they will be able to add on various technologies as they become available to the experimenter.
The Electricity Experimenters' kit helps promote exploration and understanding of the ways that people can use store, and generate electricity. A focus is made on allowing the user to interchange a number of different modules for generating, making use of and storing small amounts of electric current. These modules will enable youth to gain hands on experience with creating, storing and using energy for personal exploration.
The result of exposure to this kit is that we want people to be able to think, say and believe:
I can make a choice between clean and nonclean generation and the electricity is the same.
and:
I can make my own electricity without harming the environment.
How do you teach electricity? What do you do to help people understand the systems in their lives? What could you add to this kit idea to make it better? What information would you want people to have when they do experiments with electricity? Do you have any existing projects that could be used with a kit like this? How would you make the physical objects? What activities would bring out valuable learning outcomes when experimenting with electricity generation, storage and use? How can we use modifiers like voltage regulators and resistors in ways that don't confuse experimenters? What do you tell or show people that helps them understand the workings of a multimeter?
Add your comments to the discussion, and post your photos in the Make Flickr pool.
Posted by Chris Connors |
Jan 2, 2009 01:00 AM
Electronics, How it's made, Interviews, Kids, Kits, LEGO, Remake, Science, Something I want to learn to do..., Toolbox |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
January 1, 2009
DIYBio for biohackers
Mac Cowell recently started the site DIYBio as a resource for biohackers working outside academic and industrial labs.
DIYbio is an organization that aims to help make biology a worthwhile pursuit for citizen scientists, amateur biologists, and DIY biological engineers who value openness and safety. This will require mechanisms for amateurs to increase their knowledge and skills, access to a community of experts, the development of a code of ethics, responsible oversight, and leadership on issues that are unique to doing biology outside of traditional professional settings.
One of their current projects is the BioWeatherMap, where you can help compare microbes on crosswalk buttons worldwide. Check out the Instructable about the process!
Posted by Patti Schiendelman |
Jan 1, 2009 07:00 AM
Kids, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
December 30, 2008
The "Webcam" vs. the "Particle Beam"
The "Webcam" vs. the "Particle Beam"
A web camera is placed into a particle beam to show visually the affects of space radiation on electronics. This video shows the particles striking the camera along with streaks due to high angle impacts. In addition particles striking the audio circuit can be heard and the damage to the camera CCD is illustrated at the end of the video.This video was produced as an Education and Public Outreach product for the CRaTER Instrument (http://crater.bu.edu) that will fly on the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Mission (http://lro.gsfc.nasa.gov/).
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 30, 2008 07:00 AM
Science |
Permalink
| Comments (1)
| Email Entry
December 28, 2008
In 1962 SEARS made chemistry sets...
I spotted this on eBay, a 1962 chemistry set from SEARS.
And here's another from the 1950s, The Gilbert Experimental Lab. Love the packaging...
"Today's adventures in science will create tomorrow's America".
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 28, 2008 08:25 AM
Chemistry, Retro, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (3)
| Email Entry
December 27, 2008
Teen with home chemistry lab mistakenly arrested for meth production
Annalee @ io9 pointed me towards a story we'll likely hear again and again until authorities realize that we're never going to encourage the next generation of chemists if we treat every kid with a home chem lab like a criminal... As Annalee said to me in email... "We should be championing this cool kid who created an awesome home lab" - Crimes Of The Future: Teen with Home Chemistry Lab Arrested for Meth, Bombs...
A Canadian college student majoring in chemistry built himself a home lab - and discovered that trying to do science in your own home quickly leads to accusations of drug-making and terrorism.
Lewis Casey, an 18-year-old in Saskatchewan, had built a small chemistry lab in his family's garage near the university where he studies. Then two weeks ago, police arrived at his home with a search warrant and based on a quick survey of his lab determined that it was a meth lab. They pulled Casey out of the shower to interrogate him, and then arrested him.
A few days later, police admitted that Casey's chemistry lab wasn't a meth lab - but they kept him in jail, claiming that he had some of the materials necessary to produce explosives. Friends and neighbors wrote dozens of letters to the court, testifying that Casey was innocent and merely a student who is really enthusiastic about chemistry.
More:
Student held on explosives charge released - Teen mistakenly arrested for meth production allowed home for holidays.
Casey, when you can talk about this - please let us know. Maybe we can hook you up with something from our Chemistry guide.
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 27, 2008 09:23 PM
Chemistry, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (17)
| Email Entry
Louis Pasteur day
Happy birthday Louis! French chemist and microbiologist Louis Pasteur was born 12/27/1822 pioneered the creation of vaccines for rabies, anthrax and helped developed pasteurization (he helped invent the method to stop milk and wine from causing sickness). Drink up!
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 27, 2008 08:15 AM
Science |
Permalink
| Comments (1)
| Email Entry
December 25, 2008
National Geographic best pictures of microscopic life
National Geographic has their best pictures of microscopic life up - my favorite is above, the Trichodina pediculus, a parasite that lives on hydras. This is magnified 600 times!
