Drive by science

[beyelzu]

I dug this picture of a snake.

[Ari]

Was watching a video and found the nano actuator controls on the Webb interesting.

A stepper motor spins an off center cam in this flexure which moves the middle arm up and down, pulling or pushing on the outer legs which then causes a shift of nanometers in the bar above.

The same motor runs the coarse corrections and if enough fine adjustment is made the tab on the top wheel of the coupler hits the bottom one and begins rotating the geared coarse adjustment.

[JoeP]

Today's APOD is interesting. If you haven't already seen it, what celestial body is this and what's unusual about the processing?

show spoiler

It's our moon of course. But why do all the craters have long shadows?

APOD: 2022 February 15 - Terminator Moon

[JoeP]

I’ve accidentally set up push notifications for the BBC science magazine and it’s like being followed about by an inquisitive but annoying child pic.twitter.com/xVgCR5ivdo

— James Colley (@JamColley) April 8, 2019

[slimshady2357]

Reminds me of this:

Jonathan Frakes Asks You Things - YouTube

[viscousmemories]

When he got to "have you ever been to a truck stop?" it reminded me of the scene from Airplane when Leslie Nielsen asks the kid if he's ever been to a Turkish bath (or something to that effect).

[BrotherMan]

Do you like Gladiator movies?

Have you ever seen a grown man naked?

[Theoretical Observation]

While experimenting with Shrinky Dink plastic, I came across this.

Shrinky Dink Microfluidics - Jennifer Boryczka - OpenWetWare

"Shrinky Dink Microfluidics is a cutting-edge method to design and rapidly produce microfluidic devices with rounded channels. This method was first designed in 2008 by Michelle Khine’s group at the University of California Irvine [1]. The method takes advantage of the shrinking capabilities of the toy called Shrinky Dinks to print larger designs and then shrink the design to allow for the microfluidic device size. It requires Shrinky Dink plastic papers, or other shrinking plastics, to take a printed design and with heat shrink down the width and increase the height of the design. This shrunk design is then used as a master for rapid casting of devices. This can be used for rapid prototyping or simple and rapid device development with the added benefit of having rounded channels. Subsequent reports have described the same approach using different plastics [2] or cutting the pattern out of the sheets rather than printing the designs"

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Random weird little video showing the effects of gravity on various celestial bodies by dropping a pallet of lumber on a car

gravity on different planets - YouTube

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

weird

The weird twiddly music was unnecessary - as was reading out the text - muted.

Some questions: a solid driveway on Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter?
a solid and non-incinerating driveway on the sun?

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[JoeP]

Pluto’s peaks are ice volcanoes, scientists conclude | Pluto | The Guardian

ICE VOLCANOES.

[Sock Puppet]

That's the title of the next techno-New Age album I put out.

[LarsMac]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Pluto’s peaks are ice volcanoes, scientists conclude | Pluto | The Guardian

ICE VOLCANOES.

Would not a more appropriate name be HIEMANOES, or something.

I don't think old Vulcan really would care for the association.
I mean, What next? We gonna have fire Icicles.

[Ari]

Research finds anti-matter falls just like normal matter. Just like we expected
BASE breaks new ground in matter/antimatter comparisons | CERN

I think I like this experiment so much because it really encapsulates experimental physics. Fancy philosophizing around complex theories is all fine and good, but let’s take a real thing, measure it, and see what happens!

The problem: Matter and anti-matter appear to be the same except for opposite charges, yet here we are, tons of matter, no anti-matter. Oh and when they touch they go zap into other particles, hopefully none of our tools are made out of matter… oh crap.

Basic properties of anti-matter have been assumed but not fully observed in reality, this experiment is here to change that. A precision measurement of how an anti-proton behaves in the earths gravitational field.

While assumed it would fall straight down, the chamber was made large enough to detect any stray movement, including in the upward direction just in the extremely, extremely, tiny chance anti-matter is also anti-gravity. Which is why I love this experiment so, it’s easy to just say “That won’t happen, let’s not waste the time.” But instead this experiment says “Let’s test it, just to be sure.”

The Findings: Anti-matter falls like matter to the precision of 16 parts per trillion. Which gather no headlines, because it seems like a null result, even though every well made physical measurement is useful data.

[Ari]

Watching salt form inside a carbon nano-tube pipette.
Actual footage starts around 2min.

World's first video showing the moment salt...

[JoeP]

APOD: 2022 May 22 - Tsunami Bolts from the Sun



(It's a non-looping gif so refresh page to see it again)

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Chimpanzees have their own language — and scientists just learned how they put "words" together | Salon.com

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Listen,

bear spray
DOES NOT
work like bug spray.

We would like to not have to say that again.

— Oklahoma Department of Wildlife Conservation (@OKWildlifeDept) May 23, 2022

[viscousmemories]

A colony of blue-green algae can power a computer for six months

[But]

0.3 microwatts

Impressive. That's only about 3000 years to charge a phone battery.

[Ari]

Drive by ramble. In general I’ve been researching how modern cons find their marks.

In pop-science it’s common for vagueness and claims of things being complicated, confusing,weird, etc. so just don’t worry about it, and it seems to be where the psuedo-science steps in and breaks off a chunk of viewers.

Veritasium videos seem to get a ton of “You’re all dumb, I know the right answer!” Comments, compared to more grounded science channels that don’t and it all seems to be coming from a few psuedo-science books.

While it may just be viewer size I’m starting to think that the vagueness often given in Veritasium videos triggers an insecurity, that these scientists who think they know better are claiming to have secret knowledge that the viewer doesn’t, so just trust them. Which sets the viewer off to prove them wrong, they find a psuedo-science that frankly if all you knew of science was pop-sci videos, sounds quite a lot like real science, only it’s saying that they are right and the know it all scientist is wrong, filling the insecurity that the pop-sci video triggered.

I’m not sure how to fill that gap, but it seems like pop-sci videos should include a bit of the ‘too complex for viewers to grasp’ math and stats and stop acting like things are too complicated for the actual viewer.

(Yes this is another beef with the combative gotcha way Veritasium ‘teaches’ science).

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Ari

While it may just be viewer size I’m starting to think that the vagueness often given in Veritasium videos triggers an insecurity, that these scientists who think they know better are claiming to have secret knowledge that the viewer doesn’t, so just trust them.

Mod note: please don't discuss the secret knowledge in a public sub-forum.

[Ari]

I found this little guy growing in my tomato plant pot, the picture is poor because it’s so so small, smaller than the little plants on the back of a dime. I would have tried to take a better picture, but a mere hour and a half later it had shriveled up and all but disappeared.

Mycelium can’t exist long without humidity as the hyphae cells can’t prevent evaporative water loss. mushrooms are partly spongy cells that both hold water and reduce loss. When it’s ready to go, the damp underground network pumps it full of water to inflate it battling the water loss of the open air to release hardened spores that can withstand the harsh and dry environment. Some go for large bodies that take time to develop but can withstand the onslaught, others go for extremely fast development that appears and disappears in less than a day.

It would be like if humans reproduced by suddenly growing an appendage which was then dipped into lava where it would melt off but not before depositing hardened heat resistant crystal eggs.

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Ari

It would be like if humans reproduced by suddenly growing an appendage which was then dipped into lava where it would melt off but not before depositing hardened heat resistant crystal eggs.