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Ask any cook worth his/her pinch of salt and they'll tell you that non-stick pans are not good for a lot of things. Specifically, any time you want to cook a meat to a nice brown color and then make a sauce, you specifically don't want a non-stick pan. You actually want little bits of the meat to stick to your pan as you cook.

Why, you ask? Because, those little bits that stick to the pan undergo something called the Maillard reaction (similar to sugars caramelizing) which results in deliciously complex flavors you can't get otherwise. Plus, when you're done cooking the meat, you can deglaze those little stuck bits with some water, alcohol, vegetable or fruit juice and the deglazed bits will form the basis of your sauce.

That's one of the reasons why chefs will pay $200 and up for a clad saute pan that appears to be stainless steel (definitely not non-stick).

My understanding of space is that it's a big zero, empty, nothing, spotted with clusters of various materials that are in the form of gases or solids.

the universe ends when there ceases to be matter. At least that's how I always thought of it. The definition is a little shakey for statistical reasons. have you ever taken a stats class(no offense intended, honest question)? if I remember correctly, there's some sort of limit or something... if you were to use particle distribution from the "center" of the universe out, you could probably make a rough guess at the 99.5% line or something to that effect. obviously we can't take inventory of every sub-atomic particle, so scientists guess. At least, that's what I'd do I suppose.

There is no physical boundary to our solar system, we just made one up in our heads to differentiate between "in here" and "out there".

again, it's not so much about physical lines as it is about theoretical lines. With our solar system, I guess I'd use the oort cloud as a limit.
if all else failed, I suppose I'd define it as the farthest-out orbiting object.

It's just a big empty. Nothing. There's no "flat plain" of space. There's nothing stopping you from flying perpendicular to the orbits of our planets and taking a long distance picture.

a "flat plain of space" is referring to gravitational(and time?) distortions. gravity wells are a great example of this. it shows gravity become stronger as it gets closer to the object. You are correct about the perpendicular movement tho... SOmething you *do* have to consider is that more or less, everything in the solar system follows the same plain... a lot of systems are like that. the milky way is like that as well.

Blackhole's do _not_ lead down a funnel.

This I'd argue, is a matter of perspective. obviously there IS no funnel, you are correct, however, if you were getting sucked down one, in those brief moments before you die, it might look or feel like you're getting sucked down a funnel. Think with your eyes, not your brain. the photons around you aren't going to becoming at you from all angles- only from above. the the sides, nothingness, below you, death. you get pulled towards death while looking up, the remaining photons hitting you from all angles lessening, making it appear that the"opening" above you is getting smaller. I wish I could describe this sensation better with words, but I can't.

They reduce to a singularity, a point in space where upon one element may occupy the same space - and presumably time as well - as another element. It's a freaking dot that weighs an infinite amount, not a vacuum cleaner.

And what would be the difference? think of it as a vacuum cleaner with a spherical mouth and a really good trash compactor built in. whatever floats your boat to understand that the gravity is very strong, and pulls stuff in.

Maybe it's because I haven't studied astrophysics or advanced quantum theory, but it just seems to me that a lot of the time when a scientist says the universe is shaped like a soccer ball, or a donut, or a freaking celtic knot, he really has no idea.

it requires a very spacial mind(no pun intended) to see things like this. play with this for a while. I remember a friend of mine telling me about a book or something where a circle meets a sphere, and tries to describe to a 2d object what a 3d world is like...adventures in flatland perhaps? it's sorta like that...

It's space, nothing, a huge empty. If it's shaped like anything than what the hell is outside?

This really depends on if *all matter* came from one singularity or multiple.... for all we know, the universe could be part of a larger megaverse where no two universes are close enough to even detect each other. wouldn't that be a trip?

signed,
-IANAAP(I am not an astro-physicist)
morgajel.

p.s. yes I hate capital letters.
p.p.s. and I can't spell either.

As far as zinc-air: zinc is both way too heavy and way too expensive to be a viable vehicle fuel!

Aluminum is much lighter than zinc.

It's been said that if you throw away an aluminum can, it might as well be half full of gasoline, because that's how much energy it takes to smelt aluminum oxide (from bauxite ore).

