Science Lush

Iron Man Science

Last week I had a blast hosting Marvel.com's Live Red Carpet show for the IRON MAN 3 premiere. The movie comes out on May 3rd in the U.S., so I thought it'd be fun to take a look at some of the science behind the sci fi in the IRON MAN films.

STARK INDUSTRIES TECH

The Marvel Cinematic Universe all begins with the comics, and in this piece on ScientificAmerican.com, E. Paul Zehr goes back to the source with "Iron Man's Top 10 Heavy Metal Moments: Reflections on the First 50 Years of Scientific R&D from Stark Industries." 

Zehr traces the development of Iron Man armor all the way from its "birth" in March 1963's TALES OF SUSPENSE #39, through the suited-up fight scene between Tony Stark and Col. James Rhodes (soon to be War Machine) in IRON MAN 2. Some of the upgrades along the way have included changes in color, a more modular suit that's storable, an waterproof exoskeleton, and a neural interface.

Getting into the suit has become easier as well - the first Marvel IRON MAN film introduced motorized robotic equipment for dressing Stark. And although it's not mentioned in Zehr's "Top 10" list, I was a big fan of the "suitcase suit" in IRON MAN 2.

While Zehr says that, "Right now we don’t even have the technology to safely dress Tony Stark in the Iron Man as shown in the robotics, let alone create the Iron Man armor itself," he points out that there are a few other elements that we're a bit closer to realizing. For example, inventor Phil Nuytten has created "swimmable" Newtsuit and Exosuits that seem to share some design elements with the Iron Man exoskeleton in INVINCIBLE IRON MAN #218  “Deep Trouble” (1987), in which Iron Man hits the water.

For a deeper dive into Zehr's take on the reality of creating an Iron Man suit, check out his book INVENTING IRON MAN: The Possibility of a Human Machine.  

 
A REAL IRON MAN SUIT?

Discovery News also attacks this topic with a fun piece - and some nice pics - on the realities of various features of the Iron Man suit. Exoskeleton systems? In development. Head mounted display? Already functional in military and engineering applications. Repulsors? Unfortunately, not going to show up in our world any time soon.

As we know, Tony is proud of his rep as a tinkerer, and loves spending time in his lab...something that causes some problems between him and Pepper at the beginning of IM3. Here's what the piece has to say about Tony's latest additions:

"Iron Man 3" introduces at least one new technology to the Stark armor, although the details are sketchy indeed. Early in the film, Tony Stark is seen experimenting with a substance that he injects into his bloodstream, which then allows him to telepathically summon his armor to him across great distances. Each piece of armor has its own rocket system and latches onto Stark automatically after it flies across the room (or the country, as the case may be).

As a sci-fi conceit, the concept combines ideas of nanotechology, biotechnology and long-range wireless communications. Stark has also developed a system for remotely piloting Iron Man suits from the ground. The suits essentially become unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones, a recurring concern in movies these days. In real-world news, just this month the FAA will begin allowing civilian agencies to fly UAVs weighing no more than 4.4 pounds in U.S. airspace.

THE ARC REACTOR

Emory University did a series of videos titled EMORY LOOKS AT HOLLYWOOD featuring faculty members applying their areas of knowledge to some of Hollywood's biggest blockbusters. In this 2010 video, Sidney Perkowitz, Charles Howard Candler Professor of Physics, gives his take on the possibilities for a real suit and gets specific on the science behind the power source. 

He, too, suggests that an Iron Man-type of suit is a real possibility in the near (or not so near) future, given the current experimentation with exoskeletons. The military has spent a lot of money building them, and while it'll probably be quite awhile until they cover us head to toe and have a complete neurally integrated sensory system, Perkowitz believes "A walking kind of Iron Man that is stronger than the average soldier, I think clearly that can happen." Sadly, he wasn't so optimistic about the flying part.

A power source is necessary in order for an Iron Man suit to work, especially for the advanced functions. Perkowitz explains that though there are indeed ARC reactors in the real world, their uses are not quite as flashy as what we see in the IRON MAN films.

He says, "As far as I can judge from the film, what Tony's ARC reactor means is a fusion reactor...this idea of making energy by smashing together two hydrogen nucleii and turning them into helium. That's what goes on in our sun. It's a great power source. Physicists have worked on this idea for 60 years. They haven't made it work yet."

Part of the issue is size. Perkowitz explains that in reality, the machines that would generate this would be the size of a building. However, Tony Stark has managed to create a device that will do this same smashing together of hydrogen nucleii in something that's about 3 inches in diameter.

The film actually quotes the power level that Tony's ARC reactor puts out, and Perkowitz was intrigued enough to do some calculations. He determined that the reactor puts out somewhere between 1-16 million horsepower. 1 million hp is the equivalent to 2000-3000 Corvettes...so we're talking about something pretty damn powerful coming out of a device the size of a hockey puck.

