ASPEX, a company that makes desktop scanning electron microscopes (SEMs), is running a promotional campaign under which anyone can mail them a sample, which they will then image under one of their SEMs. The results will be posted on their webpage, and all for free! Challenge: Take advantage of their offer to produce publishable data. [via Boing Boing]
Repurposing a leftover CO2 cylinder and regulator, maker Joel Miller assembled this DIY home carbonation unit after a quick parts run.
So I’m crowd-sourcing the problem. Is there a specialist in the house who knows something about explosive polymerization? And if so, can you tell me: What is the polymerization analog of a small firecracker? Some kind of diminutive goo-bomb that will go off impressively but without injuring bystanders or spraying horrible toxins everywhere? If you can help me come up with a reasonably safe system, I’ll make it happen. I’ll even sign a waiver first.
Shown above is a video of the Dragonfly DF1, an experimental aircraft under development by Swisscopter US. Instead of a traditional gasoline engine, the Dragonfly has peroxide-powered rocket engines on the tips of its main blades, with a mechanical take-off to drive the tail-rotor. Large tanks of high-test peroxide supposedly provide 50 minutes of flight at 40 mph.
If you’re interested in materials science, design, architecture, and/or chemistry, and you live in Austin or the central Texas area, you should not miss the UT Austin School of Architecture Materials Lab, located in room 3.102 of the West Mall Office Building on The University of Texas Campus. They’re closed this week for Spring Break, but are normally open from 9-5 every weekday. It’s open to the public, and is chock-a-block with physical samples of all kinds of exotic materials that would otherwise be difficult to get your hands on in small quantities. Anyone can poke around, and registered students can check out samples just like a book-library.
If you’re not in the area, the UTSOA Materials Lab is building an online database of its collection organized by composition, form, properties, process, and application. And although they don’t have photos of all the samples uploaded yet, it’s still fascinating browsing.
Forget the laboratory supply store, you can score a centrifuge on late-night TV! I recently visited a lab that had a salad spinner on their lab bench and at first I wondered if they were putting together a salad lunch there but when I took a peek I got a nice surprise. It turns out […]
We hit independent Oregonian jewelers Nicholas and Felice’s Pi Pendant and Pi Earrings for Pi Day this last Sunday, but, as you can see from these pics, they’ve got cool handmade jewelry for geeks of all flavors. If you’re a chemist, for instance, you might appreciate their Atomic Symbol for Silver Necklace, shown above, either as jewelry or as a gorgeous (and attractively labeled) silver specimen for your elements collection.