Posted by Patti Schiendelman |
Dec 25, 2008 08:29 AM
Kids, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
December 24, 2008
Molecular Typography
CRAFT blogger Rachel (Average Jane Crafter) found this cool free font, Molecular Typography, designed by Mithila Shafiq.
Posted by Patti Schiendelman |
Dec 24, 2008 07:00 AM
Arts, Kids, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
December 23, 2008
The Return of Amateur Science
Mark's article on GOOD! The Return of Amateur Science...
Last week, while browsing the Popular Science archives (which recently became available on Google), I noticed that the earlier issues of this 138-year-old magazine contained quite a few articles devoted to amateur science. The 1940s and 1950s were a heyday for basement-based research, with experiments such as making hydrogen gas, building a photomicrographic camera out of a stovepipe, constructing a Geiger counter, making a tiny oil refinery, and superheating steam to a temperature high enough to light a cigarette. It’s fun to imagine postal clerks, insurance brokers, and aluminum siding salesmen pulling out a microscope to study a sample of the family pet’s fur, or going outside to examine the heavens with a handmade telescope.Popular Science wasn’t the only magazine encouraging the everyman to learn more about the natural world. For 72 years, Scientific American ran its popular “Amateur Scientist” column, which debuted in 1928. Projects included constructing an electron accelerator, making amino acids, photographing air currents, measuring the metabolic rate of small animals, extracting antibiotics from soil, culturing aquatic insects, tracking satellites, constructing an atom smasher, extracting the growth substances from a cantaloupe, conducting maze experiments with cockroaches, making an electrocardiogram of a water flea, constructing a Foucalt pendulum, and experimenting with geotropism. Who knew you could have so much fun at the kitchen table?
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 23, 2008 07:30 AM
Retro, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (9)
| Email Entry
December 21, 2008
Build a squid!
What *is* it about cephalopods? You can build your own adorable squid at Te Papa's Colossal Squid site - there's lots of information about the real colossal squid, too.
Posted by Patti Schiendelman |
Dec 21, 2008 07:00 AM
Kids, Science, Toys and Games |
Permalink
| Comments (0)
| Email Entry
December 20, 2008
DIY USB microscope for $15
You can make your own USB microscope using an old webcam and a cheap toy microscope. All it takes is a soldering iron, some hot glue, and an hour of your time. Instructables user moris_zen has the details, which basically involves a little focusing trial and error before gluing things together:
While you view the image via the SW used for the webcam - position it so you get a clear image. You may need to play with it for a while. After you find the exact location use a hot glue gun to fix it to that position. Then tape the wires tidily to the microscope and start taking pictures...
I imagine you'd get even more interesting results substituting the old 320x240 web cam for an old 2 megapixel digital camera.
Also worth checking out would be to skip the optics entirely, positioning the CCD right up against the sample with a proper light source. I believe this is the technique being used in the UCLA cellphone microscope. The output is supposedly low-res and blurry, but it's decent enough to capture the shadows of individual cells, making cellcount-based diagnoses possible.
Build a USB Digital Microscope
Aydogan Ozcan, UCLA Lensless Imaging System
Posted by Jason Striegel |
Dec 20, 2008 10:00 PM
hacks, Instructables, Photography, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (2)
| Email Entry
December 19, 2008
Gift guide for the trebuchet and catapult maker
We are pleased to publish the first ever gift guide for the trebuchet and catapult maker! MAKE columnist William Gurstelle put together everything you need to get started making your own giant-flinger, or as they're properly called... trebuchets and catapults! You might ask why we're putting a guide like this on MAKE, catapult kits sums it up pretty well... "Because the world needs good engineers and scientists, and because the kids who will grow up to become engineers and scientists need a way to get hands-on experience with physics, math and engineering".
Posted by Phillip Torrone |
Dec 19, 2008 12:00 AM
DIY Projects, Retro, Science |
Permalink
| Comments (1)
| Email Entry
The online premiere of Make: television is January 3rd 2009, visit makezine.tv or iTunes to see the entire first episode! The broadcast premiere will follow shortly after depending on when your local Public Television station airs it.
Happy New Year from MAKE!
MAKE's 2009 New Year's message.What we're making in 2009.
MAKE's RSS feed is here.
Add MAKE to iGoogle - GoogleGoogle.
How to add MAKE to your RSS reader - Real simple.
Add MAKE on Twitter.
MAKE's fan page on Facebook.
Add MAKE on FriendFeed
Why advertise on MAKE?
Read what folks are saying about us!
Click here to advertise on MAKE!
Makezine authors!
Senior Editor
Tel: 707-827-7311
Twitter / AIM
Gareth Branwyn
Jonah Brucker-Cohen
Chris Connors
Collin Cunningham
Marc de Vinck
Mike Dixon
Peter Horvath(intern)
Kip Kay
Luke Iseman
John Park
Patti Schiendelman
Becky Stern
Jason Striegel
Current Podcast
Maker Profile - Bicycle Rodeo
Introducing Cyclecide, an inventive band of Bay Area performance artists who make creations out of materials from the junkyard. These Makers create everything from amusement park rides to outrageous bicycle contraptions to found-object sculpture. Plus, we take a historical...
More...