With that in mind, there are companies that have been working on aluminum-air batteries that will release the energy from aluminum by converting it back into oxide through a fuel-cell like process. It consists of a sandwich of consumable aluminum plates for the anode, a salt solution, and non-consumable yet air permeable plates for the cathodes. As the anodes corrode away, replace them, and return the used plates to a recycle center to be "recharged" by re-smelting them into aluminum metal again. Smelting aluminum is a very energy consuming process (known as the Hall-Heroult reduction process), but it is essentially the aluminum-air battery in reverse (and in massive scale).

Some chemistry know-it-alls might want to put on their thinking caps and calculate how much energy it takes to hydrolize water into hydrogen and oxygen, and how much energy it takes to turn aluminum oxide into aluminum and oxygen, but then factor in the weight vs. power output of an aluminum-air battery and weight vs. power output of a fuel cell + hydrogen storage tank.

For those who just gotta do something now, here is a link that shows you how to roll your own aluminum air battery, and then you can hook a couple in series and get back to the topic of this thread and power some LEDs.

Is there an USian dry pint?

Maybe you're thinking of the ounce, which in the US has two meanings (ounce of weight vs. fluid ounce or "fl. oz." of liquid volume)

I'm going by this chart. The dry pint thing was new to me too.

Other cool stuff in San Fran: The Exploratorium and California Academy of Sciences.

Heading down the coast, there's The Tech Museum in San Jose

There's Fry's stores all the way through California, and they have neat themes like alien invason, alice in wonder land, ancient rome, etc. (I plan to pilgrimage to all of them at some point.) Although they are getting to be more like a giant consumer electronics store than somewhere to go for parts.

Unfortunately it looks like the Griffith Observatory is closed, but I'm sure there's plenty of other geek stuff in LA that people could point you to. There's just so much that nothing uniquely cool comes to mind.

In San Diego we have Balboa Park which has a aerospace museum, model railroad museum, automotive museum, etc, plus the Zoo. And there's the Wild Animal park. And the Birch Aquarium up here at UCSD. And the Gaslamp area, which has good bars ;-)

Whatever you do, if you get to San Francisco (which you probably will) please visit the Exploratorium.

http://www.exploratorium.edu/

A museum that should be called a geek mecca. Make the pilgrimage once in your life.

Are we all too grown up to mention a kid's museum?
As far as I am concerned, the Exploratorium is one of the best science museums in the country. It was started by Frank Oppenheimer - Communist and assistant to brother J. Robert on the Manhattan project. There is a show up currently on light and vision that is awesome. And The Tactile Dome is a crazy/fun experience.
Not only that, The Exploratorium is located at historically significant and beautiful location - the Palace of Fine Arts
Chemical enhancement is recommended....

Are we all too grown up to mention a kid's museum?
As far as I am concerned, the Exploratorium is one of the best science museums in the country. It was started by Frank Oppenheimer - Communist and assistant to brother J. Robert on the Manhattan project. There is a show up currently on light and vision that is awesome. And The Tactile Dome is a crazy/fun experience.
Not only that, The Exploratorium is located at historically significant and beautiful location - the Palace of Fine Arts
Chemical enhancement is recommended....

Are we all too grown up to mention a kid's museum?
As far as I am concerned, the Exploratorium is one of the best science museums in the country. It was started by Frank Oppenheimer - Communist and assistant to brother J. Robert on the Manhattan project. There is a show up currently on light and vision that is awesome. And The Tactile Dome is a crazy/fun experience.
Not only that, The Exploratorium is located at historically significant and beautiful location - the Palace of Fine Arts
Chemical enhancement is recommended....

Your first stop is San Francisco's Exploratorium, an absolutely amazing hands-on museum dedicated to "science, art, and human perception." Exhibits range from the fun and simple to the complex and educational. Look at live chicken embryos; build a catenary arch; mess with your depth perception; stick your (gloved) hand into a mulch pit to feel the heat; explore crystal formation; spin like a top! Nothing beats this place - my wife and I even had our wedding reception there.

Your second stop will be the main branch of the New York Pubilc Library, a gorgeous 19th/early 20th century building that simply looks like a library should. If anyone gives you trouble, this is the right place to use the line, "Back off man - I'm a scientist."

I know the place is a kids field trip, but when in San Francisco, visit the Exploratorium. It is the only place I know of with a live brain cell hooked up to electrodes and an oscilliscope. I love it. I could spend the whole day there and not want to leave. There are all kinds of techie experiments all over the place. I saw my first 3D shadows there. What a wonderful trick of polarized light. One cool thing is that many of the exhibits there can be replicated at home.

