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Science's Limits Are Only Self-Imposed

Posted by michael on from the there-is-no-spoon dept.

Tristfardd writes "The Independent has a fine article on ridiculous experiments, some of which really are ridiculous, while others have interesting ramifications. If only the article gave links for viewing the rotating frog or the film on self-trepanation."

2 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. More fun with grains by blether · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The brazil nut experiment reminded me of this fascinating result. If you shake a container of granular material, the granular material spontaneously collects together in one place.

    The same page also has a cool video of granular eruption.

  2. Re:m00 by WGR · · Score: 5, Informative
    I actually worked on this (writing software for the measuring instruments). We put flow metres on a cow barn roof to catch the ouput of methane over some months, using ultrasonic wind speed measurements and instruments to measure methane as it passed by the fans. We also measured the CO2, water and other gasses as they were exchanged between the barn and the outside.

    We really found a significant amount of methane and it depended a lot on what feed had been given to the cows. Since methane is one of the most significant green house gasses (much more potent per gram than CO2, just less of it), we could make recommendations for feed to help lessen the outgassing.

    The other big source of methane is rotting vegetation in swamps. Often a swamp will have little flames rising over it as the methane burns, creating a lot of legends of ghosts and swamp monsters. Because you get a lot of rotting vegetation in the lakes created by large dams, big hydro projects create almost as much a greenhouse effect as fossil fuel plans creating the same amount of electricty, although this diminishes over time, unlike with fossil fuels.