If one could actually manage to do this, then Perkowitz says that the Iron Man suit could do just about anything, from punching through walls to - yes - even flying! 

Science Online 2013: Science Comics

One of my favorite sessions this year at Science Online was the session moderated by Maki Naro (@sciencecomic) and Kate McKissick (@beatricebiology) on Distilling Ideas: Communicating Science With Comics. The discussion ranged from creative issues to copyright scandals to suggstions of work to check out. And in true Science Online fashion, the entire room became involved in the discussion, offering suggestions and commentary.

In a conference that focused a lot on words, it was a change of pace to talk about how a limited word count can actually help get an idea across. Tom Swanson, who did physics cartoons when he was in grad school, pointed out that this is something he often needs to explain when people pitch him ideas. After all, if it takes someone a full two minutes to explain an idea, it's going to be too complex to work in a short comic. However, when the just right words are paired with a specific image, science comics can be an efficient, powerful way to deal with hot button issues such as climate change.

Videomaker Henry Reich from Minute Physics said that he loves getting suggestions for things to explain, but not how to explain them. He said, “My job is figuring out the how part.”

And that's where the fun comes in. The majority of science comics tend to fall into two distinct categories: inside jokes for those scientists and those that educate or explain scientific concepts or ideas to the general public. Naro said that he gets inspired by everything from Neil DeGrasse Tyson tweets to articles to social issues, although most of his comics end up being about biology and space because that’s what he’s interested in.

At a time when it takes just a second to copy something and post it, all the artists in the room expressed the importance of getting permission to use their work and proper crediting. McKissick has a very clear policy posted on her blog about people using her work: 

Can I use your stupid drawings and say they're mine?

No, you can't do that.  However, you can share my stupid drawings as long as you credit me and this website. 

Wait, why do you say your drawings are stupid?

Either I'm a connoisseur of self-deprecating humor, or I'm horribly insecure. I'll let you know when I figure it out.

However, she recently found that her “Amoeba Hug” comic had been posted elsewhere, and someone else had been given credit for it. She got in touch with the site and asked that it share her original piece and properly credit it. Because someone at the site had essentially redrawn her comic, they did not have the same view of copyright and at first refused to remove it. Eventually, they took down the erroneously credited piece, but not without a lot of effort on McKissick's part.

Here's the first panel of McKissick's original:

And here's the "original" posted by the site without permission and with erroneous crediting. As you can see, it's pretty clear it's a copy of McKissick's work. 

Reich has had similar experiences with people downloading his YouTube videos, and then re-uploading them onto their own channels so that they could make money off of the advertising placed in the videos. One extreme example includes someone in Germany actually redoing his drawings and the voiceover in German with zero attribution.

Something else that became clear as we all were furiously scribbling down suggestions of work to take a look at was that there’s a need for some sort of science comic aggregator. There are certainly lists and blogrolls, but these aren’t really an efficient way to discover and browse science comics; a more robust database that the public can contribute to and that can be sorted by topic would be ideal. Any volunteers out there? Anyone need a challenge for a hackathon? 

If you’re interested in checking out more science comics and comic-oriented publications, here are some of the suggestions that came up during the session. If you want to search for more nuggets from the session on Twitter, look for #sciencecomics.

-Lauren Redniss’s graphic biography Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout. From The New York Times review: 

The electricity in “Radioactive,” however, derives from the friction between Ms. Redniss’s text and her ambitious and spooky art. Her text runs across and over these freewheeling pages, the boundaries between word and image constantly blurring. Her drawings are both vivid and ethereal. Her people have elongated faces and pale forms; they’re etiolated Modiglianis. They populate a Paris that’s become a dream city.

-xkcd: A webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language.

-Trinity: A graphic history of the first atomic bomb.

-Logicomix: An Epic Search for Truth. From the Amazon description:

This exceptional graphic novel recounts the spiritual odyssey of philosopher Bertrand Russell. In his agonized search for absolute truth, Russell crosses paths with legendary thinkers like Gottlob Frege, David Hilbert, and Kurt Gödel, and finds a passionate student in the great Ludwig Wittgenstein. But his most ambitious goal—to establish unshakable logical foundations of mathematics—continues to loom before him. Through love and hate, peace and war, Russell persists in the dogged mission that threatens to claim both his career and his personal happiness, finally driving him to the brink of insanity.

-odd todd's animations for an NPR story about carbon and climate change.

 

 

Science Online 2013: Artists aren't the only ones who feel like Imposters!