P.S. I envy you. Too many responsibilities now to take off and return "whenever."

Tesla coils...

I have heard it rumored that Nikolai Tesla lit up a laboratory in New York with one of these and some fluorescent tubes. :-)

-dB

It seems like you could get prevent even the most advanced speech recognition algorithms available these days from recognizing the "key phrase" that should be entered into a form by using a text such as Ladle Rat Rotten Hut. These kinds of texts are nonsensical if interpreted literally, but if you use the context and the phonetic sounds of the words (as humans automatically do) to interpret the text, the meaning is crystal clear.

I tie this to constructivist learning theory. Constructivist learners like to know how everything works from the ground up; they don't like to take things for granted. Other kinds of learners don't mind accepting or memorizing certain things, as long as it gets the job done.

I just have to ask, have you considered trying an amazing machine called a bicycle? They are incredibly easy to use, very safe (assuming you use them responsibly), and I hear you can buy even a very good one for less than 1/5th the price of a Segway. I know, you have to actually move your legs a little bit to make them move, but to go at Segway-like speeds takes practically no energy at all. In addition, when you feel like going faster, the bicycle will allow you to go nearly as fast as you want. Why, I have heard that bicycles can travel at up to 160 mph, and for distances up to 200 miles. Amazingly, with all that utility, bicycles weigh less than half of what a Segway weighs (often times less than a quarter!), and there is extensive infrastructure in place in many cities that allow for easy storage during the day.
So, just what is it about the Segway that attracted you? Low speed? High cost? Short range?

Seriously, what is it about a Segway that would attract anyone to using one?

My first trip was when I was 8, and as a little science geek, it was absolutely pure heaven.

Forgive me if any of these have been previously mentioned. I haven't finished reading the thread yet.
FunBrain.com
The Exploratorium: the museum of science, art and human perception.
BrainPOP
Reeko's Mad Scientist Lab - Free Fun Educational Science Experiments
KidsCom, a fun site for kids
Thinkquest Libraries

The Exploratorium. Especially, the activities in the "Accidental Scientist" and "Try This!" sections. And if you're ever in San Francisco, you should visit it. Lots of hands on exhibits designed for kids. Can't say enough good things about it.

Try the following Google search for "Educational Websites for Children". There are tons of links to follow and noticed several are by age group as well. Guarantee you will find several that are of interest to you as well. Gotta go now, I found a really cool link for making Geodesic Gum Drops!

-- Rick

Click here for video of the anniversary of the discovery of the structure of DNA. This was taped at Cold Springs Harbor Lab, where Watson is currently the director. Also, you can find their original paper that was published in Nature annoucing the discovery. It's interesting to note that since their discovery of DNA's double-helical structure, neither Watson nor Crick have discovered or published anything significant since then.

Since ice is crystalline, and crystals are inherently sharp, ice can easily damage any soft tissue.
There is research being done now that involves this neat little frog. The North American Wood Frog survives winter by freezing. It freezes during the cold, and actually thaws when the weather heats up. It can do this because of the excess of sugar stores in it's body.

Personally, I think that this is totally the way to go, so long as we can figure out a way to counteract the massive amounts of sugar we'd need to retain. It's all rather neat, imho. =)

It wouldn't take much sophistication. All you'd need is a robot that could dump a corner reflector on the surface. (OK, *place* one) Since corner reflectors reflect light back in the same direction it came no matter what its orientation, practically no alignment would be required. (They'd just need to make sure the reflective surfaces aren't pointing down at the Moon's surface.)

If you cut open a common 9-volt battery, you'll find six small compartments, which are 1.5 volt cells connected in series to produce the 9 volts. See here.

other memorable demonstrations from 9th grade science class:

put a feather in a vacuum chamber and watch it fall as fast as a rock.

fill a mason jar with pure oxygen, light a piece of steel wool (which will have a very feeble red glow where you lit it, if anything) and then put it in the pure oxygen. It lights up real good.

fill a mason jar with pure hydrogen and then open the jar and light it up. It just makes a big bang if memory serves.

(there are probably safety considerations with the last two which I'm forgetting.)

Someone already mentioned the gas can filled with boiling water which you seal and then cool it down to cause the gas can to be crushed by atmospheric pressure. That was another good one, from high school chemistry.

