Science talk weekly
NASA took high resolution photos of the Sun for five years to create this short film. They used about 2600 terabytes of hard disk space to store these images. That's enough to fill 40,625 64Gb iPads....
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How good are comics? Such a simple concept, three still drawings, but I’m sure we have all had this kind of moment that we can relate to, where nothing is worth doing, unless there is a tasty reward at he end. Where’s the science in this? Well, it’s in from transitioning from comics, to cartoons. The eye typically can see and recognise 12 – 15 still images per second. Once more images are shown per second, they brain will still being able to tell that they are still images, and they will start blurring into each other. Motion film for nearly 100 years now has used 24 images per second (or 24 Frames Per Second – 24FPS) . In recent times, with the advancement of technology, these FPS rates have increased, with films like The Hobbit being created at 48FPS, giving that realistic feeling to the experience. Everything seems so crisp and sharp. You can make your cartoons, with lots of time and patience. Check out this flip book to see how still images become moving images: The microscope is a fascinating piece of scientific technology. Similar to last week’s discussion on telescopes, microscopes originally used a series of lenses to magnify very small objects to a size that our eye can actually see. They are used in many different types of scientific research, and one can’t help but think of a scientist in a white lab coat looking down the barrel of an expensive microscope machine. Some of these microscopes can cost millions of dollars to make and service. Which left me thinking, how cheap could we make a microscope? A group of scientific researchers at the University of Houston have developed a microscope that can be attached to your smartphone, that allows you to zoom in 120 times! They have managed to develop this, where the end user cost would be a measly three cents! The lens that is the microscope is a small implement that would attach to the outside of your smartphone, over the camera lens. The lens is made from a viscous plastic polymer, with a similar consistence to honey, that is shaped in a way that is curved and allows light to be magnified. Top row shows human skin and hair follicle.
a) through c) are imaged with an Olympus IX-70 microscope at a magnification of 40, 100 and 200. d) is imaged with a Nokia Lumia 520 smartphone with a PDMS lens. Bottom row shows magnified regions. Credit: University of Houston For more information, you can go to Science Daily Basically, the Tesla Powerwall is a rechargeable battery, designed for use in your home. It is a Lithion-Ion battery, which isn’t a new technology in the context of rechargeable batteries, as these have been around for at least 10 years commercially – it’s the type that you would find in your smart phone. The beauty about this new product that has people amazed is the cost at which they have been able to develop and produce this new technology. There are other rival products that can do the same job as Tesla’s Powerwall, but are nowhere near as affordable. Check out some more information about the Powerwall. If you want one in your home, well, you will be waiting a while! They sold out very quickly, and the back order wait might take some time! Tesla Motors SMH News Report Treehugger Article All my life I have been fascinated with space, and spent countless hours as a kid staring at the stars with a bunch of constellation cards and a sky map trying to find more than just the Southern Cross and Orion. I think my interest was sparked by my brother, who for a school project took some long exposure photographs of different stars with a camera / telescope setup. It made sense, the telescope made a distant object seem closer, and the camera captured the image. But what was the telescope doing that my eye couldn’t?
A refraction telescope uses lenses to refract light into a size that can enter your eye, and make the object appear to be closer than what it actually is. Our eye has a lens that does this with light, the telescope is working in a similar way, except the lens can be a lot bigger than our eye. Being bigger allows it to collect more light, and therefore collect the light from objects that are further away. To find out more of the science behind the inner workings of a telescope, check out this BBC website. You can only make a refraction lens so big before they no longer can be effectively used within a telescope - cost, practicality and quality. Scientists have been able to develop larger, and much more expensive telescopes that use other technologies to reach further into space - checkout space.com for more information. |
How this beganWhat started out as a quick weekly Q&A in my school's paper newsletter has grown into an online multimedia science spot. Archives
October 2015
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