It’s now been just over a week since I returned from the sci-comm-palooza that was the 2013 ScienceOnline conference (aka Scio13). The annual event in the North Carolina Research Triangle brings together a mix of journalists, scientists, museum and institution outreach directors, narrative writers and educators, as well as many people who label themselves with several of these titles. There are conversations and sessions about all aspects of how science intersects with the digital realm, including how to deal with trolls on science blogs, the ways institutions are using online tools to reach new audiences, transitioning from blog writing to book writing, collaborative online research tools and the best apps to expose kids to science. And of course, my specialty, online video.

One of the themes floating through this year’s conference was that of Imposter Syndrome. The conference wiki page for this session quoted the Wikipedia description: 

"The impostor syndrome, sometimes called impostor phenomenon or fraud syndrome, is a psychological phenomenon in which people are unable to internalize accomplishments. Despite external evidence of their competence, those with the syndrome remain convinced that they are frauds and do not deserve the success they have achieved. Proof of success is dismissed as luck, timing, or as a result of deceiving others into thinking they are more intelligent and competent than they believe themselves to be."

This is not unique to the science communication community; I have had many conversations over the years with my fellow creative folk out here in Hollywood-land about Imposter Syndrome. Questions about creative worth constantly float through acting classes and writing workshops and therapy sessions. What happens when they find out I'm not really talented? That I don’t really know what I’m doing in this role? That I have no idea how to write? That I only have one idea and will never be able to write anything good again?

Part of the problem when dealing with recognition of one's own creative achievements is that the means of measuring those achievements are often subjective. Much of what we deal with involves someone "liking" or "responding" to our work. But even those who have attained the awards or box office success that are the universally recognized signs of achievement in Hollywood still experience Imposter Syndrome. Daniel Radcliffe, the star of the Harry Potter movies, talked in a 2011 interview about this: 

"...There are some days when I feel like, 'Yeah, God, I'm actually learning something, this is great!' And there are some days when I go, 'Oh God, I'm never going to feel good at this. I'm never going to feel like I'm not a fraud."

The award-winning Tina Fey, one of my comedy idols, has her own set of doubts. When doing press in 2010 for her movie Date Night, she was asked about whether she felt powerful, given her recognition for 30 Rock, her incredible SNL Sarah Palin impression and general reputation as one of the funniest ladies in the entertainment industry. 

"Do I feel powerful?...Not at all. There is no time to walk around and feel powerful. You want to know how I really feel?" she asks.

"In this business there is always the imposter syndrome. The beauty of the imposter syndrome is that you vacillate between extreme egomania and a complete feeling of, 'I'm a fraud. Oh God, they're on to me,"' she says, with a smile.

And now I must deal with my own unique combo of art-meets-science Imposter Syndrome. I want to write something about Scio13, but the more time that passes, the harder it is to do so. Somehow it’s easier to browse the web and spend my time reading other folks’ lovely posts on the event, growing ever more insecure about what I could write that would be as compelling, than it is to put pen to paper (well, fingers to keyboard) and pass along my own version of the experience. Or as Janet D. Stemwedel wrote on her blog about the topic:

Whether piping up to share what feel like insights is reasonable, or whether you are just wasting people's time.

In the end, though, the words “my version” are what I must remember. I am the only one who will have my particular take on the event. Just as I bring my own unique set of experiences and training to the acting and hosting work I do, I bring that same particular perspective to whatever I write. So over the next month or so I'll be diving into my notes from Scio13 and putting together a few choice nuggests from the conference. Stay tuned... 

 

The Lush List: 1/21/13 - Sundance Edition

The Sundance Film Festival is in full swing in Park City, Utah, and while I'm not missin' the snow and the cold, I am sad to miss the opportunity this year to binge on independent film for a week. But at least the magic of the Internets is giving me the opportunity to experience a litte bit of the festival from afar.

Sundance usually has at least a few films that deal with science and technology themes, and this year's festival is no exception. Selections from the Sundance's rich slate of documentaries take a more literal approach, while the narrative and experimental pieces at the festival use these themes as a jumping off point for engaging storytelling and flights of fancy. Here's a look at what the 2013 has in store. Descriptions for the films and events below have been taken from the Sundance Film Guide.

PANDORA'S PROMISE
Screening in Doc Premieres.
Dir: Robert Stone

The atomic bomb, the specter of a global nuclear holocaust, and disasters like Fukushima have made nuclear energy synonymous with the darkest nightmares of the modern world. But what if everyone has nuclear power wrong? What if people knew that there are reactors that are self-sustaining and fully controllable and ones that require no waste disposal? What if nuclear power is the only energy source that has the ability to stop climate change?