Also in high school chemistry we had an "acid tasting experiment" which I don't recommend you try. :) We tasted successively stronger acids until we got to hydrocloric acid, as I recall. I just got a slight whiff of that one, not a real good taste.

There are a lot of good little science toys, I mean demonstrations, at Scientifics Online. The van de graaf generator is cool, of course. There is also a magnetic levitator which is very cool, but its scientific value is unclear. :)

get a length of copper tube from home depot, the thicker the better. I got a length of tube and then some repair coupling to put over it, to make the tube thicker. then drop a strong magnet down the tube. It will float slowly down instead of falling at a normal rate. here's a page describing a simmilar experiment.. you can get great magnets from wondermagnet. (the spherical ones work best.)

Another fun thing: get two linear polarizers and then show that they are transparent when lined up but opaque when crossed. This is pretty cool if you haven't seen it before. You can get nice big ones from edmund optics.

Also you can get 1/2 wave retarder film from this same place; put the retarder film between the crossed polarizers, and it opens up a little "window" which allows you to see through the otherwise opaque polarizers.

Other stuff you can do with polarizers: look at a window and observe that the glare on the window is dimmer when you turn the polarizer the right way. Also cross two polarizers and put a piece of clear plastic (like a CD case) between them, and you can see all sorts of pretty colors. Also you can take a clear plastic bag and stretch it and put it between the two polarizers, and the colors will indicate the stresses in the bag.

The Good Eats restaurant would involve customers building their own food with helpful "technicians" standing by to assist in technique and choice of ingredients, and to explain why one does things a certain way. It would be the Exploratorium of food.

Try mutant_flies for some freeky flies.

then there's this story(not that great but interesting).
Or a video

or what your looking for?

The Inverse Square Law?

... I suppose you can always fake it.

Are you related to OOG by any chance? Say hi to OOG for me, we all miss his caveman insights!

According to this page, the sun is disappears because of a Sun-Eating Dragon. Good luck in your dragon-hunting quest!

Oh, yes what a blazing glory that was.

I guess a dim smudge is better than the wonderous display put on by comet Kohoutek

Having said that, just because this stuff causes an ice-like effect for people trying to walk on it doesn't mean it has other properties of ice. Traditionally, it has been believed that skating on ice causes, either due to friction or more often pressure, the surface to slightly melt and re-freeze, thus creating a channel for the blade. More recent theories have focused on the vibration patterns of the surface of ice: http://www.exploratorium.edu/hockey/skating1.html

And if you're thinking about roller skating, what makes you think that you'll have any more luck than the car tire that just spins on this stuff?

Having said that, just because this stuff causes an ice-like effect for people trying to walk on it doesn't mean it has other properties of ice. Traditionally, it has been believed that skating on ice causes, either due to friction or more often pressure, the surface to slightly melt and re-freeze, thus creating a channel for the blade. More recent theories have focused on the vibration patterns of the surface of ice: http://www.exploratorium.edu/hockey/skating1.html

And if you're thinking about roller skating, what makes you think that you'll have any more luck than the car tire that just spins on this stuff?

Now imagine this, from the mouth of an Afghan:

Even in the darkest days of the Soviet invasion, we all knew that the Soviets loved the same things we did: a good days work at the farm, walks around the countryside, their children. Todays enemy just wants us to die - the more gastly the better. I'm glad that we decided to curtail some conveince to help weed out the scum, and I'm really glad that our government is brave enough to do somethig about it.

Our enemy appears to have nucluar capabilitys and obviously isn't afraid to use them: http://www.exploratorium.edu/nagasaki/mainn.html

Let's hope we can kill them all, before they kill us. These are not people who just have a differing viewpoint than us, or a different way of life. These are human debris that use the fruits of our civilisation to destroy us.

Our well measured response, at home and abroad, will save our lives, as well as save the lives of the vast majority of decent people in Afganistan: if we were sucuessfully attacked with weapons of mass destruction, we would suffer horribly, but many more good people would die in the fires of our retaliation.

A bit of violence and self sacrifice, now, will save lives.


They fight for the same reasons as you. They too want to defend their country and way of life.

Think about it.

Check out this cool picture from Science Friday.

