Simple animation to explain complex principles - Electronics 1, aircraft radial engine 2, oval Regulation 3, sewing machines 4, Malta Cross movement - second hand movement used to control the clock 5, auto change file mechanism 6, auto constant velocity universal joint 6.gif 7, gun ammunition loading system 8 rotary engine - an internal combustion engine, the heat rather than the piston movement into rotary movement # Via World Of Technology. 1, inline engine - it's cylinders lined up side by side 2, V-type engine - cylinder arranged at an angle of two plane 3, boxer engine - cylinder engine arranged in two planes relative www.zo.utexas.edu/faculty/antisense/tree.pdf
First 3D Map of the Brain’s Connections We knew anatomy could be gorgeous, but this is beyond anything else we’ve ever seen, and it’s guaranteed to be something you haven’t seen, being the first 3D image of a brain’s connections. Van Wedeen, a Harvard radiology professor, is awestruck: “We’ve never really seen the brain – it’s been hiding in plain sight.” Conventional scanning has offered us a crude glimpse, but scientists such as Wedeen aim to produce the first ever three-dimensional map of all its neurons. They call this circuit diagram the “connectome”, and it could help us better understand everything from imagination and language to the miswirings that cause mental illness. But with 100 billion neurons hooked together by more connections than there are stars in the MilkyWay, the brain is a challenge that represents petabyte-level data. Photographed above is the 3D image of an owl-monkey’s brain. Link [via]
DIY Skylights From Used Water Bottles Replace 50-Watt Bulbs Image via YouTube video An ingenious invention by an engineer in Brazil has made an enormous difference in his town. Simply placing a bottle of water in a hole in the ceiling can light up a room with the same brightness as a 50-watt light bulb! Residents have better lighting and are using less electricity. Check out how it works in the video. >> WATCH SLIDESHOW: 13 Really Cool Lighting Ideas (Slideshow) I think the part that made it most convincing was the bucket comparison -- when they took the buckets off the bottles to show what a difference they make in lighting the room, my jaw dropped open. While it's obvious that these only work for certain types of structures, and only provide extra light when the sun is out, it shows that you don't have to construct a complex skylight in your roof to get some daylight into your home. And to hear that the bottles are lasting years without needing any maintenance at all is exciting. What a great bottle-reuse-zero-electricity idea!
Interesting High-speed Video Clips A Sense of Scale: Absolute Zero By Glenn Elert Posted 01.08.08 NOVA At roughly minus 460°F, absolute zero is abysmally cold, yet at least we can imagine it. Being only a few hundred degrees below zero, it's in the realm of something we can put our minds around. This is not true of the opposite of absolute zero, the theoretical highest possible temperature. In conventional physics, this is approximately 100 million million million million million degrees. Launch Interactive Travel from absolute zero to what may be the highest temperature of all. This feature originally appeared on the site for the NOVA program Absolute Zero. Glenn Elert is Research Coordinator and Webmaster for the Physical Science Department of Midwood High School at Brooklyn College. Images (graphics) © WGBH Educational Foundation
Cell Size and Scale Some cells are visible to the unaided eye The smallest objects that the unaided human eye can see are about 0.1 mm long. That means that under the right conditions, you might be able to see an ameoba proteus, a human egg, and a paramecium without using magnification. A magnifying glass can help you to see them more clearly, but they will still look tiny. Smaller cells are easily visible under a light microscope. To see anything smaller than 500 nm, you will need an electron microscope. Adenine The label on the nucleotide is not quite accurate. How can an X chromosome be nearly as big as the head of the sperm cell? No, this isn't a mistake. The X chromosome is shown here in a condensed state, as it would appear in a cell that's going through mitosis. A chromosome is made up of genetic material (one long piece of DNA) wrapped around structural support proteins (histones). Carbon The size of the carbon atom is based on its van der Waals radius.
What you burn Next: What comes outUp: The Rubber Bag Previous: What goes in ``What you burn'' is the number of calories your body uses to provide the energy for everything you do, from heartbeats and breathing to running a marathon. The daily calorie requirement varies quite a bit from person to person depending on size, shape, basic metabolic rate, and degree of physical activity. A rough estimate of calories per day can be obtained by multiplying the ideal weight for your height and body type by a number based on your level of physical activity, ranging from 11 for a pure couch potato to 17 for a person engaged in heavy physical labour or strenuous exercise on a daily basis. The following tables give estimates of the calories burned per day for men and women at their ideal weight, based on height and body type. Height in these tables is your barefoot height. Daily calories burned: Men Daily calories burned: Women
Chunnel Vision In the 1860’s, the British and French first began thinking about building a 30-plus mile tunnel under the English Channel to connect their two countries. The engineering companies estimated that it would cost over $10 million (U.S.) to complete– not a small piece of change 150 years ago. A little old Jewish man heard about their plans. He approached the Commissioner of Transportation and said he would do the job for $50,000. “How’s that possible?” He didn’t get the job. In a recent study of embryonic science, it was discovered that when the eye begins to form in an unborn fetus, protruding from the back of the eyeball is the optic nerve containing over 50,000 individual nerve fibers. The English Channel Tunnel (dubbed, the “Chunnel”), was finally completed in 1994. There are over 6 billion people in the world with untold numbers of animals, fish and birds. In almost every instance throughout the world, throughout history, the eye-brain connection has worked flawlessly.
Melting Steel With Only the Sun (Video) Photo: Youtube screen grab. See video below. Steel's Melting Point is Approx. 1,370 °C (2,500 °F) Melting steel in a solar oven (aka solar concentrator) isn't new or unique, but it's always cool to see and a good reminder of just how much energy is hitting the sunny side of the planet at any moment. The video below shows a short exerpt of James May's "Big Ideas" series (James is better known for the Top Gear show), and they start by cooking, er, burning a sausage, and then they melt a steel plate. On average, there's about 1.366 kilowatts per square meter (kW/m²) of solar radiation hitting the surface of the Earth at any moment (on the day side, obviously). See also: Forget About Melting Steel with Sunshine... See also: Stirling Engine Made with Soda Cans Spins to 860 RPM (Video) Via Youtube (found on Stumbleupon, actually) More Green VideosWhat Happens When BP Spills Coffee?
The Hindu : Health : Breakthrough: sensors that can convert thoughts into speech A mind reading machine has edged closer to reality after scientists found a way of converting thoughts into words. Researchers were able to render brain signals into speech for the first time, relying on sensors attached to the brain surface. The breakthrough, which is up to 90 percent accurate, will be a boon for paralysed patients who cannot speak and could help read anyone’s thoughts ultimately, reports the Telegraph. “We were beside ourselves with excitement when it started working,” said Prof Bradley Greger, bioengineer at the Utah University who led the project. “It was just one of the moments when everything came together. “We have been able to decode spoken words using only signals from the brain with a device that has promise for long-term use in paralysed patients who cannot speak. The breakthrough came when the team attached two button-sized grids of 16 tiny electrodes to an epileptic’s brain’s speech centres, says the journal of Neural Engineering.