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February 4th, 2012 at 1:04 pm »
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I just learned about Ferrofluid today. It can do some amazing things, like this video shows. After the jump is a second video explaining HOW ferrofluid works.
From the YouTube descriptioin:
A steel sculpture with changing magnetisation is coated with ferrofluid.
The fluid is pulled in the direction of increasing flux density and forms peaks, which become smaller [...]
February 3rd, 2012 at 12:11 pm »
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It is now more important than ever to cover your mouth when sneezing.
A flesh-eating bug, which has been known about for years, has gotten so virulent it can now be spread by sneezing and coughing. Doctors suspect new victims caught the virus on buses or trains and enclosed spaces like elevators.
Although the flesh-eating bug has [...]
February 2nd, 2012 at 8:57 pm »
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Chemistry Professor Robert Zoellner
Admittedly, I did spend my childhood playing with explosives. But I certainly never had as much success as 10-year-old Clara Lazen (not pictured), who accidentally created a new energy storing molecule, tetranitratoxycarbon, that could be used as an explosive…
February 2nd, 2012 at 2:52 pm »
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A female spotted salamander gravid with eggs in route to her breeding pool. There she will lay a cluster of approximately 100 eggs. Eight to ten weeks later, those eggs will hatch as larvae. In late summer, if the pool has not already dried, larvae will metamorphose into juveniles that migrate to the adjacent upland [...]
February 2nd, 2012 at 12:30 am »
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Reality is a delicate art.
Jenine Shereos’s delicate leaf sculptures look like the real thing from a distance, but they’re actually made of hair. She made them by stitching the hairs together on a backing, then dissolving that backing in water…
January 26th, 2012 at 9:50 am »
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A powerful X-ray laser pulse from SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory’s Linac Coherent Light Source comes up from the lower-left corner (shown as green) and hits a neon atom (center). This intense incoming light energizes an electron from an inner orbit (or shell) closest to the neon nucleus (center, brown), knocking it totally out of the [...]
January 24th, 2012 at 3:26 pm »
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Invisible DNA mist is traceable under blacklight for two weeks.
Apparently, robbing McDonald’s has become a thing in Australia. McRobbery’s are so rampant down under that McDonald’s locations in Aussieland are taking measures to protect themselves by spraying criminals with an invisible mist of DNA. I repeat, AN INVISIBLE MIST OF DNA. The DNA seeps into [...]
January 24th, 2012 at 2:11 pm »
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Haven’t you had dreams like this?
You’ve probably seen the ad for this underground missile base in New York state that’s been on the market for some time. Now you have a chance to take a virtual tour! Scout from Scouting New York went to the site and the owners were gracious enough to let him [...]
January 22nd, 2012 at 4:47 pm »
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Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes.
Rising human carbon dioxide emissions may be affecting the brains and central nervous system of sea fishes with serious consequences for their survival, an international scientific team has found…
January 20th, 2012 at 1:48 pm »
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The Nissan Leaf batteries have extended value beyond powering the car.
Reincarnation for Lithium-Ion
It’s not because a battery pack isn’t good enough for an electric or hybrid car anymore that it should go directly to a recycling plant. There are lots of potential secondary uses for batteries that can still hold more than half of their [...]
January 19th, 2012 at 10:57 pm »
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There’s a bad moon rising?
Last year, we heard about a new technology to identify individuals based on the pressure signature of their feet on the ground. Now, Japanese scientists at the Advanced Institute of Industrial Technology built a system that can identify an individual by the pressure signature of his or her ass. They’re not, er, [...]
January 16th, 2012 at 9:34 am »
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Space gas has its consequences.
Humans produce two flammable gases: hydrogen and methane. Flammable gases accumulate in an enclosed space and can ignite. Astronauts are humans who spend lots of time in enclosed space. The logic is irrefutable. So, what’s the risk to farting astronauts?
Between 1968 and 1971, researchers Edwin L. Murphy and Doris H. Calloway published [...]
January 15th, 2012 at 11:52 am »
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The researchers hope their discovery can be exploited to combat obesity by increasing people’s sensitivity to fat in their food.
Scientists thought the human tongue could detect only four basic tastes: sweet, sour, salt and bitter. Then a fifth was discovered, “umami” or savory. Now, researchers have identified a previously-unrecognized [...]
January 14th, 2012 at 3:58 pm »
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Small but landmark frog.
SU’s Chris Austin recently discovered two new species of frogs in New Guinea, one of which is now the world’s tiniest known vertebrate, averaging only 7.7 millimeters in size — less than one-third of an inch. It ousts Paedocypris progenetica, an Indonesian fish averaging more than 8 millimeters, from the record. Austin, [...]
January 14th, 2012 at 9:37 am »
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Miniaturized information storage in atomic-scale antiferromagnets. The binary representation of the letter ‘S’ (01010011) was stored in the Neel states of eight iron atom arrays.
After five years of work, IBM announced on Thursday that its researchers have been able to reduce from about one million to 12 the number of atoms [...]