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Acoustic Levitation Works On Small Animals
anthemaniac writes "Researchers for at least two decades have used acoustic levitation to suspend light materials without a container. Wenjun Xie, a materials physicist at Northwestern Polytechnical University in China, has previously used ultrasound fields to levitate globs of iridium and mercury, very heavy materials. Now the scientist has performed the feat with live animals. From the story: 'Xie and his colleagues employed an ultrasound emitter and reflector that generated a sound pressure field between them. The emitter produced roughly 20-millimeter-wavelength sounds, meaning it could in theory levitate objects half that wavelength or less.' Apparently the ants, spiders and ladybugs endured the trick just fine, but the fish didn't do so well due to lack of water."
One might also wonder about some of the biological effects of energy this high, especially with animals that contain more water. Heating is always a concern and something that many high powered ultrasound devices have not adequately addressed with developing biological systems.
As an aside, I seem to remember that former Admiral Bobby Inman served on the board of directors for (SAIC) and was involved in some acoustic work along these lines, but I think they were focusing on inanimate objects. I could be wrong about that, but it came out of a conversation I had years ago with members of the science directorate.
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It's even easier to get fish to levitate in water if you never feed them.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I for one welcome our levitating ant overlords.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Since when?
Technically speaking a spider is in the animal kindom. A mammal? No. A vertebrate? No. But it is still an animal. At least as far as the folks who give things the fancy latin-sounding names are concerned.
Now if they were floating little bits of lichen, or colonies of algae, yes, you could be insulted.
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
Come on. A spider ISN'T an aminal. (sic)
:-)
And this ladies and gentlemen is why we need better education funding and resources with a greater focus on math and science in schools, not to mention spelling and grammar.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
That is SO mammalist of you. Expect a call from the PC police.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Funny, when I heard "small animal," I assumed something on the order of protozoa and bacteria. Something down where it's a little harder to discern from plantlife and viruses, unless you refamiliarize yourself with the actual criteria for the animal kingdom.
"Animals are a major group of organisms, classified as the kingdom Animalia or Metazoa. In general they are multicellular, capable of locomotion and responsive to their environment, and feed by consuming other organisms. Their body plan becomes fixed as they develop, usually early on in their development as embryos, although some undergo a process of metamorphosis later on. Biologically, human beings fall under the animal kingdom."
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal[
This concept is straight out of the worst episode of Farscape, and that's saying something.
Username taken, please choose another one.
I was once lay on the bed and my cat decided to curl up in the small of my back.
When I let out a ripper of a fart I swear he hovered right there for about 15 seconds.
(Incidentally, after that event he never lay on my back again)
liqbase
"but the fish didn't do so well due to lack of water." To devise a fairer system of test, a team of our researchers spent eighteen months in Antarctica living like penguins, and subsequently dying like penguins - only quicker - proving that the penguin is a clever little sod in his own environment. /python
So does that make it a plant, fungus, or bacteria then?
I always suspected that Adam Ant had no sense of hearing.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Since I SAY so. That's what time it is chump! A spider is an insect, not a aminal.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I'm going to go out on a limb and express a certain level of agreement with the original sentiment, if not the original statement - though a spider is indeed a small animal, things would be a lot more interesting if they were levitating something on the scale of a kitten or puppy - which is sort of what the initial headline seemed to say. Teeny little bugs occupy a different sort of cognitive space from "small animals" for most people. Say "Acoustic levitation works on insects" or "bugs" or "bugs and tiny fish" or something, and people get a better idea of what's happened.
The World Wide Web is dying. Soon, we shall have only the Internet.
...the fish didn't do so well due to lack of water
;-)
I bet it was from the levitaiton. That's why they used fish. Needed another excuse
These experiments were performed with 20 mm wavelangth sound. Thats 50 Hz to you and me. So how long until the guys with the subwoofer equipped cars convert them to hovercraft?
You're right!! It's a plant!
I'm so glad biologists don't listen to you...
Spiders are animals, sorry to burst your bubble.
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
"It's even easier to get fish to levitate in water if you never feed them."
One stick of dynamite does the job a lot quicker.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
I'll have you know that none of those animals were small. The System Reference Document doesn't list them, but I'm confident they'd be identified as "diminutive," or smaller still.
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No, he's right. Spiders are not aminals.
...welcome our flying ant/spider/dead fish overlords!
