Cool Science

[Bo D]

"In high school ...."  Now that is impressive.

True story! I wish I had a copy of that paper. Many years later, I heard that the teacher of that class used it to get his masters. 

[libby]

I can believe it. "The same thing happened to two young men I know who did an extensive field study for a science class and found out years later that the instructor claimed credit for it.

[Bo D]

Flying Robot Controlled with Only the Mind

Researchers in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering have developed a new noninvasive system that allows people to control a flying robot using only their mind. The study goes far beyond fun and games and has the potential to help people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases.

Five subjects (three female and two male) who took part in the study were each able to successfully control the four-blade flying robot, also known as a quadcopter, quickly and accurately for a sustained amount of time.

"Our study shows that for the first time, humans are able to control the flight of flying robots using just their thoughts sensed from a noninvasive skull cap," said Bin He, lead author of the study and biomedical engineering professor in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering. "It works as good as invasive techniques used in the past."

He said this research is intended to help people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases regain mobility and independence.

"We envision that they'll use this technology to control wheelchairs, artificial limbs or other devices," He said.

http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2013/06/flying-robot-controlled-only-mind?et_cid=3298184&et_rid=41373174&location=top

[Bo D]

New Species of Ancient Asian Lizard Discovered

Named after Jim Morrison - the Lizard King.


The Celebration Of The Lizard by James Douglas Morrison
Way back deep into the brain
Way back past the realm of pain
Back where there's never any rain

And the rain falls gently on the town
And over the heads of all of us

And in the labyrinth of streams beneath
Quiet unearthly presence of
Nervous hill dwellers in the gentle hills around
Reptiles abounding
Fossils, caves, cool air heights






http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2013/06/new-species-ancient-asian-lizard-discovered?et_cid=3298184&et_rid=41373174&location=top

[libby]

Flying Robot Controlled with Only the Mind

Researchers in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering have developed a new noninvasive system that allows people to control a flying robot using only their mind. The study goes far beyond fun and games and has the potential to help people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases.

Five subjects (three female and two male) who took part in the study were each able to successfully control the four-blade flying robot, also known as a quadcopter, quickly and accurately for a sustained amount of time.

"Our study shows that for the first time, humans are able to control the flight of flying robots using just their thoughts sensed from a noninvasive skull cap," said Bin He, lead author of the study and biomedical engineering professor in the University of Minnesota's College of Science and Engineering. "It works as good as invasive techniques used in the past."

He said this research is intended to help people who are paralyzed or have neurodegenerative diseases regain mobility and independence.

"We envision that they'll use this technology to control wheelchairs, artificial limbs or other devices," He said.

http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2013/06/flying-robot-controlled-only-mind?et_cid=3298184&et_rid=41373174&location=top

Mind control. That is a topic that has always fascinated me.

[libby]

New Species of Ancient Asian Lizard Discovered

Named after Jim Morrison - the Lizard King.


The Celebration Of The Lizard by James Douglas Morrison
Way back deep into the brain
Way back past the realm of pain
Back where there's never any rain

And the rain falls gently on the town
And over the heads of all of us

And in the labyrinth of streams beneath
Quiet unearthly presence of
Nervous hill dwellers in the gentle hills around
Reptiles abounding
Fossils, caves, cool air heights






http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2013/06/new-species-ancient-asian-lizard-discovered?et_cid=3298184&et_rid=41373174&location=top

I pulled up the above reference, and found it fascinating. Definitely worth reading. Definitely "Cool Science."

[Bo D]

This is interesting! I maybe could have also put this in Sky Watch. I didn't have time to listen to much, but I will Share anyway ....


Star Songs - From X-Rays to Music
This is a story of how cosmic x-rays became music. A first step turned x-rays emitted by the binary system of EX Hydrae into sounds. A second step made these sounds into music.
http://www.cfa.harvard.edu/sed/projects/star_songs/

[libby]

Interesting subject. A lot to read and listen to -- better done while fully awake (yawn) -- long hard day.

