ffutures

The Bank of England wants nominations for a scientist to be featured on the new £50 note. The rules are that the person has to be


I've gone with Rosalind Franklin, one of the pioneers of X-Ray crystallography and an important figure in the discovery of the structure of DNA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin

You can nominate on this page:

https://app.keysurvey.co.uk/f/1348443/10fc/

The page doesn't ask for any personal details about the person making the nomination.

Also posted at https://ffutures.dreamwidth.org/2141400.html, where there are comments. Please comment here or there using OpenID.

 This so belongs on an Analog cover!

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170329.html

Also posted at http://ffutures.dreamwidth.org/2064099.html, where there are comments. Please comment here or there using OpenID.

"All of the Kepler multi-planet systems (1705 planets in 685 systems as of 24 November 2015) on the same scale as the Solar System (the dashed lines). The size of the orbits are all to scale, but the size of the planets are not. For example, Jupiter is actually 11x larger than Earth, but that scale makes Earth-size planets almost invisible (or Jupiters annoyingly large). The orbits are all synchronized such that Kepler observed a planet transit every time it hits an angle of 0 degrees (the 3 o'clock position on a clock)."

Having resisted the siren call of thermal imaging I decided to take a look at my other science posts, noticed this one from 2013:

http://ffutures.livejournal.com/1003932.html

describing the TI Sensortag, a cheap Bluetooth sensing device that might be interesting for school science etc. and comes with free software for Android and iPad / iPhone. I wondered what, if anything, had happened to the technology.

It turns out that what has happened is that they've apparently made it better. The processor is ten times faster, and there are more sensors. The original gizmo included an accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, barometer, hygrometer, and infra-red thermometer. The new version has ambient light, digital microphone, magnetic sensor, humidity, pressure, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer, object temperature and ambient temperature. .

Since it works out at £24 quid including delivery and VAT I've decided to buy one to play with - not sure I really need it, but if not I'll sell it on. Ought to be here in the next day or two, I'll post when I've tried it out.

http://www.ti.com/ww/en/wireless_connectivity/sensortag2015/?INTC=SensorTag&HQS=sensortag

There's now a UK vendor for the FLIRone range of thermal-imaging cameras for smartphones and tablets:

The original one for iPhone 5/5s - £116.65 + VAT
www.acutestdirect.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductCategoryID=19153

New versions that plug into other iPhones/iPads and Android phones

iPad/iPhone with lightning connector - £166.63 + VAT
www.acutestdirect.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductCategoryID=22562

Android (not available yet) £166.63 + VAT
www.acutestdirect.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductCategoryID=22563

I think all three incorporate two cameras, one for visible light and one for thermal imaging, so that the thermal colours are overlaid on a higher-resolution image. I'd love to have a play, but I'd need the more expensive model and it's a bit outside my "play with technology" budget.

Article about the DSCOVR observation satellite now at the L1 position a million miles from Earth, including time-lapse video of the Earth and moon.

http://www.wired.com/2015/08/satellite-took-incredible-photo-almost-didnt-leave-earth/

Anyone else look at the Apod feed today (well actually yesterday but it takes a while to reach Livejournal) and immediately think "Sauron!"?

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150510.html

A slight problem here in that dwellers on a small planet will not see what we see on Earth (although it obviously isn't our moon and sun); the odds against their world having a moon that covers the same angle as their sun are enormous! But fun anyway...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2015/clangers-eclipse

Just been reminded that there's a solar eclipse coming up on 20th March - only partial in the UK, total in the Faroe Islands, which I suspect may already be fully booked out.

Timings for London will be
Start: 8.25am
Mid-eclipse: 9.31am
Eclipse ends: 10.41am
The rest of the UK should be similar.

Fingers crossed for clear skies!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-solar-eclipse-2015-when-is-it-what-time-will-it-start-and-where-can-i-see-it-10076174.html

Interesting demonstration of what travelling at lightspeed would really mean, when compared to the size of the universe. It starts at the sun; due to time constraints it ends a little past Jupiter.

http://vimeo.com/117815404

Pointed out by ACS WINOLJ on the Twisting the Hellmouth forums.

Things just got very interesting in the thermal imaging business.

The last time I saw a "cheap" thermal imaging camera it cost about 600 pounds. But there's now an FLIR camera available for IOS and Android devices; UK price I've seen is £185 + VAT, USA $350. Resolution is 160x120 interpolated to 640x480, which is fairly typical for cheaper thermal imaging cameras.

http://flir.com/FLIRONE/

UK vendor Rapid electronics, there may be cheaper alternatives

http://tinyurl.com/pobg7jw

I won't be buying one for myself, but I would have been all over it before I retired.

update - looking at this more carefully, it seems to be designed to fit onto the iPhone 5 and 5s rather than generic connectivity, which means that if you have an older iPhone or an iPad you're probably out of luck. I was originally told there was an android version but this appears to be untrue, sorry about that. The Seek Thermal mentioned in comments appears to be for iPads with lightning connectors as well as iPhones, and there really is an Android version, but it's not as versatile in other respects, e.g. it doesn't take a visible light picture as well as IR, also the cheapest I'm seeing it in the UK is on ebay at £269.