Exactamundo chucky! THat's teh exactly what I was trying to say. A spider might be a aminal but it's not a "small aminal". It's a nearly microscopic aminal. I know this for a fact because I've seen the web page on teh internets where they compare the size of a spider against the size of the penii of various Republican politicians.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
They have magnetic levitation for fish and frogs.
A spider is an insect, not a aminal.
Actually it's an arachnid, not an insect.
(But I'd really like to know what an aminal is.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"but the fish didn't do so well due to lack of water"
Is that even funny??
oooh, that is a good point. Sorry, the human brain is wired poorly and often if all the letters are there, and the first and last letters are correct, you won't notice the misspelling. Especially with two relatively similar letters transposed.
hehehehe
34486853790
Connection too slow for X forwarding? Try "ssh -CX user@host"
"The ant and ladybug appeared fine after 30 minutes of levitation, although the fish did not fare as well, due to the inadequate water supply, the scientists report."
You've already established that you can levitate objects. This was the 8-year-old doing a science experiment. I bet they fried the ants with a magnifying glass later. I admit it is interesting albeit rather pointless. The part about the fish was priceless... "didn't fare well". It makes me want to say, "No shit, Sherlock."
Now it's levitating spiders? I am so screwed.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
It's what my daughter used to call an animal when she was three.
Or how you pronounce it if you want to make yourself sound special...
That is all.
What. This is 2006 and nobody shot this with a video camera or webcam? Am I asking too much for a youtube video of floating animals? Sheesh. "today, a man turned water into wine, but nobody seemed to be looking. We do have these before and after photos though."
Whether or not there is some sort of god, I'm not supposed to say/god is a word and the argument ends there-Smog
I am going to get one of these rigs next time I go fishing. Lay it in the water, turn it on and all the fish rise up above the surface... perfect!! Mmmm sushi.... D
"Question everything, including this!" - http://technoracle.blogspot.com/
Says the 22nd century grandpa: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic... NOW PUT ME DOWN YOU KIDS!!!
And here I thought heavy metal just made you feel like you being bounced off the ground.
He's very right. A spider is not an aMinal. Hooray for Slashdot, where we mock the spelling of others!
A spider may well nott be an aminal, whatever that is.
With respect to the TFA, the ricers and low riders in these parts have been sonically levitating themselves for years, I can hear them two friggin miles away. If it causes them brain damage, how would we know?
"I for one welcome our levitating ant overlords."
Come on, it wasn't that good of a movie! You also aren't going to have any levitating without that little Putin elf guy, anyway.
Where were you when the voynix came?
AC/DC has been doing it for awhile.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
17 kHz is audible to humans and most animals. I wonder how loud the sound was in order to achieve levitation.
Cue the PETA spokesperson in 3 .. 2 .. 1 ..
...that sheep do not fly as much as they do plummet.
You never expect irony, do you?
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@iyfwrestling
It's called dynamite fishing, or in it's much more manageable form, an M80 firecracker and a couple drunk guys in a boat with a net. Y'all should come South a bit more often.
I once snuck up on and yelled "Boo" at a rather high strung cat. He levitated about three feet in the air for a moment too.
That's acoustic levitation if I ever saw it.
I like aminal crackers.
When I was 15 I went to see Iggy and the Stooges at the Agora Ballroom in Cleveland. I had to hitchhike from Chicago with a vague hope that I'd be able to get tickets and get into the concert.
When I left, I was 5 feet off the ground. Even 30+ years later, I can listen to Raw Power and get the same effect.
You are welcome on my lawn.
I new my ipod made me feel lighter.
Indeed. We have this little chestnut to roast too:
"...has previously used ultrasound fields to levitate globs of iridium and mercury, very heavy materials."
A 1 gram 'glob' of mercury is equal in weight to 1 gram of feathers. Iridium and mercury may have a higher density, but they are not intrinsically heavy.
When even the author of an article is confused about basic physical properties you have to worry, IMHO.
I need a rest between naps some days
If you're going to be a grammar Nazi you could at least acknowledge the fact that a parenthesis within a parenthesis should consist of square brackets, not the rounded ones you so foolishly included.
For added irony I could have [sic]'d your (sic), but hope you understand the message regardless. Thank you for your time.