Prolific documentarian Robert Stone and environmentalists, scientists, and energy experts share the reasons why they have changed their minds from being fiercely anti– to strongly pro–nuclear energy. The film directly attacks popularly held reasons to oppose nuclear energy, including fear of another disaster like Chernobyl, the problem of waste, and the weakness of clean alternatives like wind and solar energy. Whatever your stance, Stone’s compelling film opens Pandora’s box and promises to change the conversation for years to come. With the world’s unquenchable thirst for energy and its resulting threat to our environment, the stakes may be nothing less than the survival of the planet.

WHEN I WALK
Screening in Doc Premieres
Dir: Jason DaSilva



It all started on a family vacation. In 2006, the 25-year-old, vital, handsome, talented Jason DaSilva was on a beach with his family when, suddenly, he fell down and couldn’t get back up. Doctors told him he had multiple sclerosis, and it could lead to loss of vision and muscle control, as well as a myriad of other problems. Jason decided to exercise more, but the problem just got worse. So he turned to his mom. She reminded him that he was a fortunate, privileged North American kid who had the opportunity to pursue the things he loved most—art and filmmaking. So Jason picked up the camera, turned it on himself, and began filming the slow, difficult decline of his body and the miracles he encountered along the way.

An emotional and inspirational documentary that is a pleasure to watch, When I Walk is an energizing and self-generating film experience whose creative engine is its young filmmaker’s determination to live and his ability to make sense of being plagued by a devastating disease through the art of cinematic storytelling.

VIRTUALLY HEROES
Screening in Midnight
Dir: G. J. Echternkamp

A sarcastic, self-aware character in a video game, Sgt. Books, becomes frustrated by the screwy logic of his universe: the pointless battles, superpowerful bosses, and an endless supply of virtual Vietcong. He can’t get the girl who appears at the end of each level, and he can’t get through to his gung-ho partner. To find answers to the questions posed by his odd existence, Books abandons his mission and seeks help from a straight-talking monk, delightfully played by another onscreen hero who also once received words of wisdom from a man in a robe.

The first Roger Corman production to screen at the Sundance Film Festival, Virtually Heroes is a war picture, a satire of video-game culture, a buddy comedy, and an existential mind trip wrapped up into one outrageous film that works on many surprising levels. Injecting the low-budget/high-concept film with a full dose of razor-sharp wit, director G. J. Ecthernkamp embraces the base and the profound as he seeks to unlock the cheat codes of life.

Interview with Director G. J. Echternkamp and producer Roger Corman. 

UPSTREAM COLOR
Screening in U.S. Dramatic Competition
Director: Shane Carruth

Kris is derailed from her life when she is drugged by a small-time thief. But something bigger is going on. She is unknowingly drawn into the life cycle of a presence that permeates the microscopic world, moving to nematodes, plant life, livestock, and back again. Along the way, she finds another being—a familiar, who is equally consumed by the larger force. The two search urgently for a place of safety within each other as they struggle to assemble the loose fragments of their wrecked lives.

Shane Carruth’s sensuously directed and much anticipated sophomore effort (his feature debut, Primer, won the Sundance Film Festival 2004 Grand Jury Prize) is a truly remarkable film that lies beyond the power of language to communicate while it delivers a cohesive sensory experience. With its muscular cinematic language rooted in the powerful yearnings felt before words can be formed, Upstream Color is an entirely original, mythic, romantic thriller that goes in search of truths that lie just beyond our reach.

For more:
Hollywood Reporter review

 jOBS
Screening in Premieres
Director: Joshua Michael Stern

In 1976, college dropout Steve Jobs heralded a revolution within the confines of his parents’ garage. Jobs, along with friend and technical wizard Steve Wozniak, unleashed the “homebrew” Apple 1 personal computer kit onto an unsuspecting public, producing 200 units by hand and shipping each one themselves (monitor and keyboard not included). Apple Inc. was born, and the world would never be the same. Today hundreds of millions of users around the world remain tethered to the remarkable products that Jobs championed—his impact on the world of technology was undoubtedly colossal, but his effect on our culture was simply immeasurable.

Although the road that Jobs traveled to become CEO of the company he cofounded was a tumultuous one, director Joshua Michael Stern unfurls his story with relative ease, and Ashton Kutcher’s highly nuanced portrayal of the technology icon adroitly captures the essence of a man who changed the way we live.

BLACKFISH
Screening in U.S. Documentary Competition
Director: Gabriela Cowperthwaite

Many of us have experienced the excitement and awe of watching 8,000-pound orcas, or “killer whales,” soar out of the water and fly through the air at sea parks, as if in perfect harmony with their trainers. Yet, in our contemporary lore this mighty black-and-white mammal is like a two-faced Janus—beloved as a majestic, friendly giant yet infamous for its capacity to kill viciously. Blackfish unravels the complexities of this dichotomy, employing the story of notorious performing whale Tilikum, who—unlike any orca in the wild—has taken the lives of several people while in captivity. So what exactly went wrong?

