If I understand correctly, the ultimate goal of these studies is materials capable of "transient permanence". We could have a glue that would hold indefinitely, but releases its grip when you add a particular molecule that unties the connections. Or gecko tape that sticks with amazing tenacity, until an electric field is applied to the tape, causing the microscopic gripping "feet" to release. Or even plastics that don't exude organic volatiles, that are sturdy but can be converted to a recastable form upon command.
Industry has already made superstable substances (like dioxins or CFCs), but by looking to biology for inspiration, we may be able to make substances whose long-term stability will reduce waste, while allowing a graceful dismantling when their usefulness has been outlived.
Agreed, the article didn't describe hard evidence that the Earth was the target of a gamma ray burst 440 million years ago. Does anyone know where you would look for such evidence? Would there be a detectable chemical signature in soil sediments from this period? Or is this something you would need to look at moon rocks or cometary ices to find some evidence of the gamma rays?
Yeah, I wasn't sure about that. I assumed that most of the problem was due to the solar winds, but there's all those extrasolar cosmic rays coming at you. As Ben Grimm would say, "You can't see or feel 'em, but they'll affect you just the same."
To do the same on a smaller scale would require a much stronger field
What if you put a weaker magnetic field far in advance of the ship, but on the same trajectory? The field would change the course of the charged particles very slightly, but a small deflection a mile away could cause the particles to completely miss the ship by the time they reach it.
Think of it as creating a magnetic lens, except instead of focusing the particles, you are dispersing them. I'm sure this makes a lot of assumptions that a physicist (IANAP) would catch. So, any physicists care to comment? Usually you can't throw a dead/live cat without hitting/missing a physicist around here...
It's a shame that we've had to wait so long to figure out what that reaction was. Some biologists say it was caused by life, some chemists say it was radicals in the soil, produced by centuries of exposure to UV light. I wish NASA had sent the "Wolf Trap", the assay created by the late Wolf Vishniac, on one of its landers. IIRC, it would have looked for changes in turbidity caused by anything growing in a nutrient broth. It would have had the same problem that the growth media for martian bugs is unknown, but it was simple enough that many different media could be tested, and incubated for long periods to see if anything was growing.
A few reasons. First, we don't know what (putative) Martian microbes would look like. Also, Mars is very cold and dry, so any microbes would grow verrrry slowly. This means that the average microbial density on the soil of Mars could be very very low. Looking for bacteria on the surface of mineral grains is tedious and difficult under good conditions, unless you have a lot of bacteria there and know what to look for. Doing the same thing remotely would be vastly more difficult.
You could try adding some Mars soil to a nutrient media and wait for something to grow, before looking at the liquid under a microscope. But, unless you knew the right pH, salinity, and chemical composition that the Martian bacteria would like to eat, you would be more likely to drown (or explode by osmotic pressure) any bugs living in the soil. And again, since we don't know the morphology of the bacteria we hope to find, we would see lots of soil particles, some of which might be enticingly bacteria-like (remember the Martian meteorite and its "microfossils"?) but we would have no proof that they were biological in origin.
As a biologist, I believe that if life is detected on Mars, it will first be "spotted" by ultra-sensitive mass spectrometers, either on a lander like the Beagle 2, or more likely, in an laboratory after a sample is returned to Earth in a decade or two.
Now, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't put microscopes on landers! I'm sure there are some geologists that would be fascinated by the microscopic composition of native Martian soil. But if life on Mars is abundant enough to pick up with a microscope, then we should see clear traces of it with experiments like the one on the Beagle.
I'm not an economist, but I bet that if everybody's buying power suddenly quadrupled, the U.S. would undergo a period of inflation even worse than the 70's. This period would continue until the value of the dollar was reduced to...and I'm just guessing here...about 25 cents.
So...use a low-power microwave laser (or as Doctor Evil would say with air quotes, a "MASER") at the recieving station to send a beam to the satellite. It would have the same frequency as the power beam, so it would refract identically. If the satellite loses contact with the safetly MASER, it stops sending power down.
Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught
Only then will you find you cannot eat data
I watched the first two hours last night, and here's what I got:
1. General Relativity makes sense at large scales, and
2. Quantum physics makes sense (if you're a Quantum physicist) at tiny scales. However,
3. No theory has been proven to explain the universe at all scales. Luckily (for Brian Greene's publishers),
4. The string theorists think they have! Also luckily (for the string theorists without tenure),
5. There is no way to experimentally disprove String theory, so...
6. ???
7. Profit!!!
8. Too bad Nova spent all the profit on digital effects of wiggling strings, and getting nobel laureates to talk on camera.
Note that at very small times and/or scales, these steps may not appear in the order listed, and new rules may appear or vanish for no apparent reason.
I loved that show! It seems like every episode they used hydrazine (the same fuel they put in the rocket) to do something cool. One episode, they used it to create an explosion that produced gasoline from a tapped-out well; the gasoline it produced was green! (an unexpected side effect of the hydrazine, naturally...) But the well caught on fire, and they had to use a second explosion (more hydrazine!!!) to put it out.
A fine show, even without Barney...I mean, Don Knotts. And I now realize we need more hydrazine on television.
Schmitt said of particular importance is for NASA to consist of engineers and technicians in their 20s and managers to be in their 30s
New blood is one thing, but at what point are you lobotomizing the agency of its collected experience? Who would you rather have manning the control room, someone who's helped land a dozen shuttles, or Joe Ph.D. fresh out of Cornell? I hope they will figure out how to reduce the top-heavy beaurocracy without throwing out the skilled workers that made NASA's successes possible.
An individual with an idea sees the potential, files a patent, and goes on a quest to commercialize the product. There could be no better case study of how patent law is supposed to encourage innovation.
Good thing the idea was patented...otherwise we might have had more than one company working on this for the last twenty years.
Slashdot Mirror
If I understand correctly, the ultimate goal of these studies is materials capable of "transient permanence". We could have a glue that would hold indefinitely, but releases its grip when you add a particular molecule that unties the connections. Or gecko tape that sticks with amazing tenacity, until an electric field is applied to the tape, causing the microscopic gripping "feet" to release. Or even plastics that don't exude organic volatiles, that are sturdy but can be converted to a recastable form upon command.
Industry has already made superstable substances (like dioxins or CFCs), but by looking to biology for inspiration, we may be able to make substances whose long-term stability will reduce waste, while allowing a graceful dismantling when their usefulness has been outlived.
Agreed, the article didn't describe hard evidence that the Earth was the target of a gamma ray burst 440 million years ago. Does anyone know where you would look for such evidence? Would there be a detectable chemical signature in soil sediments from this period? Or is this something you would need to look at moon rocks or cometary ices to find some evidence of the gamma rays?
At least Gollum didn't give a "thumbs up" just before he disappeared under the lava.
Hmmm...tricksy voters, electing poor Smeagol...
...naaah.
...because everyone knows that odd numbered Star Trek spoofs suck.
Happy Fun Cell.
Therefore, we must acquit!
Yeah, I wasn't sure about that. I assumed that most of the problem was due to the solar winds, but there's all those extrasolar cosmic rays coming at you. As Ben Grimm would say, "You can't see or feel 'em, but they'll affect you just the same."
To do the same on a smaller scale would require a much stronger field
What if you put a weaker magnetic field far in advance of the ship, but on the same trajectory? The field would change the course of the charged particles very slightly, but a small deflection a mile away could cause the particles to completely miss the ship by the time they reach it.
Think of it as creating a magnetic lens, except instead of focusing the particles, you are dispersing them. I'm sure this makes a lot of assumptions that a physicist (IANAP) would catch. So, any physicists care to comment? Usually you can't throw a dead/live cat without hitting/missing a physicist around here...
Bush will try to unleash and provide a framework for America's creative genius
December 17th? I thought all our creative geniuses were skipping work to see Return of the King that day!
...just hope you don't run into this guy.
bullets to the back of the head
Also known as the ping of death.
It's a shame that we've had to wait so long to figure out what that reaction was. Some biologists say it was caused by life, some chemists say it was radicals in the soil, produced by centuries of exposure to UV light. I wish NASA had sent the "Wolf Trap", the assay created by the late Wolf Vishniac, on one of its landers. IIRC, it would have looked for changes in turbidity caused by anything growing in a nutrient broth. It would have had the same problem that the growth media for martian bugs is unknown, but it was simple enough that many different media could be tested, and incubated for long periods to see if anything was growing.