I'm just walking along, minding my own ant business, and all of sudden some jackass decides to levitate me. Oh, that's right, it's so funny to pick on the ants. Everyone picks on the ants. We're just trying to make a living and feed the queen...she gets to drink nectar. Think the rest of us get any nectar? Not us worker ants. You try running around blind trying to follow a scent trail during allergy season. We get stepped on, eaten by other bugs and birds...don't get me started. And then there's the nursery, those ingrates never get enough. Like it's not bad enough putting up with their crap along comes to the dominant species and thinks it's just SO funny to levitate us. Suppose I should be glad they didn't roast us under a magnifying glass like the neighbor kid. Little delinquent. I'll be he grows up to be a career criminal. It's all so meaningless.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
That is SO mammalist of you. Expect a call from the PC police.Why does the personal computer police care what you say about spiders?
Avoid Missing Ball for High Score
Excellent that this should be on Slashdot the same day I get James Blish's Cities in Flight book series. I, for one, can't wait till Pittsburgh relocates to Mars and starts a mining operation.
Prosperity is only an instrument to be used, not a deity to be worshipped. Calvin Coolidge
when pigs fly
Anyone else here thinking electric football table?
Computers love spiders. Google sends them up and down the tubes of the intarweb, and I heard they get rid of bugs too.
"Yeah, but last time I did that, my mom^H^H^Hwife got a little upset about the mess in the basement."
Oeddy, is that you??? Man, it's been a long time. Better give Dr. Siggy a call: he says it has been a long time since you've surfed his couch. Too long, I think.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Let's levitate little Sebastian,
his grandma will get a kick.
I wish. You should come see the size of the buggers nesting in my house.
Also, I like how you spell it at least consistently wrong.
...has previously used ultrasound fields to levitate globs of iridium and mercury, very heavy materials.
Heavy Metal levitated by a low frequency bass oscillator. Rock On!!
So technically it IS an animal, and is closely related to crabs. .
If you are about to mod me down, keep in mind that this post was most likely sarcastic.
I can levitate birds. Nobody cares.
Looking for a computer support specialist for your small business? Check out
My mother was a levitating ant overlord, you insensitive clod!
When I was a just a child I figured out how to use a magnifying glass to levitate ants, spiders and ladybugs in the form of smoke.
No video clips of the insects and fish? :(
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
I'm sorry, I'm sorry..... does that honestly say "aminal"?
Good point. I was more thrown off by how they said it like it would be harder with these materials. I would say that it would be easier to levitate a comparable amount of iridium and mercury specifically because they are more dense (i.e. more concentrated). It matters that they are alive, but I'm more impressed by the levitating of less dense objects.
Freedom is assumed. Then they try to take it away. The degree to which you resist is the degree to which you are free.
When my father used to yell, we'd come off the sofa a couple of feet.
"Win treats sysadmins better than users. Mac treats users better than sysadmins. Linux treats everyone like sysadmins."
A girl can blow lightly and levitate things. I don't know what the problem is.\
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
I know I should not feed the troll, but I hate seeing people use the incorrect plural of penis.
-
This story is useless without video of a kitten slowly rotating in midair.
A republic cannot succeed till it contains a certain body of men imbued with the principles of justice and honour.
Whoa, dude, I don't know about you, but when that happens, mine stays attached.
20mm wavelength seems to be 17KHz (at sealevel in air), which isn't very "ultra" sound. To levitate the 3 meters radius of adult humans (with extended arms/legs), we'd need 6m wavelength. That's about 0.04Hz, which is infrasound. How much energy would have to input to an infrasound generator to levitate a 100Kg person?
--
make install -not war
And there was me thinking that using differing styles of brackets when nested was merely to emphasise the distinction as a convenience to the reader rather than a strict grammatical requirement...
Stick Men
no text
The flying mice overlords are here!
[blockquote] Indeed. We have this little chestnut to roast too: "...has previously used ultrasound fields to levitate globs of iridium and mercury, very heavy materials." A 1 gram 'glob' of mercury is equal in weight to 1 gram of feathers. Iridium and mercury may have a higher density, but they are not intrinsically heavy. When even the author of an article is confused about basic physical properties you have to worry, IMHO. [/blockquote] Quite simple really, the ability to levitate an object using this method is dependent on its physical dimensions, and obviously a 10mm cube of mercury is much heavier than a 10mm cube of feathers. Lifting a heavier object is harder than lifting a light one, so this IS in fact significant.