Shocking, never-before-seen footage and riveting interviews with trainers and experts manifest the orca’s extraordinary nature, the species’ cruel treatment in captivity over the last four decades, and the growing disillusionment of workers who were misled and endangered by the highly profitable sea-park industry. This emotionally wrenching, tautly structured story challenges us to consider our relationship to nature and reveals how little we humans have learned from these highly intelligent and enormously sentient fellow mammals.

For more:
CNN Films and Magnolia Pictures Acquire Documentary 'Blackfish' at Sundance

#PostModem
Screening in Shorts Competition
Directors: Jillian Mayer, Lucas Leyva

A comedic, satirical, sci-fi pop musical based on the theories of Ray Kurzweil and other futurists, #PostModem is the story of two Miami girls and how they deal with technological singularity, as told through a series of cinematic tweets.

 

PANEL: ONCE UPON A QUANTUM SYMMETRY: SCIENCE AND CINEMA
Ever since Méliès shot a rocket to the moon, cinema has had a wondrous fascination with science and technology. Movies can show us the working science of today, and with surprising prescience, the science of tomorrow. During our ten-year collaboration with the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, which aims to encourage more realistic and compelling stories about science and technology themes and characters, we’ve traveled from synapses in the brain to distant galaxies – hitting different corners of spacetime along the way, and proving that both scientists and filmmakers are creative, imaginative, speculative, and adventurous. Join Jon Amiel (Creation, Sommersby, Entrapment), Scott Burns (writer, Contagion, Pu-239, The Informant and producer An Inconvenient Truth), Dr. André FentonDr. Lisa Randall (Frank B. Baird, Jr., Professor of Science, Harvard University, author of Knocking on Heaven’s Door: How Physics and Scientific Thinking Illuminate the Universe and the Modern World) with moderator Paula Apsell (Senior Executive Producer, Nova and Nova ScienceNow, Director, WGBH Science Unit) as we continue the journey.

Jon Amiel is an English film director who has worked in film and television in both the UK and the US. After studies in English literature, Amiel graduated from Cambridge University and ran the Oxford and Cambridge Shakespeare Company, which often toured the USA. He worked as a story editor at BBC before directing the critically-acclaimed TV series The Singing Detective. He has directed for TV and film, and is currently in production on his latest feature film.

 

NEW FRONTIERS
The New Frontiers section of Sundance is a social and creative space that showcases media installations, multimedia performances, transmedia experiences, panel discussions, and more.

EYJAFJALLALOKULL
Playing in New Frontiers
Director: Joanie Lemercier

Inspired by the 2010 Icelandic volcanic eruption that wreaked travel havoc across Europe, Eyjafjallalokull is a stunning, three-dimensional, audiovisual mapping installation that challenges audiences’ perception of space by creating an optical illusion that transforms the walls of New Frontier into a sweeping digital vista that artistically recreates the seismic event.

NEW FRONTIERS PANELS

The Magic of MIT
When you think about the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, filmmaking, civic activism, and cultural criticism are probably not what come to mind. A visiting crew of MIT professors and students present some of their story-oriented and story-enabling work. This panel is moderated by Kamal Sinclair, senior manager of the New Frontier Story Lab, and features projects from the Object-Based Media Group and the Open Documentary Lab.

Tablet Storytelling Takes Off
When multimedia tablets popped up a few years ago, many of us wondered why we'd ever need a second, “dumber” computer. Filmmakers and artists saw something else entirely and started hacking together DSLR rigs, shooting interactive documentaries, and inventing new formats such as album apps and RGBD. This panel is moderated by Wendy Levy, executive director of the New Arts Axis, and features Scott Snibbe (Björk’s Biophilia, Beck’s Rework: Philip Glass Remixed), Greg Pak (Vision Machine), Eli Horowitz (Silent History), and Loc Dao (Bear 71, Circa 1948).

The Lush List: 1/8/2013 - YouTube Science

For years, YouTube got a rap as the place to watch cats on keyboards and stupid people tricks. Funny? Absolutely. Smart? Not so much. However, there are a number of YouTube creators who are now making savvy, entertaining videos about or inspired by science...and I'm not just talking about obvious choices like snippets from the TED Conference.

Over the last several weeks while prepping for the International Academy of Web Televison Awards, which honor the best in online programming, I fell down the rabbit hole of YouTube browsing far too often. Here are just a few of the folks worth checking out. Pieces range from the educational to the wacky to the lovely...

