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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
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.
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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[
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
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?
"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?
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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.
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
Now it's levitating spiders? I am so screwed.
Oh, yeah, it's not easy to pad these out to 120 characters.
AC/DC has been doing it for awhile.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
...that sheep do not fly as much as they do plummet.
You never expect irony, do you?
Want to be a professional wrestler? Visit www.iyfwrestling.com
@iyfwrestling
17 kHz is audible to humans and most animals. I wonder how loud the sound was in order to achieve levitation.
About this loud.
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
As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly.
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
when pigs fly
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.
Sorry Missed the copyAndPaste of link, the right link is right link
I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.
[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?
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!
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
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