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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."

2 of 182 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Biological heating effects? by nschubach · · Score: 0, Redundant

    If it is ultrasound and we use that to "peek" at our young ones, wouldn't that make it "fairly" safe?

    What would happen if you turned the device upside down and mounted to to the bottom of a platform or a car? Would it take too much energy?

    --
    Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
  2. Re:I for one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Redundant

    I'm going to make it a goal of mine that whenever I get mod points, these posts will get modded to redundant. Its not funny. It hasn't been funny for years.