And a meatspace link: check out ferrofluids for yourself at the exploratorium -- if the exhibit is still there (it was maybe 4 years ago, upstairs), they have a tank of ferrofluid (with I think a lighter different-colored fluid floating on top). Pressing the buttons activates different electromagnets under the fluid, and it forms bumps on the surface (maybe protruding through the different colored liquid, as in the picture above, if I remember right). It's neat to see the surface of a liquid that is not flat, yet not moving. The exploratorium is well worth the visit if you're in the SF bay area.

A place this side of the atlantic that has robot competitions is the Exploratorium in SF. They have different categories, including Sumo Wrestling Robots. This year's competition was last month, here's a list of the events. A few years ago I saw this in person and thought it was great (very crowded, though). Too bad I'm on the other coast now.

It's more likely that you can do this test on dead hair cells. Most other forensics work fine on lay people's hair, which is made up of dead cells.

However good the video you're watching is, this is better:

http://www.exploratorium.edu/eclipse

Peace out.
- Adam

jello orhttp://www.exploratorium.edu/snacks/laser_jello/ index.html for you who don't want to risk clicking on a /. comment url.

You mean like a museum?

That was a 2-d image projected off the surface by the mirror mentioned in the last comment. Looks kinda cool, but the image gets a bit distorted and there's no real 3rd dimension to it. IIRC, it was a pretty crappy game too. You can get the same optical effect from that table-top mirage thingy, the one you put some coins or something in the bottom of. The image is projected above the device by a pair of parabolic mirrors. Here's the first link that I got from Google. There's an explanation a bit more than halfway down the page.

If you're still not convinced, try swallowing the fact that one man (well arguably one man) evolved the language single-handedly (inventing hundreds of words still in use).

No, a bunch of self-appointed cultural superiors trying to look trendy on message boards don't make a legitimate quorum of language shifting legislators, but language never evolved that way. It evolves by people shoehorning new meanings into old words and hammering together new words for old meanings.

"Gibberish or Yiddish? You decide."
-the Pedro Picasso

--

It is quite an interesting effect but has nothing to do with you'r eyes' resolution.

--Ben

consumers must possess a little ring that adjusts the optical device in their standard CD, CD-Rom and DVD machines; it's sort of like the plastic gizmo that snaps into a 45-rpm record

As for the optics of it, just a quick search on "CD laser optics" ("I'm Feeling Lucky")finds this site that points out that The polycarbonate itself is part of the optical system for reading the pits.

Maybe the polycarbonate isn't really needed, maybe it's just icing on the cake for robustness. If you do the math on one of the illustrations from the afore mentioned page, if the polycarbonate weren't there, the CD, instead of being 1.2mm thick, would have to be (let's see, cotan(27degrees) times 1/2 of 800microns is 785microns less than the regular 1.2mm thickness- duh, I could've assumed the angle was 30degrees and made things much easier) 0.4mm thick. That's not quite 1/5 the regular CD thickness- I guess the other 1-1/2mm comes from the reinforcing ring/plate you'd have to glue the whole floppy CD to.

Okay, someone else pointed out that the bournelli (sp?) effect could be used to keep the disc from fluttering by keeping it flying just a little bit above the read head, but is it really going to work with a head of unknown geometry and possible with other flat surfaces around? Like CD trays, caddies, slot feed mechanisms, etc.

Not that I'm disparaging the product even before it comes out (but I guess I am), it seems like it would be a nice trick to be able to make it work in almost any CDROM drive. I'd wish the company luck, but I'm afraid of where technology will lead- my no-name peripherals are already cheaply made- can you see getting your drivers and documentation on a floppy CD that won't even last a week on my desk. Admit it- you leave your CDs in a dusty pile too. Can you imagine if you had to reinstall?

And I thought we were through with the idea of disposable DVDs when Divx (the first one) died.

Yah sorry should have put some backing on that one, and well should have even got the quote right...

"Only 47 decimal digits of pi would be sufficently precises to inscribe a circle around the visable universe that dosent deviate from perfect circularity by more then then the distance acrost one proton"

The Quote is from here

Didn't anyone ever tell you that Hate is a strong word... Do you spend a lot of valuable time rushing to judgement and criticizing people?

Shrug. This is a well established fact.

If you want something more technical than a science museum website, try Durham, William H. Coevolution; Genes, Culture and Human Diversity. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA. 1991.
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It's a shame that the Exploratorium isn't throwing another pi day this year. It was wonderful last year!

It's a shame that the Exploratorium isn't throwing another pi day this year. It was wonderful last year!