Wednesday, September 30, 2020
Smoke swirling from California fires
Very cool graphic of the smoke patterns over the last month, shows why California fires caused smoke over Vancouver. https://graphics.reuters.com/USA-WILDFIRE/POLLUTION/xlbpgjgervq/
Saturday, September 26, 2020
Balancing Motorcycle
Nice illustration of how a momentum wheel maintains balance in a self-balancing motorcycle that even drives backwards.
Friday, September 25, 2020
Ice Cream Around the World
Halo-halo from Philippines
Spaghetti ice from Mannheim Germany
Prickly pear ice from Oaxaca
Granita from Italy
Num-num berry ice cream with amasi from Zimbabwe
Dondurma with salep (orchid root) from Turkey
Faludeh from Tehran, Iran
A.I. Becomes Creative
Thursday, September 24, 2020
Insect Takeoff & Flying at 3,200 FPS
At 2:08, the wings touch each other at the top of the stroke, to increase lift and defeat the Wagner effect. More detail at http://blogs.bu.edu/bioaerial2012/2012/12/05/clap-flinging-to-a-faster-lift-off/
(with the Wagner effect explained at https://lorenabarba.com/blog/student-guest-blog-post-the-wagner-effect/ )
Also, some insects have hooks or "hamuli" that lock the forewing and hindwing together for more efficeint flight.
"Honey bees have a comparatively higher flying speed, thanks to a wing coupling mechanism along with angle changing mechanisms in wing flapping. These mechanisms serve to carry heavy loads of pollen...
Their wing coupling mechanism is commonly known as hamulate coupling. The upper margin of hindwing possesses a row of small hooks (hamuli) and folded lower margin in forewing. In flight the hamuli lock onto a fold at the lower margin of forewing so that both function as a single unit."
https://blogs.unimelb.edu.au/sciencecommunication/2014/08/19/wing-coupling-to-move-fast-2/
Here are a few more fascinating facts about insect wings, like how some fold to 1/18 of their area.
Prolongation of survival in metastatic melanoma after active specific immunotherapy with a new polyvalent melanoma vaccine - PubMed
Traditionally, melanoma was a death sentence (let alone metastatic melanoma). Here, having complete regression in some patients is incredible.
"Induction of cell-mediated and humoral immune responses to common melanoma-associated antigens present on autologous melanoma cells was observed in patients ...Of 40 patients with evaluable disease, nine (23%) had regressions (three complete)."
Saturday, September 19, 2020
How useful is a bulletproof vest since it leaves the head exposed?
"Your head isn't actually all that big. If a marksman is a good enough shot to be able to pull off a headshot at a sufficient distance that he wouldn't be spotted by police, he's probably good enough to hit you somewhere not protected by armor. As armor slows you down anyways, this just makes things easier for him.
Second, armor doesn't actually absorb any of the kinetic energy of a bullet, it just spreads it out enough to keep the bullet from penetrating. You still have to stop the bullet. On your torso, this is going to knock you over and result in some pretty significant bruising. But a headshot, even if you're wearing something tough enough to keep a bullet out of your skull, is still going to [transmit a lot of energy to your head], possibly even breaking your neck. So what's the point?"
Second, armor doesn't actually absorb any of the kinetic energy of a bullet, it just spreads it out enough to keep the bullet from penetrating. You still have to stop the bullet. On your torso, this is going to knock you over and result in some pretty significant bruising. But a headshot, even if you're wearing something tough enough to keep a bullet out of your skull, is still going to [transmit a lot of energy to your head], possibly even breaking your neck. So what's the point?"
Thursday, September 17, 2020
Kode 57 design on Jay Leno's garage
"When you draw with your hands, your hands give you the ideas that you couldn't even imagine, by accident - an accidental inspiration. Not even from your brain, your body gives you by accident done if the great ideas. That's the beautiful aspect of doing [design] drawings."
Impactful
I was trying to think about why I don't like "impactful" and "concretize" when I ran across this piece that articulates it so well.
" I call them "zombie nouns" because they cannibalize active verbs, suck the lifeblood from adjectives and substitute abstract entities for human beings."
"The proliferation of nominalizations in a discursive formation may be an indication of a tendency toward pomposity and abstraction," Sword explains, would be better and more clearly stated as "Writers who overload their sentences with nominalizations tend to sound pompous and abstract." We have to agree. In the de-nominalized format, too, we get an active rather than a passive sentence, something we all typically aspire to achieve." https://www.theatlantic.com/culture/archive/2012/07/zombie-words-are-coming-your-brains/325522/
As the above points out, some nominalizations do pass into the language (e.g. cronyism) because they're useful. But beware that employing them tends to make one continue in a passive voice - a style which avoids a deep and personal connection.
"Impactful" avoids saying exactly what the impact was, and upon whom. "The Henry Moore sculpture made a lasting impact on my understanding of the mother-child bond." It takes more words, but allows you to be more expressive and intimate. "Impactful" also tends to invite other passive words into the sentence "The impactful sculpture aggrandizes the role of maternal connection."
Saturday, September 12, 2020
Thursday, September 10, 2020
Refillery van
(I guess that's like Costco, where they buy a limited range of products - you have to trust they've found one of the best.)
I think this idea will take off, with millennials' general enthusiasm for decreased waste and packaging.
Simple innovation in oyster farming has transformed the lives of these fisherwomen
By suspending discarded oyster shells from ropes in a river, a scaffold was created that attracted new oysters.
Goats are Regenerating a Forest and Protecting this Town from Bushfire
NVIDIA Marbles at Night
Incredible animation of light and color and reflectance and transparency and physics of objects bumping into each other.
Wednesday, September 9, 2020
How a microwave works - it's not the resonant frequency of the water molecule.
A microwave oven heats water because the microwave radiation interacts with the dipole (separated positive and negative charge) of the water molecule. The microwaves turn the water molecules back and forth at approximately the frequency of the microwaves, imparting energy to them. Sometimes you may hear that the microwaves are interacting with a resonant frequency of the water molecule (like a radio gets tuned to a frequency), but that is actually not the case. Anything with a dipole moment will absorb microwave radiation, so microwave ovens will also heat fats and sugars, for example.
Monday, September 7, 2020
Invermectin as possible treatment for COVID
"cells infected with the SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19 virus were exposed to 5 µM ivermectin in 48 h, and a 5000-fold reduction in viral RNA compared with control...the drug may have antiviral effects by inhibiting the importin (IMP) α/β receptor, which is responsible for transmitting viral proteins into the host cell nucleus."
"The blood levels of ivermectin at safe therapeutic doses are in the 20–80 ng/ml range, while the activity against SARS-CoV2 in cell culture is in the microgram range. "
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41429-020-0336-zTuesday, September 1, 2020
Ilse Crawford interior design
"Ilse's approach is much more subtle - is about how things feel and smell, as much as how things look. She wants to imbue people with a sense of well-being, empowerment, and a gentle joyfulness"
(at 4:02 in the show.)
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