CBA Tools MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms manages a facility for making and measuring things on length scales from atoms to buildings. Rather than requiring user fees, it is funded by CBA’s research programs for use by participating researchers , with additional available time shared with collaborating programs. description : micro-CT model : XT H 160 manufacturer : Nikon Metrology specifications : 30-160 kV X-rays, 3μ focal spot size, 5-axis manipulator, video radiography, accelerated 3D reconstruction applications : real-time 2D X-ray imaging and 3D volumetric imaging for process metrology, experimental sample characterization, rapid-prototyping input, and reverse-engineering description : Water Jet model : 2652 JetMachining Center manufacturer : Omax specifications : X-Y Travel 52" x 26" (1321 mm x 660 mm) applications : cuts complex flat parts out of most materials including metal, plastic, glass, ceramics and composites up to 6” thick directly from a CAD drawing or .DXF file. model : PRSalpha 120-60
The Shrinkage Solution Let’s get small: There would be all kinds of perks to being smaller, said a 1967 TR article. For one, it would be easier to find parking. In 1966, a Nobel Prize-winning biologist named Joshua Lederberg suggested, in an essay in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, that because human evolution could now be directed by scientific means, we ought to seriously consider what kinds of changes we might like to see. A year later, in a provocative—and bizarre—essay for the July 1967 issue of Technology Review, a pair of MIT civil-engineering professors named Robert Hansen and Myle Holley considered one such change: making people smaller. We wish here to comment on one kind of human change—a change of physical size—which apparently would be far less difficult to achieve than the modifications we infer to be potentially feasible through genetic alchemy. The authors never got into the specifics of how humans might be made smaller, or how much smaller they should be.
Listen to a sane debate about nuclear energy What happens when you get the chairman of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, the chief scientist of Greenpeace, an energy and environmental policy expert, and an environmental activist/politician in a room together to talk about nuclear energy? You can listen to the whole (very, very interesting) conversation—part of the Science Question Time series—which was recorded last Thursday at the Institute of Physics in London. I recently started describing my position on nuclear energy as "frienemies"—I'm not strictly against it, and think we're likely to need it, but I also have some serious issues with how safety is regulated and what we will do with the waste. I think this nuanced discussion did a nice job of laying out the benefits and detriments in a reasonable way. Download the audio file. Visit the Biochemical Society's website for updates about future Science Question Time events.