Powerful rare earth magnets allow some interesting tricks - this one's a self-propelled "train" made of a battery and some magnets, running inside a copper coil. If I was working I'd probably want to try this, though I'm willing to bet it kills the batteries (which look like small camera batteries such as AAAA) fairly quickly.

Just noticed this while looking for something else, and even though I'm retired I'm very tempted to get one just to play with it.

It's a tiny low power consumption multi-sensor bluetooth device that is supported by various apps including a free datalogger program for ipads and iphones - for £20.60 + VAT. Think it's $25 in the USA.

The sensors are accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, barometer, hygrometer, and infra-red thermometer.

http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/displayProduct.jsp?sku=2334329&action=view&CMP=GRHS-1001023

The datalogger for ipads and iphones is called SensorTag and available through the app store.

This looks amazing, has anyone tried it yet?

later - forgot to say that this is supported by a lot of tools for writing your own apps etc.

much later - just noticed that this is for ipad 3 onwards and similar vintage iphones etc., earlier ones won't work. If in doubt check the documentation.

Also, it looks like power and transmission speed are low - you're looking at status checks, not a continuous stream of data, and not from really long range. Still interesting though.

A visit to the Yerkes observatory in 1897 - The Greatest Telescope on Earth by Walter George Bell.

http://forgottenfutures.com/library/telescope/telescope.htm

It's an interesting look at one of the last big refractor telescopes, but formatting HTML for measurements in weird fractions of an inch is a total pain!

Let me know if anything looks odd.

I'm retired now but do like to keep up with what's going on in science education - someone just posted this link to one of the technician forums, a collection of virtual experiments designed for classroom use on e.g. a whiteboard but easily usable on a home PC, tablet, etc.

http://www.reading.ac.uk/virtualexperiments/experiments.html

Level seems to be from secondary up to to A-Level, should be good for home schooling etc.

Gacked from sjgames

Japanese scientists have genetically engineered silk worms with coral or jellyfish genes to produce silk that glows in UV light - in three different colours:

http://io9.com/transgenic-silkworks-spin-glowing-fluorescent-silk-541389233

So long as you don't end up with silkworms that sting you I suppose it's OK...

Someone at another school has found this and is trying to identify it - I've checked a 1927 biology catalogue and a 1952 chemistry catalogue with no success, but maybe someone here has an idea what it is. It's made of earthenware, and the wide part (at the bottom, but for all I know it's intended to be at the top) is 10.5cm wide. The top bit that looks like a handle is solid, not hollow, so it isn't a funnel.

My guess is something like a cover for a drain or some sort of jar, but does anyone know for sure?

Weird question - can anyone identify the manufacturer of this fire alarm sensor?



We have rather a lot of them in our labs since they were rebuilt, and we need to cover them with an appropriate red cap when we do anything that might trigger the alarms, which happens all too often. We have three or four caps, but there are two sites with ten labs plus prep rooms and store rooms, and a corridor outside four of the labs with seven of these detectors - the ceiling is split into several areas by beams crossing the corridor, and they have a sensor in each area. We could really use a lot more. The caps look like this:



Unfortunately I have no idea who made these - the number shown is its number on the alarm network, not a model number or anything, and I can't see a maker's name anywhere.

Anyone got any thoughts?

Later - manufacturer tentatively identified, I've contacted them re spares and hope they'll reply sooner or later. Thanks, everyone.

pauldormer mentioned the use of lead in cosmetics in the last century. Not by any means the worst chemical used, others included mercury, antimony, and of course our old friend [arsenic...]

Maybe Botox isn't so bad after all...

Just saw an advert for some skin care stuff made by Olay, and they mentioned that it contains hyleronic acid. My first thought was "they're making that up."

Turns out they aren't, the stuff really exists. There's an apparent causational link between high levels of the stuff in your skin and malignant tumours, so why you would want more of the stuff on your skin is beyond me, but I'm not in the cosmetics business.

Gacked from james_nicoll

A binary brown dwarf has been found only 6.3 LY from the solar system. It must be very annoying for everyone who still uses the T2300 jump maps!

http://science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2013-news/Luhman3-2013

The programme I consider to be possibly the funniest educational video ever made has been put on line (for educational use) on YouTube. It's about 20 minutes, I can best describe it as live action Toon, and it's hilarious...



All of the other Scientific Eye videos are on line too - I think C4 decided they weren't going to make much more selling them given their age - though you are, of course, only supposed to look at them for educational purposes. None of the others are quite as hilarious, but they're all pretty good considering their age.

This is interestingly strange, a very well-done scientific joke:

The Occuplanids are a class of fairly ubiquitous, essentially 2-dimensional parasitic (but possibly symbiotic) macroscopic forms which vary widely in dentition and colouration leading to easy identification and classification.