A few reasons. First, we don't know what (putative) Martian microbes would look like. Also, Mars is very cold and dry, so any microbes would grow verrrry slowly. This means that the average microbial density on the soil of Mars could be very very low. Looking for bacteria on the surface of mineral grains is tedious and difficult under good conditions, unless you have a lot of bacteria there and know what to look for. Doing the same thing remotely would be vastly more difficult.
You could try adding some Mars soil to a nutrient media and wait for something to grow, before looking at the liquid under a microscope. But, unless you knew the right pH, salinity, and chemical composition that the Martian bacteria would like to eat, you would be more likely to drown (or explode by osmotic pressure) any bugs living in the soil. And again, since we don't know the morphology of the bacteria we hope to find, we would see lots of soil particles, some of which might be enticingly bacteria-like (remember the Martian meteorite and its "microfossils"?) but we would have no proof that they were biological in origin.
As a biologist, I believe that if life is detected on Mars, it will first be "spotted" by ultra-sensitive mass spectrometers, either on a lander like the Beagle 2, or more likely, in an laboratory after a sample is returned to Earth in a decade or two.
Now, this doesn't mean that we shouldn't put microscopes on landers! I'm sure there are some geologists that would be fascinated by the microscopic composition of native Martian soil. But if life on Mars is abundant enough to pick up with a microscope, then we should see clear traces of it with experiments like the one on the Beagle.
I'm not an economist, but I bet that if everybody's buying power suddenly quadrupled, the U.S. would undergo a period of inflation even worse than the 70's. This period would continue until the value of the dollar was reduced to...and I'm just guessing here...about 25 cents.
So...use a low-power microwave laser (or as Doctor Evil would say with air quotes, a "MASER") at the recieving station to send a beam to the satellite. It would have the same frequency as the power beam, so it would refract identically. If the satellite loses contact with the safetly MASER, it stops sending power down.
...would you like files with that?
JELL-O = gelatin = rendered animals. So really, all JELL-O is meat JELL-O.
Now, meat flavored JELL-O, that would be gross.
Personally, I prefer electrophoresis grade agarose; it's very tasty.
You know, I always thought we should have less data and more beer.
Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught
Only then will you find you cannot eat data
I watched the first two hours last night, and here's what I got:
1. General Relativity makes sense at large scales, and
2. Quantum physics makes sense (if you're a Quantum physicist) at tiny scales. However,
3. No theory has been proven to explain the universe at all scales. Luckily (for Brian Greene's publishers),
4. The string theorists think they have! Also luckily (for the string theorists without tenure),
5. There is no way to experimentally disprove String theory, so...
6. ???
7. Profit!!!
8. Too bad Nova spent all the profit on digital effects of wiggling strings, and getting nobel laureates to talk on camera.
Note that at very small times and/or scales, these steps may not appear in the order listed, and new rules may appear or vanish for no apparent reason.
I loved that show! It seems like every episode they used hydrazine (the same fuel they put in the rocket) to do something cool. One episode, they used it to create an explosion that produced gasoline from a tapped-out well; the gasoline it produced was green! (an unexpected side effect of the hydrazine, naturally...) But the well caught on fire, and they had to use a second explosion (more hydrazine!!!) to put it out.
A fine show, even without Barney...I mean, Don Knotts. And I now realize we need more hydrazine on television.
Schmitt said of particular importance is for NASA to consist of engineers and technicians in their 20s and managers to be in their 30s
New blood is one thing, but at what point are you lobotomizing the agency of its collected experience? Who would you rather have manning the control room, someone who's helped land a dozen shuttles, or Joe Ph.D. fresh out of Cornell? I hope they will figure out how to reduce the top-heavy beaurocracy without throwing out the skilled workers that made NASA's successes possible.
An individual with an idea sees the potential, files a patent, and goes on a quest to commercialize the product. There could be no better case study of how patent law is supposed to encourage innovation.
Good thing the idea was patented...otherwise we might have had more than one company working on this for the last twenty years.
Does anyone know if Lucas and Spielberg were on the petition? Or were they too busy to sign it?
My favorite piece from the concert was "Your Battery is Low!" but I also liked "Unexpected Application Error."