SciShow

This YouTube channel is from creator Hank Green,who is heavily involved in several different YouTube endeavours, including executive producing The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, a sassy online modernized adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Green has a bachelor's degree in Biochemistry and a master's degree in Environmental Studies, and the segments on his SciShow channel explain both basic and more involved scientific concepts. Green's casual, entertaining delivery helps the information he delivers about topics ranging from fracking to dark matter to biofilm go down easy, allowing even the science novice to walk away feeling like he or she understands something new. 

 

UltraSlo

This one's for those of you who like pretty pictures. UltraSlo features the work of Emmy Award winner Alan Teitel, who with his UltraSlo Studio, creates cool slow-motion videos of nature, explosions and random things like (false) teeth falling into a glass. Many of the videos have a psychedelic quality to them, such as this one of a humming bird, so this is the channel to check out when you feel like chilling for awhile...

 

Rhett and Link
This award-winning duo comprised of life-long best friends Rhett McLaughlin and Link Neal has created or been featured in over 500 web videos, including sketches, non-scripted reality pieces and music videos. In 2009, they were musical correspondents for the Science Channel's BRINK. The wrote songs and made music videos for three episodes, including "Hello (The S.E.T.I. Song)."

Sick Science

I always wanted a science teacher like Steve Spangler. He's done a lot of things - he's a science writer, teacher, and toy designer - but you're probably most familiar with his work with candy. Yep, he's the guy who dropped Mentos into a bottle of soda and created a cultural phenomenon in the early days of online video. Luckily, he's got a whole YouTube channel, as well as a website, dedicated to bringing more wacky experiments to the public.

   

And if you feel like taking a walk down memory lane, here's the original September 2005 Mentos geyser video:

=

The Lush List: 12/18/12 - Gifts for Science Lovers

 Looking for something fun for the science lover on your list?

Dvice.com has a neat list of "11 Cheap Gifts Bound to Impress Science Geeks." From plushy microbes to Mars rocks, the list includes items for both adults and kids. My favorites are the Gallium samples and the Aerogel.

GALLIUM
As described on dvice.com:

Gallium is a silvery metal with atomic number 31. It's used in semiconductors and LEDs, but the cool thing about it is its melting point, which is only about 85 degrees Fahrenheit. If you hold a solid gallium crystal in your hand, your body heat will cause it to slowly melt into a silvery metallic puddle. Pour it into a dish, and it freezes back into a solid.

This video from the Periodic Table of Videos shows how Gallium will melt in the hand, and features a cool experiment called "the beating heart" where the scientists use sulfuric acid to change the surface tension of a gallium sample. Sidenote: Video is also worth watching for the fantastic hair on Scientist #2.

AEROGEL

I had my first experience with Aerogel when I was at the NASA Social for the Mars Curiosity landing at the Jet Propulsion Lab, and we got to see a sample of it. You can get your very own piece of the world's lowesty density solid over at ThinkGeek.com. This QUEST Lab piece gives the basics on the substance, including a little blowtorch demo showing off its insulation properties.

SCI-JEWELRY

GeekSugar's gift suggestions trend more towards the scientific lifestyle, with suggestions ranging from Laboratory Beaker Mugs to the Hungry Scientist Handbook. I'm a girl who likes her jewelry, so I am partial to the DNA Ladder Earrings from NB Designs. The shop on Etsy has a whole bunch of science-themed pieces, including Petri Dish earrings and a Bacterium tie tac. 

SCI-SLEEPOVER

If you're looking for something a bit more experiential, Business Insider's suggested gift list features a night at the American Museum of Natural History. Bring your sleeping bag and a flashlight, and get ready to frolic after-hours at the Museum before settling down to slumber beneath the big blue whale.

                                                                        Image: AMNH

The Lush List: 12/11/12 - Star Trek Into Darkness, Geminds and Advice from Neil Gaiman

STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS TRAILER & FIRST 9!

All I can think of is "Khan Khan Khan" when I watch this "announcement trailer" for the new Star Trek movie, but according to most of the press reviews of the first 9 minutes, we're going to have to wait to find out more about the villian of Into Darkness. The opening of the movie will be playing before IMAX screenings of The Hobbit starting on Friday, but if you just can't wait, io9.com has a round up of what the critics who were given a sneak peek have been saying.

EYE ON THE SKY

If you're a fan of meteor showers, you're in for a treat this week. The annual Geminids show lights up the sky, peaking on December 13th. As explained on Space.com, one of the reasons for the great show has to do with the origin of the shower.

The Geminids, unusually among meteor showers, are the leftovers of an asteroid (most showers originate with comets). They are caused when rubble from the asteroid hits Earth's atmosphere, lighting a path through the sky as it burns up.

The fact that the Geminid-causing debris comes from an asteroid and not a comet makes the particles denser and more durable than the typical cometary particles that make up other showers, said NASA's Bill Cooke.

