Sciencegasm!
 

For posting links that give you a sciencegasm. Obviously.

Turin, my current darling, lecturing on his radical smell-receptor theory:

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/l..._of_scent.html

Did you know if close your eyes and block your smell receptors, you can't taste the difference between an apple and a potato?

If it is based on pure vibrational energy I wonder if I can get light to smell.

It's based on the frequency at which the molecules vibrate. Without a molecule to fit into the receptor that reads the vibrations, no.

All I know about smell science is that thor's feet break all previously conjectured rules, and he's only 7.

Technically, it's the vibration of the links between the atoms that make up the molecule.

would it be possible to block smells with a nose vibrator, then?

like those noise canceling headphones?

oh......check it out

Depending on the receptors it is vibrational energy, so any energy with the right vibration should work.

Oh my god, no. The molecules actually have to fit into the receptor for the...


never mind.


:(

Are you thinking about poop molecules?

poop fart butt :lol:

So, basically, if you shove an unprotected toothbrush up your nose in the bathroom...

So far this week, not only has NASA rejigged the Hubble Space Telescope to keep it going for a few more years, but also the European Space Agency successfully launched the Herschel Space Observatory and Planck satellite on the same Arianne 5 rocket. This was high risk - two VERY expensive eggs in one basket - but they pulled it off.

We have eyes in the sky, pointing outwards from the Earth. This is good.

Well done to all those Whitecoat techno-boffins whose efforts made this possible. I'm sure most of them read the cellar.

Sixth sense - simply incredible.
 

Have y'all seen this? Device which makes your Blackberry look like a stone writing tablet. The device displays an interface in front of you on any flat surface. Query amazon to get a review of a book you're holding, check flight 'on-time' status from your boarding pass, google the name of a person standing in front of you.


http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/p...xth_sense.html

SO FREAKING COOL WANT WANT WANT!

Isn't it though?? I was just spellbound watching that demo.

I heart quantum mechanics.

http://www.physorg.com/news11087.html

:lol:

Quantum physics always makes me laugh because even the physicists in charge are always kind of baffled.

QM is close to magic it just kind of works but not sure how.

My idea was to artificially simulate the receptors the same way to force a conformational change.

This just in:

Seattle intends to replace all 40,000 of its sodium vapor streetlights with LED streetlights.

Capitol Hill likes them, mostly.

City Light (local utility) press release from Mayor's office.

Since most LEDs on the market are highly directional, I wonder how this will impact light pollution. Presumably, they will only point the LEDs at the ground.

glatt, if you click on the first link, you will be taken to a neighborhood blog where they're discussing areas where these lights have already been installed. There are numerous comments there about the color, intensity, and coverage too. Yes, the leds themselves can be highly directional, but the reflector and lens/diffuser makes a huge impact on the spread of the available light. It is worth noting that in this trial area, they are evaluating lights from six different manufacturers.

Very interesting. This is a very positive step. Can the put some type of diffusers on them to spread the usable light emission?


Then again, which manufacturer donated the most money to their campaigns?

Most places pay a per light fee rather than meter the actual usage. I wonder how much the fee will change?

Who's paying xoB? For example, who's getting the bill for the light outside my house? I was under the impression it was the CITY, since they're illuminating the STREET.

But, what do I know?

If its the CITY, then you are paying with your taxes - right? And there should be a reduction in your taxes if a savings is realized. Hold your breath.

... reduction in taxes ... savings realized ...


:lol2:

It is the city. The point is there is no meter to measure the amount of juice they use and charge accordingly. The city pays a flat yearly fee for each light, and it's substantial. If they are switching to lower consumption lights, they should renegotiate the charge per light with the utility company. duh.

and realize savings and reduce taxes???:eyebrow:

Ah. I believe I have discovered the source of my confusion. Allow me to illuminate the local situation.

The City of Seattle is responsible for municipal functions such as streets and streetlights. But, with regard to delivery and paying for the power for such lights, the city has to do business with Seattle City Light, our local public power utility.
I know somebody's measuring it, but I think that any savings accrued would be enjoyed by the users and the providers, since we're one and the same. Just as if I purchased a new more economical vehicle, once I'd paid the capital costs, I would enjoy lower operating costs, since I am the one paying to power it and use it.

Perhaps my electrical rate would rise, but I doubt I'd see a change in my taxes that could be traced to these changes.

Regardless, this is a Sciencegasm for me. I have several years experience with led light sources and I'm a big fan. I know that the technology is more efficient and more durable. I have switched from incandescent lamps to led lamps in many applications, mostly portable, and I can't be happier. Fewer battery changes, and far fewer (in fact,*zero*) bulb changes in all the devices I've used.

