Author Archives: curiouscat

The Science of the Football Swerve

With the World Cup (football – soccer) underway lets look at The science behind the swerve by Dr Ken Bray:

It took the modern science of fluid dynamics to understand exactly what happens in a swerving free kick. When a football moves through the air at low speed the air flow separates from its surface at characteristic points…

When the ball rotates – see graphic 3 – the boundary layer remains tripped but the air flow separation around the ball is distorted. Separation occurs earlier on the side rotating against the flow and later on the side rotating in the same sense as the flow. This causes a pressure differential and a deflecting force which is responsible for moving the ball in the air in a free kick.

More posts on science in athletics

Recharge Batteries in Seconds

MIT researchers are working on battery technology based on capacitor technology and nanotechnology.

Super Battery (video also available):

Rechargable and disposable batteries use a chemical reaction to produce energy. “That’s an effective way to store a large amount of energy,” he says, “but the problem is that after many charges and discharges … the battery loses capacity to the point where the user has to discard it.”

But capacitors contain energy as an electric field of charged particles created by two metal electrodes. Capacitors charge faster and last longer than normal batteries. The problem is that storage capacity is proportional to the surface area of the battery’s electrodes, so even today’s most powerful capacitors hold 25 times less energy than similarly sized standard chemical batteries.

The researchers solved this by covering the electrodes with millions of tiny filaments called nanotubes.
…
This technology has broad practical possibilities, affecting any device that requires a battery. Schindall says, “Small devices such as hearing aids that could be more quickly recharged where the batteries wouldn’t wear out; up to larger devices such as automobiles where you could regeneratively re-use the energy of motion and therefore improve the energy efficiency and fuel economy.”

Previous post: MIT Energy Storage Using Carbon Nanotubes

Art of Science 2006

Seahorse

2006 Art of Science exhibition from Princeton University has many amazing images.

Image: “created in Photoshop to illustrate the vertebral column of the genus Hippocampus. While most fish have scales, seahorses have bony plates over which a thin layer of skin is stretched. Seahorses are vertebrates and thus have a vertebral column that runs through the center of their body and the center of their prehensile tail.” – larger view

National Spherical Torus Experiment

Photo: The National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) is an innovative magnetic fusion device that was constructed by the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Columbia University, and the University of Washington at Seattle. This image is of the interior of the experiment showing the protective carbon tiles and the central column. Various diagnostics are mounted at the midplane. larger view

See the full gallery of images and movies. Previous post: Art of Science at Princeton.

Ocean Life – photos and videos

Strawjet: Invention of the Year, 2006

Invent Now 2006 Modern Marvel of the Year (links all broken by History Channel, so links were removed, – when will we finally have people in charge of websites that understand basic usability fundamentals?):

The Strawjet is a farm implement that processes straw (wheat, flax, sunflower, tobacco, hemp, etc.) in the field (after the plant has been harvested) into a mat, similar to a large bamboo window blind. This is used to construct composite building panels in much the same way as fiberglass or carbon fiber; however, the Strawjet uses a binder made from paper pulp, clay and cement rather than plastic resin.

Update, 2013: strawjet.com. Also I added this webcast from 2009

Read (except they broke all the links so you can’t) about more finalists in the History Channel and Invent Now Inventor contest:

  • Dr. David L. Cull, Hemoaccess Valve System
  • Kristin A. Hrabar, Illuminated Nutdriver
  • Dr. Sundaresan Jayaraman, Wearable Motherboard (Smart Shirt)
  • Robert C. Kelly, Resc-hue Lite Line

Related: Pay as You Go Solar in India – Appropriate Technology: Solar Water in Poor Cairo Neighborhoods – Lemelson-MIT 2010 Award for Sustainability – Play pumps had the idea of putting a merry-go-round on the site and letting children playing on it provide the energy… The solution does not appear to have been executed well.

Engineering Education Program for k-12

Student Visit to Pratt & Whitney

Project Lead the Way “a national program forming partnerships among Public Schools, Higher Education Institutions and the Private Sector to increase the quantity and quality of engineers and engineering technologists graduating from our education system.”

Photo – Twenty-seven Berlin High School engineering students recently toured Pratt & Whitney’s East Hartford facility. The students were given an overview of how jet engines are made and then toured the Turbine Module Center to learn about the company’s design and machining operations. more

Program puts forward spin on engineering by Jamaal Abdul-Alim:

For one class project, Brown had to design a dwelling that can keep people warm in subzero temperatures and withstand some of the most ferocious winds. Brown says such assignments have given him a whole new appreciation for what it takes to make things work.

“I realize how much work it takes to put this stuff together,” he said.

I seem to be running across a good deal of k-12 engineering education material that looks promising. Hopefully this is more than just random chance and more good news is around to be found.

Related:

k-12 Engineering Education

Presentation by Ioannis Miaoulis, President and Director of the Museum of Science, Boston on k-12 Engineering Education.

Massachusetts was the first state in the nation to include Engineering as a topic in its Learning Standards.

Public schools from pre-kindergarten to high school are now including engineering as a new discipline. Dr. Miaoulis describes the value of including Engineering in the formal curriculum content for elementary, middle school and high school level. He also discusses the necessary partnerships between the state Department of Education, federal government, school districts, teacher groups, colleges, universities and museums and industry that are supporting this effort and the evolution of the program.

Basic Science Research Funding

Excellent summary from the European Union.

National Basic Research Program of China

America’s economy is losing its competitive edge and Washington hasn’t noticed by Benjamin Wallace-Wells

For decades, the United States ranked first in the world in the percentage of its GDP devoted to scientific research; now, we’ve dropped behind Japan, Korea, Israel, Sweden, and Finland. The number of scientific papers published by Americans peaked in 1992 and has fallen 10 percent; a decade ago, the United States led the world in scientific publications, but now it trails Europe. For two centuries, a higher proportion of Americans had gone to university than have citizens of any other country; now several nations in Asia and Europe have caught up.

The Emergence of China as a Leading Nation in Science by Ping Zhoua and Loet Leydesdorff:

China has become the fifth leading nation in terms of its share of the world’s scientific publications. The citation rate of papers with a Chinese address for the corresponding author also exhibits exponential growth.

Related:

Applied Research

Steven Freilich leads a team working on next-generation TV and computer screens, examines a thermal color filter.

Photo: Steven Freilich examines a thermal color filter.

DuPont’s new path: research with results by Gary Haber:

Gone are the days when legions of DuPont scientists in the company’s Central Research and Development department could spend careers in blue-sky research that might never result in a product. The mantra at DuPont now is that research produces things customers will buy.

“To be effective, you start with the marketplace,” said Kwaku Temeng, a DuPont marketer who works with Central Research scientists to help them focus on commercial targets. “You find a problem and then bring the science to bear on it.”

It seems companies are less willing to do basic research. Still successful companies also see an oportunity in taking advantage of their competitors limited research: Microsoft Research, Honda Research, NTT.

But overall companies do not fund huge investments in basic research. Governments are funding basic research. China and Japan have been increasing funding recently. Foundations are also taking the lead in some cases: Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Balloon Molecules

Cuban cluster molecule

Photo: “The example of the Cuban cluster [Fe4(n5-C 5H5)4 (µ3-CO)4] shows that you can build any molecule with some consideration: The iron atoms are located at the corners of the green tetrahedron, the orange-coloured Cyclopentadienyl-circles are penta-haptolinked to the iron atoms with the help of transparent balloons and the three-times-linking, black-red carbonyls are complexed through transparent balloons as well.”

Read more on Balloon Molecules.