As many as 100-150 meteors may be visible during peak times in dark areas. Alas, Los Angeles is not exactly what I'd call prime viewing territory, so I'll be relying on others' pictures to get my meteor fix.

TIPS FOR WORKING IN THE ARTS

I stumbled across this gem of a list from horror/fantasy/sci fi writer Neil Gaiman, which is drawn from a speech he gave to the graduating class at The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. As the year draws to a close and thoughts turn to year-end evaluations and resolutions, here are a few ideas to inspire you for 2013. 

1. Embrace the fact that you’re young. Accept that you don’t know what you’re doing. And don’t listen to anyone who says there are rules and limits.
2. If you know your calling, go there. Stay on track. Keep moving towards it, even if the process takes time and requires sacrifice.
3. Learn to accept failure. Know that things will go wrong. Then, when things go right, you’ll probably feel like a fraud. It’s normal.
4. Make mistakes, glorious and fantastic ones. It means that you’re out there doing and trying things.
5. When life gets hard, as it inevitably will, make good art. Just make good art.
6. Make your own art, meaning the art that reflects your individuality and personal vision.
7. Now a practical tip. You get freelance work if your work is good, if you’re easy to get along with, and if you’re on deadline. Actually you don’t need all three. Just two.
8. Enjoy the ride, don’t fret the whole way. Stephen King gave that piece of advice to Neil years ago.
9. Be wise and accomplish things in your career. If you have problems getting started, pretend you’re someone who is wise, who can get things done. It will help you along.
10. Leave the world more interesting than it was before.

[Source: Open Culture]

 

 

The Lush List: 12/4/12 Curiosity Video, End of the Universe and Space's Neighborhood Watch

STILL CURIOUS?

If you've forgotten just how inspiring the Curiosity Rover and those responsible for her journey are, take 5 minutes to watch this lovely piece created by director/photojournalist Dan Winters, editor John Aldrich and sound designer/composer Shervin Shaeri. With narration from key members of the MSL team, including Adam Steltzner, Miguel San Martin, Ann Devereaux and Allen Chen detailing their personal feelings about the rover, it's a lovely, visual journey through the life of Curiosity thus far.

Here's my favorite quote from the piece, which encapsulates the sense of connection between the engineers and scientists who birthed Curiosity, but now only get the occasional phone call or pic from their kiddo far, far away:

"We get to see her in images that she takes of herself, but we won't ever touch again and we won't ever be able to fix her again." 

Mars Rover Curiosity from Mutant Jukebox - Music & Sound on Vimeo.
Photography Credits: NASA JPL, Dan Winters, David Robertson, Travis Smith

NEIGHBORHOOD WATCH FOR SPACE?

NASA has a little problem...there are about 500,000 pieces of hazardous space junk orbiting the earth, and there's no trash collector scheduled for the route anytime in the near future! This debris includes spent rocket stages, defunct satellites and fragments from other spacecraft that are the result of erosion, explosion and collision, and it threatens current peacekeeping and combat satellites, as a collision between a piece of the space trash and a satellite could release more than 20,000 times the energy of a head-on auto collision at 65 mph.

So what's a government agency to do?

DARPA has created SpaceView, "a space debris tracking project that provides amateur astronomers with the means to make a difference....The vision behind the SpaceView program is to provide more diverse data to the Space Surveillance Network (SSN), a U.S. Air Force program charged with cataloguing and observing space objects to identify potential near-term collisions. SpaceView hopes to achieve that goal by engaging U.S. amateur astronomers by purchasing remote access to an already in-use telescope or by providing a telescope to selected astronomers. When a telescope that is provided by the program is not in use by the SpaceView program, DARPA will provide its use for astronomy and astrophotography." 

So in other words, if you're located where they need you to be, you might get to time-share some equipment, qualify for some fancy upgraded hardware or even receive some minor financial compensation. And of course, there's that satisfying undercover-superhero-feeling that comes from quietly saving the Earth!

Interested astronomers may learn more about the program and sign up at www.spaceviewnetwork.com. Participants will be selected based on geographic location and access to a permanent site for a telescope, among other criteria.

COLBERT'S INTELLECTUAL HYDROPLANE: BECOMING MASSIVE!

Theoretical physicist Sean Carroll hungout with Stephen Colbert last week while promoting his new book THE PARTICLE AT THE END OF THE UNIVERSE: How the Hunt for Higgs Boson Leads us to the Edge of a New World.

In between Colbert's jokes about jetpacks and teleportation, Carroll attempts to explain what exactly the Higgs Boson is and why it's important.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Sean Carroll
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog Video Archive

 

The Lush List: 10/17/12 - Hoarding, Old Spice Explosion and Endeavour in LA

So you may have noticed the posts grinding to a halt over the past several weeks. Alas, I've been spending far too much time with cardboard boxes instead of my computer. I found out mid-August that the woman who owns the house we were renting had decided to sell it, so we had to scramble to find a new place to live and then pack up all our stuff. 

