Drive by science

[beyelzu]

I dug this picture of a snake.

[Ari]

Was watching a video and found the nano actuator controls on the Webb interesting.

A stepper motor spins an off center cam in this flexure which moves the middle arm up and down, pulling or pushing on the outer legs which then causes a shift of nanometers in the bar above.

The same motor runs the coarse corrections and if enough fine adjustment is made the tab on the top wheel of the coupler hits the bottom one and begins rotating the geared coarse adjustment.

[JoeP]

Today's APOD is interesting. If you haven't already seen it, what celestial body is this and what's unusual about the processing?

show spoiler

It's our moon of course. But why do all the craters have long shadows?

APOD: 2022 February 15 - Terminator Moon

[JoeP]

I’ve accidentally set up push notifications for the BBC science magazine and it’s like being followed about by an inquisitive but annoying child pic.twitter.com/xVgCR5ivdo

— James Colley (@JamColley) April 8, 2019

[slimshady2357]

Reminds me of this:

Jonathan Frakes Asks You Things - YouTube

[viscousmemories]

When he got to "have you ever been to a truck stop?" it reminded me of the scene from Airplane when Leslie Nielsen asks the kid if he's ever been to a Turkish bath (or something to that effect).

[BrotherMan]

Do you like Gladiator movies?

Have you ever seen a grown man naked?

[Theoretical Observation]

While experimenting with Shrinky Dink plastic, I came across this.

Shrinky Dink Microfluidics - Jennifer Boryczka - OpenWetWare

"Shrinky Dink Microfluidics is a cutting-edge method to design and rapidly produce microfluidic devices with rounded channels. This method was first designed in 2008 by Michelle Khine’s group at the University of California Irvine [1]. The method takes advantage of the shrinking capabilities of the toy called Shrinky Dinks to print larger designs and then shrink the design to allow for the microfluidic device size. It requires Shrinky Dink plastic papers, or other shrinking plastics, to take a printed design and with heat shrink down the width and increase the height of the design. This shrunk design is then used as a master for rapid casting of devices. This can be used for rapid prototyping or simple and rapid device development with the added benefit of having rounded channels. Subsequent reports have described the same approach using different plastics [2] or cutting the pattern out of the sheets rather than printing the designs"

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

Random weird little video showing the effects of gravity on various celestial bodies by dropping a pallet of lumber on a car

gravity on different planets - YouTube

[JoeP]

Originally Posted by Kamilah Hauptmann

weird

The weird twiddly music was unnecessary - as was reading out the text - muted.

Some questions: a solid driveway on Uranus, Saturn, and Jupiter?
a solid and non-incinerating driveway on the sun?

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

[JoeP]

Pluto’s peaks are ice volcanoes, scientists conclude | Pluto | The Guardian

ICE VOLCANOES.

[Sock Puppet]

That's the title of the next techno-New Age album I put out.

[LarsMac]

Originally Posted by JoeP

Pluto’s peaks are ice volcanoes, scientists conclude | Pluto | The Guardian

ICE VOLCANOES.

Would not a more appropriate name be HIEMANOES, or something.

I don't think old Vulcan really would care for the association.
I mean, What next? We gonna have fire Icicles.

[Ari]

Research finds anti-matter falls just like normal matter. Just like we expected
BASE breaks new ground in matter/antimatter comparisons | CERN

I think I like this experiment so much because it really encapsulates experimental physics. Fancy philosophizing around complex theories is all fine and good, but let’s take a real thing, measure it, and see what happens!

The problem: Matter and anti-matter appear to be the same except for opposite charges, yet here we are, tons of matter, no anti-matter. Oh and when they touch they go zap into other particles, hopefully none of our tools are made out of matter… oh crap.

Basic properties of anti-matter have been assumed but not fully observed in reality, this experiment is here to change that. A precision measurement of how an anti-proton behaves in the earths gravitational field.

While assumed it would fall straight down, the chamber was made large enough to detect any stray movement, including in the upward direction just in the extremely, extremely, tiny chance anti-matter is also anti-gravity. Which is why I love this experiment so, it’s easy to just say “That won’t happen, let’s not waste the time.” But instead this experiment says “Let’s test it, just to be sure.”

The Findings: Anti-matter falls like matter to the precision of 16 parts per trillion. Which gather no headlines, because it seems like a null result, even though every well made physical measurement is useful data.

[Ari]

Watching salt form inside a carbon nano-tube pipette.
Actual footage starts around 2min.

World's first video showing the moment salt...