Month: April 2015

The material consists of a 25 mm thick layer of the “foam,” actually a low-density, sponge-like composite of magnesium, silicon, and copper, and aluminum, which is sandwiched by two 2 mm thick aluminium sheets. There is no glue either, it’s all held together by metallic bonds.

via New Aluminium Foam promises faster, stronger and lighter trains |Interesting Engineering.

Lightning in an erupting volcano in Mexico.  Photo by Hernando Rivera

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/09/18/california-drought-gifs_n_5843534.html

Elon tweet; “Looks like Falcon landed fine, but excess lateral velocity caused it to tip over post landing”….

http://www.sciencealert.com/this-new-mesh-captures-oil-but-lets-water-filter-through

Since the new motor delivers its record-setting performance at rotational speeds of just 2,500 revolutions per minute, it can drive propellers directly, without the use of a transmission. “This innovation will make it possible to build series hybrid-electric aircraft with four or more seats,”

Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2015-04-world-record-electric-motor-aircraft.html#jCp

http://phys.org/news/2015-04-world-record-electric-motor-aircraft.html

Innovation in bee hive tech.  Long overdue.  Read more here.

http://wonderfulengineering.com/flow-hive-makes-it-easier-to-extract-honey-from-beehives-with-the-push-of-a-button/

the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), reveals that the protoplanetary disk surrounding the million-year-old star MWC 480 is brimming with methyl cyanide (CH3CN), a complex carbon-based molecule. Both this molecule and its simpler cousin hydrogen cyanide (HCN) were found in the cold outer reaches of the star’s newly formed disk, in a region that astronomers believe is analogous to our own Kuiper Belt

via Complex organic molecules discovered in infant star system.

Inject tumor paint into a patient’s vein, and it will actually cross the blood-brain barrier and find its way to a brain tumor. Then, by shining near-infrared light on a tumor coated with tumor paint, you can make that tumor glow, right there in the OR.

“The surgeons right now use their eyes and their fingers and their thumbs to distinguish cancer from normal brain,” says Olson. But poking around in someone’s brain with only those tools, it’s inevitable surgeons will sometimes miss bits of tumor or, just as bad, damage healthy brain cells.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2015/04/08/397364328/doctors-test-tumor-paint-in-people