Think outside the... Hey, where'd the friggin' box go?
if I had a laptop that only cost $100 I'd know that
well, since they've got it so they can levitate small things, it should (it never is) simply be a matter of scaling up whatever they used to make the soundwaves (TFA is /.ed, so i can't read it) to produce enough energy to levitate larger objects. though one would have to wonder about the limits of this before it causes adverse effects on whatever is being levitated.
this seems an awful lot like dimagnetic levitation. it is theoretically possible to levitate pretty much anything, but you need really, really strong magnets (into the range of kiloteslas) to make it happen.
upon the advice of my lawyer, i have no sig at this time
This is absolutely true; I can provide photos (or you can come see for yourself)
The defunct business next door to my house has signs saying "$500 reward leading to the arrest and conviction of persons destroying this property." There was what looked like a very weatherbeaten, unmaintained house and a large tin structure that looked like it too had not been maintained in years; gutters falling, etc.
Then last March 12th two F2 tornados tore through here. It ripped the hell out of both structures (again, I took pictures). The structures were subsequently razed.
So if you can find God and get him in court, $500 is yours for the taking!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
An aminal is a type of chemical compound that has two amine groups attached to the same carbon atom. Small aminals would have small amine groups attached to a regular-size carbon atom.
Man, you really need that seminar!
I want to know when they're going to figure out how to use these sonic waves to drive screws.
Rlaley? So, as is costnsient wtih yuor toerhy, you wlil not hvae ntoiecd the lteter odrer in tihs comemnt?
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.
Troll? Come on now; Republicans drive SUVs, and only people with small penises drive those big honkers.
I feel sorrier for women with small penises then men with small penises. Having a big dick is a hassle for a man; it won't get you any women as they don't know you've got one until you're both already naked, and it's gross when the damned thing dips into the toilet when you're trying to shit. And it's hard to find underwear that fits.
But once inside women love 'em. They'll never tell you this if you drive an SUV though, they'll say "it's how you use it" as if a big dick makes it impossible to use it well.
How much power...well lots. Area of human (one side) about 1sq. m. mass, (order of magnitude) 100Kg, say 1KN force required = 1Megapascal. That's 10bar pressure, implying an acoustic pressure of 10dB above atmospheric..or 203dB into 4pi space.
Imagine you had a 'regular' hifi speaker, radiating into half space..and that it behaved in a perfectly linear manner to power input (no chance!) at the typical 1% efficiency of electrical-to-acoustic conversion, you' need to hit it with, oh, about a half megawatt. Really. Which means poor sorry-assed-but-levitated-human falls apart.
(assumptions: 87dB/watt for reasonable speaker; +3dB gain for half-space; power required = 10^ [(200-87)/20] )
Are any of the fusion researchers looking into this? If they can counteract gravity, maybe they can even push in from all directions and use it to contain the plasma. Then again, maybe you have to supply so much acoustic energy that you wouldn't get enough energy back from the reaction... but IANANuclear researcher. Anybody else here know?
when you typed the URL... sorry, "address" into your internet explorer in windows XP, you misspelled "myspace" as "slashdot". It's ok, my learning disabled daughter does it all the time.
Oh my god! It's full of nerds!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Not the post, but the fact that some dumbass modded it "insoghtful". WTF?
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
People Eating Tasty Animals!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
Very cool video of them levitating all kinds of light things.
The first thing I wondered while watching is: why can't you flip that device upsidedown, increase the power, and make the ultimate hovercraft? This technology seems like it has military applications written all over it. And one poster has already mentioned Bobby Inman worked on this technology back in the 80's. Bobby Inman is definitely military (intelligence though, not R&D or skunkworks).
I'm not suggesting some super secret conspiracy, but it seems obvious that the military would be interested in something like this. So, why isn't a hovercraft like this possible, given enough power input (think: nuke on a sub) and enough downward amplification?
Has anyone ever heard of anything such as this? I haven't. There are certainly lots of acoustic applications in the military (crowd control, ship defense, etc) but I haven't ever heard of an acoustic hovercraft or transport of anykind.
Thanks for fixing my math to find the required frequency. I'm looking for the energy delivered to the levitating person, not the required electric energy to produce it, because an electrical speaker isn't necessarily the power source.
How much power does, say, Pavarotti's loudest singing in the 57Hz range (50-60Hz) deliver at, say, 10m? Maybe we're talking kilopavarottis.