[Bo D]

Cool!

http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2013/06/father-son-team-demonstrates-simple-optical-cloaking-large-objects?et_cid=3334432&et_rid=41373174&location=top

[libby]

Cool!

http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2013/06/father-son-team-demonstrates-simple-optical-cloaking-large-objects?et_cid=3334432&et_rid=41373174&location=top

That's interesting enough to print out here:

Father-son Team Demonstrates Simple Optical Cloaking of Large Objects
Tue, 06/25/2013 - 9:24pm
University of Rochester

John Howell, a Professor of Physics at the University of Rochester, decided to tackle an unusual DIY project. With the help of his 14 year-old son, Benjamin, he built three simple, but surprisingly effective optical cloaking devices with inexpensive, off-the-shelf materials.

Cloaking is a common topic both in popular culture and in the scientific community. Cloaking means hiding an object from view at specific frequencies, and different types of cloaking have been recently demonstrated in labs around the world. Howell and his son built three different devices to show that it is possible to do optical, unidirectional cloaking cheaply, and for large objects.

In a paper they recently posted on the online paper depository, arxiv, they explain the strengths and limitations of the three approaches they used. The first device used plexiglass, out of which they fashioned L-shaped containers filled with water. The second used four $3 lenses to show optical cloaking similar to what a group from Cornell University recently showed, except that the Howells demonstrated spatial cloaking instead of temporal cloaking. The third device, which will be familiar to many amateur magicians, used an assembly of inexpensive, hardware-store mirrors (see demo in the video above). In the paper, the Howells stressed that the device, although it has some drawbacks, is "clearly scalable to very large dimensions."

John Howell's usual area of research is in quantum physics, including quantum information, weak measurement, entanglement and slow light. Intrigued by some of the recent cloaking work, he thought he would try a few experiments outside of his normal field with some help from his son.

The single direction in which these can be viewed is probably the biggest limitation, but for some uses that might not be a problem, for example earth-orbiting satellites. Large-scale applications, however, are likely to cost a bit more than the $150 that the Howells spent on this project.

To find out more about how these devices work, read the PDF of the paper.
To read more about John Howell's research, see his group's page.



(Huh.    Scottie, are you there? )

[Bo D]

I didn't know whether to post this in "Cool Science" or "Scary Science." I opted for cool.


An article about some old predictions and some new ones ....

http://www.scientificcomputing.com/news/2013/07/gregory-benford-future-never-was-looked-fantastic?et_cid=3386252&et_rid=41373174&location=top


old ones
Flying cars. Waterproof living rooms that you clean with a hose. A pool on every rooftop.

new? ones
smart homes and self-driving cars are in the future
we'll have three-dimensional, hologram TVs in 20 or more years
human relations could be transformed by Google glass

[libby]

  I just spent about 20 minutes writing a careful answer to why I'd put it in Scary Science -- and then somehow lost it. Have things to do so will write it (again) later.

[libby]

As I said above, I'd opt for Scary Science. For one thing, I do not like a lot of managing, and turning my life over to programmed machines is downright scary to me. Further, I like to understand  how things that affect me work, and I'm already way behind in all that's happening now that most everything is being turned over to computers/smart machines. It's fascinating, but as I said above, scary. Maybe that's because I spent years reading science fiction, the kind written by scientists*, and so many things they predicted have come true.

*Like Isaac Asimov, American writer and Professor of Biochemistry, Boston University, best known for his works of sci-fi and popular science books.

[me]

I just spent about 20 minutes writing a careful answer to why I'd put it in Scary Science -- and then somehow lost it. Have things to do so will write it (again) later.

Sounds like you need this if you use the FF browser.   Lazarus: Form Recovery 2.3   It works real well and has saved my butt many times.  Don't have it on the laptop yet but probably need to install it while I'm thinking about it.   

[libby]

Sounds like you need this if you use the FF browser.   Lazarus: Form Recovery 2.3   It works real well and has saved my butt many times.  Don't have it on the laptop yet but probably need to install it while I'm thinking about it.   

Thanks.  I lose stuff because I preview it and forget I'm in preview and try to make changes. Once in a while it will kick me back to my original, but most of the time it's gone as far as I can tell.