Science Made Cool

Evolution of a Business

Shortly after I arrived at Duke University to start graduate school, my advisor, Steve Wainwright, converted a space in our building’s basement into a kind of art studio for biologists. Typical of Steve, the idea behind the Bio-Design Studio was simple and elegant – if the studio could help biologists build working models of the organisms (or relevant parts of organisms) they were studying, the models could then help the scientists ask more profound questions in their research.

More Robot Fish News

Once again, the mighty Pink Tentacle blog has news of engineers in Japan combining two of that nation's abiding passions:  robots and fish.  The result is a robotic sea bream which moves just like a living fish and so can quietly spy on actual fish without disturbing them.  This has a whole passel of applications in environmental monitoring and tracking fish for commercial fishing. 

This isn't the first robot sea creature we've talked about, but it's probably the most realistic-looking.  Which means next time you order sushi, be careful to watch out for dangling wires.

Listen to the Voices in Your Head

Here's some news certain to gladden the hearts of schizophrenics everywhere: researchers at Sierra Nevada Corporation have devised a microwave device named MEDUSA which can "beam" sounds directly into the heads of targets. In other words, if it was aimed at you, you'd hear sounds, but nobody else would hear anything, and covering your ears wouldn't make it go away. The armed forces are interested because of its applications in silent communications, crowd control, and nonlethal weaponry (more on that anon). There's also the potential for its use in advertising -- brain spam. That last doesn't worry me much, as I suspect anyone adopting MEDUSA for advertising would quickly discover that their brand name would become associated with monumental hatred in the minds of their potential customers.

Crazy people, of course, have believed that microwave beams are making them hear voices since the invention of radio. They blame it on the government, the Illuminati, the Deros, space aliens, or whoever. Since the MEDUSA device uses microwaves, it even seems likely that the canonical tinfoil hat might actually work against it!

There is one aspect of the MEDUSA system which is a little gruesome. Right now it can only be used to create faint sounds inside the heads of targets, and the designers are afraid that at high power there might be undesirable "shockwave" effects. I think this is a polite way of saying "it might make your head explode." I'm also sure that the armed services consider this a feature, rather than a bug -- at low power it can drive people away with irritating sounds, and at high power their brains go boom. What's not to like?

What the Well-Dressed Space Explorer Will Be Wearing

Pushing ahead (slowly) with the new, improved, and vitamin-packed "Vision for Space Exploration," NASA has awarded the contract for a new space suit design. The winning company is an outfit called Oceaneering International.

The new design is a rigid "hardsuit" type, almost resembling armor. That makes it clumsy and hard to move around in, but easy to put on and take off. The other approach, a tight "skinsuit" allows maximum freedom of movement, but is a nightmare to get into and out of. And in space, there are definitely times when you want to get dressed quickly -- for instance, if there's a hole in your spaceship and the air is leaking out . . .

Now let's hope the agency can actually send people someplace where they can wear their cool new suits.

Jet Bike

It's not a flying car, it's even cooler:  a pulse-jet bicycle!

Don't try this at home, nor anywhere near my home.


And a tip of the buzz-bomb hat to David Szondy's Ephemeral Isle Web log.

Flying Jellyfish!

Back in 2007 we reported on the swimming blimp. Now a German outfit called Festo (I don't speak German, so I'm unclear if it's a company, an artists' collective, an educational organization, or a one-name supervillain planning to conquer the world) has created a flying robotic jellyfish. Video of it is here.

A tip of the jellyfish-shaped hat to David Szondy's Ephemeral Isle.

Rocket Racers Go!

The Rocket Racing League has announced their first scheduled exhibition race, on August 1-2 at the EAA AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. 

Rocket Racing is an interesting offshoot of the burgeoning private space business. The reasoning goes like this:  to build popular support (and earn some extra money) for space rockets, the rocket jockeys make small manned craft for racing. Since people seem willing to spend more money on sports than on space, why not leverage your orbital-launch research budgets with some of that fat sports endorsement money?

So will rocket racing displace NASCAR? Hard to tell. Still -- anything fast, loud, and dangerous is bound to be popular.

Echoes of the Past

In 1857 a French bookseller named Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville developed the first sound recording device, the "Phonautograph." It recorded sound waves on a paper cylinder covered with lampblack. The device worked fine except for one small flaw.

There was no way to play back the recorded sounds.

Well, now there is. A group called the First Sounds Initiative have recovered the sound from one of de Martinville's recordings made in 1860. Click here to listen to the song "Au Clair de la Lune" recorded 148 years ago.

So the next time some audiophile starts going on about formats, just give a superior sniff and say "Vinyl? Well, if you must have the latest toys I suppose so. I'll stick with lampblack, thank you."

Fantastic Vehicles

If you're bored with driving a plain vanilla automobile, even a hybrid, why not go for something more exotic? Try a Japanese illuminated truck, for instance. If that doesn't float your, um, boat, maybe you should get around in a giant mechanical squid or elephant. Because it's not where you go that matters, it's how you arrive.

(A tip of the neon-covered hat to David Thompson for both links.)

News From the New Millennium VI

The Giant Space Robot is nearly ready.

Let's say that again, just to savor the sound. The Giant Space Robot is nearly ready! We didn't have Giant Space Robots when I was a kid back in the Second Millennium. Now we do.

This Giant Space Robot is a construction tool, part of the Space Station's "Canadarm" manipulator. Essentially it's a collection of cameras and smaller arms to go on the end of the big main arm. For now.

Presumably once the precocious child of the designer (and an adorable monkey!) takes up residence on the Station the Giant Space Robot will turn to battling orbital bad guys. I, for one, won't be surprised.