SCIENCE OF HOARDING
Moving is always a pain the ass, but the fact that I'm a bit of a pack rat makes it even more challenging. And while I'm nowhere near being labeled a Hoarder, I've been known to keep a few too many nostalgic items that perhaps would be better left behind. As I was surveying the large pile of boxes now exiled to the garage at our new place for storage, it got me to thinking about why people hang onto things. Which led me to the following about the science of hoarding.

In a functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study done by National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) grantee David Tolin, Ph.D, and his colleagues at Hartford Hospital, Hartford, CT, parts of a decision-making brain circuit in patients with hoarding disorder over-activated when deciding whether to keep or throw away their own possessions, but had no such reaction when throwing away items belonging to others. From the NIMH press release:

In this case, the implicated brain areas are hubs of a salience network that weighs the emotional significance of things and regulates emotional responses and states. Hoarding patients’ severity of symptoms, self-ratings of indecisiveness, and feeling of things being “not just right” were correlated with the degree of aberrant activity in these hubs. The results add to evidence of impaired decision-making in hoarding disorder and may help to disentangle its brain workings from those of OCD and depression.

EYE CANDY: BLOW IT UP
Moving causes a lot of stress, so sometimes you just need to take a break and blow off some steam. Old Spice's "Explosion" is not scientific - it just made me laugh.

MOVING THE SHUTTLE
We got a pretty big truck to move our stuff (did I mention I like to keep things?), but it was nothing compared to the rig that got the Space Shuttle Endeavour through the streets of Los Angeles on October 12th-13th as it traveled from LAX to its new permanent home at the California Science Center. Brandon Fibbs got some fantastic pics of the shuttle which you can see here in his photostream on Flickr, and here's a pretty amazing time lapse of the Shuttle's journey. 

The Los Angeles Times. Video by Bryan Chan.

While the Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center, the future permanent home for Endeavour, is being built, the shuttle will be on display in the Samuel Oschin Space Shuttle Endeavour Display Pavilion, opening on October 30, 2012.

Living on Mars Time

I continue to be entralled by all things Curisoity, including the story of flight director Dr. David Oh's family. Oh, his wife and three kids have been living on "Mars time," shifting their daily routine to accommodate the extra 39 minutes necessary to stay in sync with the Martian day or "sol."

While those of us with busy schedules often yearn for an extra hour or two, the practical application of such added time is complicated. It's not like you just get an extra 40 minutes to take care of all the stuff on your To Do list that you haven't gotten to yet. As the day shifts, "morning "and "night" eventually flip-flop as clock time becomes untethered to sunrise and sunset. Day becomes night, and suddenly you're eating breakfast at 11:30 p.m.

Karen Thompson Walker's lovely YA novel THE AGE OF MIRACLES offers a fictional imagining of what it might be like if our days started extending (which I wrote about in this previous post). But for a real-life account, hop over to Braden Oh's MarsTimr blog, where the 13-year old  chronicled his family's adventure as they spent about a month living on a rotating schedule.

Aug 3: Dr. David Oh gives the NASA Social a tour of Mission Control and tells us about what to expect the night of the Curiosity Landing

I loved reading about the details of figuring out how to configure economical blackout shades for sleeping during the day (Gorilla tape = key element), riding bikes in the middle of the night, and the fun of waking up at 3:30 p.m. And of course, the conundrum of deciding if a 3 a.m. meal at Denny's is dinner or breakfast (label-schmabel, pancakes work for any meal!). Oh's family even came up with some new timeshift terminology:

We’ve pretty much lost track of what day it is.  Towards the beginning of the month we could say things like tomorrow, tonight, last night, tomorrow night, etc.  Right now our day is split between two days, and we’ve resorted to calling our days “Sols.”  Currently our Sol is split between two Earth days.

To tell what we’re talking about, we’ve been using terms like “Solmorrow” and “Yestersol.” This gets pretty weird when saying “Yestersol night” and “Solmorrow evening.”

But perhaps the coolest part of reading Braden's blog was seeing how well kids respond to innovative efforts to involve them in science. Dr. Oh could have just explained the change in time, shown his kids a few graphs and charts, and then disappeared into Mars Time with the rest of the Mission team. Instead, he and his wife gave their children a unique visceral experience. As Braden writes in his post as he shifts back to Earth time: “Dare mighty things!”

For more:
-Check out the NPR story on the Oh family's experiment:
-Rover updates: Follow @MarsCuriosity on Twitter.
-For another account of the landing weekend: Brad Snowder's writes in detail about the NASA Social experience on his blog Skywise Unlimited.