A detailed taxonomy is here:
www.horg.com/horg/?page_id=2

Tunguska-sized, discovered on the 9th, flew closer than the moon on the 12th, back in 2015

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/50165912/ns/technology_and_science-space/t/whoa-earth-gets-close-shave-newfound-asteroid/#.UNbs7kZIBdp

I had never noticed this despite using Slinkies fairly often for wave experiments at work. REALLY cool!

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/12/14/falling_slinky_defies_gravity/

I went to the dentist yesterday, after a large part of one of my teeth broke off. The tooth had previously had root canal work so there was no pain, but it was pretty much ruined, and obviously had to be filled and replaced.

Given the size I was expecting them to take impressions and make a crown, and have to go back in a couple of weeks to get it fixed, but it turns out that's not the way they do things any more.

The procedure went roughly as follows - I'm undoubtedly misunderstanding or missing some parts of the process that weren't obvious to me in the chair:

1. Clean out cavity with the usual drill burr thing.
2. Spray interior of cavity with some sort of sealant gunk.
3. Harden it with UV light for a few seconds.
4. Insert a probe into the cavity (not sure what it was, I think a teeny camera but it might have been sonar) and waggle it around a little.
5. Show me a 3D image of the hole on a computer screen and explain that it's going to have to be filled with a ceramic plug. Naturally I asked how long it would take for the plug to be made - answer, it's a CAD-CAM process, they do it in the surgery with some sort of milling machine, and I should go and sit in the waiting room for 15 minutes.
   
6. 15 minutes later, I go back upstairs, he pops some glue into the cavity, inserts the plug, has me bite a few times to get it bedded in, checks that it isn't sticking up too much, and grinds off a couple of places where it's a little too high.

And that was it. Total time from arriving at the surgery to getting out of the chair about 30 minutes, and the whole thing done in one appointment, not two or three. Colour me impressed...

Some interesting (and sometimes counter-intuitive) science videos made with a thermal imaging camera and cups of water, chip pans, etc.

http://energy.concord.org/ir/

I love the way they say the cameras "only" cost $900 (about £500). When they cost around £100 we might be able to afford one, though I doubt it.

A reminder that Venus transits the sun tonight / tomorrow. It'll be most visible from Eastern Europe, Alaska, etc., unfortunately it won't be visible from the UK until about the last hour, from dawn to about 6 AM BST.

I don't expect to be able to see it due to the crap weather etc., fortunately I had a really good view of the 2004 one, where the weather was perfect. I took some pictures using a 500mm lens with a sheet of silver mylar foil (the stuff used for emergency blankets etc.) over the end of the lens, worked pretty well. See icon. Unfortunately I had the camera held a little crooked for the last one, and now can't find the original non-digital photos to fix it.

All sorts of details etc. here

http://venustransit.nasa.gov/2012/transit/index.php
http://eclipse.gsfc.nasa.gov/OH/transit12.html

I've made about twenty attempts to take a picture of the conjunction of the Moon, Venus and Jupiter in the sky tonight. Needless to say it really can't be done properly with amateur gear; I got the Moon and Venus reasonably well, but to get Jupiter at all I had to take such a long exposure that the moon is just a bright arc with no detail. I was hand-holding the camera which didn't help. Here's the best picture, looking west from my sister's garden; I've adjusted the brightness and contrast slightly, but haven't otherwise modified it. Even so it's nowhere near as good as e.g. the one in the Evening Standard tonight, which I suspect is heavily doctored:

( conjunctionCollapse )

The moon is top left, Jupiter is bottom right (I think - it's possible I have it completely wrong!)

...was two dataloggers, a slightly older version of a type we use in our labs, for £12.01 - £12 postage, and the penny it started off at since I was the only bidder! They arrived today and are perfect for our needs, identical (apart from having a serial port and USB converter cable instead of a mini USB port - and the cable worked without any drivers) to the ones that normally cost us £100 a pop - and that's a reduced price because we're trading in old equipment.

Several interesting lessons here:

Why was I the only bidder?
- Because the vendor listed them in wholesale and job lots / consumer electronics instead of the usual Business / medical and laboratory category.
- because he used none of the key-words that might have attracted more interest, such as "Data-logger"
- because the description didn't really say what they were or what they can do, or mention some built-in sensors that might have made them useful for other purposes.
- and I suspect, because £12 postage seemed high if you didn't know what they were.

Why did I find them?
- because I have about 20 searches running on things like manufacturer names, and the vendor did use the manufacturer's name - a really obscure one, but it's one I search on.

Lessons I've learned from this as a seller
- choose a realistic starting price unless I am VERY sure that the item will sell for a lot more if I start low
- choose the right category
- describe things clearly
- use all possible search terms in the item title

Lessons as a buyer
- definitely keep those obscure searches running!

Currently feeling very smug - may not last, but it's nice while it does!