I admit I have not made any household incandescent/fluorescent to led switchovers yet, but that has been mostly for cost reasons. But just as I have made the change from incandescent to fluorescent in the house as the cost per bulb has fallen, I expect to make another change when the led bulbs become reasonable.

You have not done it because it does not yet exist economically. From Electronics Design Magazine of 9 April 2009: Sylvania recently offered one for consideration. Reliability still remains a problem.

LEDs have a 100,000 or 50,000 hour life expectancy. Life expectancy and efficiency numbers that fall quickly with higher power ratings. A low power LED would typically do 90 lumens per watt. A 100 watt incandescent bulb is 1500 lumens. A 20 watt compact fluorescent at 1500 lumens is 75 lumens per watt. LEDs at these lumen levels still are not competitive with compact fluorescent. A 180 watt sodium lamp is 27,000 lumens - or 150 lumens per watt. LEDs have a long way to go.

Now for history. No matter how many advances are made, we routinely spend 0.72% of GDP on lightning. Lights with greater efficiency did not mean less energy use. But it does mean an economic increase in productivity. How great? Varies significantly. Advances dur to LEDs (productivity increases) would be greatest in Africa. But the idea that LEDs will decrease energy consumption contradicts the lessons of history.

What factors cause lighting energy reduction? Increases in cost of energy or a reduction of living standards.

Chess set made of vacuum tubes.

That is awesome dar - great find! Makes me want to get back into playing chess. I have been out of the loop for a loooooong time.

More here. And pics.

It needs a V12 for auxillary power??? HFS!

More here, pics and vids.

Wow, I'm having a multi-science-gasmic morning.

I love it when Star Trek comes to life.

The full article is too long to paste, but here is the link.


The idea is to fight viruses, not by attacking proteins on the surface of the virus itself (the current method, which is vulnerable to the viruses making tiny mutations) but by turning off one of the protiens in the host cells which the virus relies on to reproduce. The advantages are (1) no resitance to the drugs and (2) broad spectrum antivirals, including "on the shelf" treatments for new diseases before they even emerge.

Some highlights:

I'm sending a heads-up to the Nobel Prize committee...

So, since it seems I have this thread all to myself, I'm gonna have some FUN science in it too.

Via the BBC.


I'm disappointed that there is no rigorous comparison of the relative merits of decapitation, flamethrowers, and a shotgun blast to the brain stem.

Also via the BBC:

Cool technology, but that is a lot of potentially reusable resources to build into a single use magazine.

Steam Car ...
 

... or the fastest tea kettle evah.

I met Fred Marriot when he wrapped the boiler for my uncle's car. He showed me the pictures of his crash, doing 140 to 150, the year after he set the record.

Pneumatic microprocessor

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...-thin-air.html

I know I already said this once.

I HEART Quantum Mechanics!

1. INTRODUCTION
During the last decade, several experiments have
indicated the existence of correlations between brain
electrical activities of emphatically bonded but
spatially separated and sensory isolated human
subjects. In the first of these experiments, performed
by Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al., it was shown that
neural events stimulated in one human brain (visual
evoked potentials — VEPs) can induce neural events
of similar morphology (“transferred potentials”) in
the brain of a nonstimulated subject if the subjects
have interacted nonverbally in some fashion (for
example, by meditating together for a certain time)
prior to their separation inside their own Faraday
chambers (FCs).(1) Technically, protocolary, and methodologically
improved, the Grinberg-Zylberbaum et al.
experiments (GZEs) have been subsequently successfully
replicated by two research groups: the first in cooperation
between the Bastyr University and the University
of Washington,(2,3,4) under a two-year research grant
awarded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH),
and most recently by a group at the Freiburg University.(
5,6) The two groups confirmed the existence of
the phenomenon, although the latter group raised
certain questions about the original GZEs. Namely,
the Freiburg group found that the results were the
same or even better for pairs of subjects who had not
interacted in any fashion as were the results for those
pairs who had interacted prior to the experimental
sessions, and that the transferred potentials were not
necessarily of a morphology similar to the original
VEPs in the stimulated subjects, so a more sophisticated
data-analytic technique was necessary to detect
an effect opposing the null hypothesis. However, they
nevertheless concluded that “we are facing a phenomenon
which is neither easy to dismiss as a
methodological failure or a technical artifact nor
understood as to its nature” (Ref. 6, pp. 63–64). Due
to a strong analogy to the existence of quantummechanical
nonlocal correlations between onceinteracting
but subsequently also spatially separated
elementary particles, and due to the fact that subjects’
separation inside FCs rules out any electromagnetic or
neural energy transfer mechanism, the phenomenon
has been referred to as the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen
(EPR) nonlocal correlations between human brains,(1)
or simply the “biological nonlocality.”(7,8)

Quoted from: Physics Essays. A Proposed Experiment on Consciousness-Related
Quantum Teleportation
Boris Kožnjak