--
make install -not war
i think this just about confirms the science of sound.
Well, somebody's human brain is wired poorly, at least.
How much power...well lots. Area of human (one side) about 1sq. m. mass, (order of magnitude) 100Kg, say 1KN force required = 1Megapascal. That's 10bar pressure, implying an acoustic pressure of 10dB above atmospheric..or 203dB into 4pi space.
t _work.asp?css=1
1KN of force into one square meter is one kilopascal.
Which by this chart:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_pressure
gives us 154 dB SPL, and that won't be any fun at all. At least the wavelength is big, so maybe the shear forces on our organs won't cause the kinds of damage that dynamite does when it goes off near a fish.
Hey, here's an idea: Let's set the frequency equal to zero and do this. Oh wait, they already have:
http://www.airkix.com/airkix_explained/how_does_i
This is a good example of animal research that is completely unnecessary. There's absolutely no point or scientific benefit in using animals for this experiment. The researchers were clearly just looking for a wacky headline to get press coverage, while giving good fuel to the animal rights activists who point out that the current state of animal research is ludicrous.
Depends on the spider. there are some species that are best described as frickin' huge. Or maybe just a shriek.
Just a Tuna in the Sea of Life
And is it possible for animals to have cavities or structures with a resonant frequency equal to that of the emitted waves? That's where the real danger lies, I think.
"I don't know how you can say that. Although I will admit that the possibility of a resonance cascade scenario is extremely unlikely."
a long time ago, They were just 90 degrees off.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Nothing would be exciting about a dried pea suspended on ultrasonic waves.
Nor a dust bunny.
Not even a booger.
A bug that is trying to walk, crawl, or fly away, however.. ** THAT'S ** news! Especially considering that this piece is from China..
They have a healthier understanding of their relationship with other Earth critters than we do in the west.
To me the video seemed like two tubes that generated a derivation from Bernoulli effect.
Some readers seem to mix up infra and ultra. Ultrasound is high frequency sounds.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bernoulli_Effect
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrasound
So, as is consistent with your theory, you will not have noticed that letter order in this comment? Not so much that I didn't perfectly understand what you meant. Interesting yes?
Apparently the ants, spiders and ladybugs endured the trick just fine, but the fish didn't do so well due to lack of water.
I'm sure there's a whale joke in there somewhere...
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
Are Chinese researchers really so dumb that they didn't know fish kept out of water for 30 minutes would die? They report that the fish didn't do so well as if it was a genuine experiment. What is the point of killing things for no reason? Research is fine, but it's not research when you already know the outcome.
I know it sounds like a bunch of old wank, but maybe there's some truth to this. Exactly how sophisticated does the tech have to be to produce the necessary sound waves? For those of us who've been to these ruins and seen the stones first hand, it's pretty hard to imagine anyone moving them by hand, even with infinite resources and manpower. Thoughts?
Work smarter, not harder.
You mean KPa? Clearly the SI unit of pressure. The Pavarotti - (Pa). Everyone knows Pascal wasn't much of a singer.
Be nice to people on the way up. You will meet them again on your way down!
Somewhere a New Line Cinema executive is having a eureka moment
There are 2 types of people in this world. Those who understand ternary and those who don't.
Seems to me that there have been a few cases of the navy using "experimental high powered sonar that caused extreme distress to marine life. Several incidents caused dolphins, etc. to beach themselves; they were found to be bleeding from the ears. Of course that portion of the sea was closed to the public during the trials for security reasons.
I'm not saying that the navy was doing levitation experiments, but wouldn't you expect it to look something like that if they were?
Just occurred to me that, even if not practical for levitation, it may be practical for torpedo defense (e.g. forming a "shield" under water), especially since the effect works better in denser materials like water.
science is a religion
Come on. A spider ISN'T an aminal. (sic)
:-)
And this ladies and gentlemen is why we need better education funding and resources with a greater focus on math and science in schools, not to mention spelling and grammar.
Actually, this is why we need better funding for planned parenthood...
If I knew the wedgies I gave you back in 6th grade would have resulted in this . . . I might have taken a moments pause.
And they needed a science project to prove that fish need water? Next they will tell us that we can't breath without air!
I have a metal box at work that levitates me... I don't know how but it seems to be done using dull almost but not quite recognisable music
Stupidity is like nuclear power, it can be used for good or evil. And you don't want to get any on you.