Optical Illusions

Here is a quick article on pictures that appear to move, even though they are definitely static.
http://www.newscientist.com/blog/technology/2008/08/just-illusion-still-images-that-move.html

I'm definitely interested in this, so I'll do a bit of reseach and post more later.

Men on the moon again?

The US seems to be planning it, but it will be a while before it happens:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/science/article4406564.ece

NASA are planning "moon town" and hope to start construction within a decade. The first residents are due to move in 2024, if all things go according to plan.

Batman!

For the comic lovers among us, here is an article on the plausibility of Batman:
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=dark-knight-shift-why-bat

Windows that produce electricity

Ok, so it's not quite there yet, but this article(http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn14293-organic-dye-lets-window-panes-harvest-the-sun.html) shows that the technology may be on its way!

Singing icebergs

Hi Guys! It's been a while since my last post, sorry. I do have another post in the works, but it's not quite ready yet. In the mean time, here is an interesting article on singing icebergs.
http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn14286-embracing-icebergs-sing-eerie-duets.html

Hole in the Ozone Layer Protects Antartica from Global Warming

Things never exist in isolation. I posted earlier this week about the hole in the ozone layer. I came across this article today:


(reproduced from http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=updates-jul-08&sc=rss)

Ozone Recovery, Warmer Antarctica
The Antarctic ozone hole that forms every spring has kept that continent's interior cold even as the rest of the world has warmed over the past few decades [see "A Push from Above"; SciAm, August 2002]. Thanks to the global ban on chlorofluorocarbons, stratospheric ozone levels there are slowly recovering. A repaired hole, however, could speed Antarctic ice melting and change weather patterns, according to a computer model by Judith Perlwitz of the University of Colorado at Boulder and her colleagues. With more ozone, the lower stratosphere would absorb more ultraviolet light and warm up by as much as nine degrees Celsius. That in turn would break down circulation patterns that trap cold air over Antarctica's interior, making the continent heat up. The changed patterns would also make Australia warmer and drier, and South America could get wetter. Such ozone details may need to be worked into global climate models, most of which have neither incorporated such effects nor included enough of the stratosphere. The journal Geophysical Research Letters published the study on April 26.

Mentos-Soda Fountain

If you haven't seen a mentos-soda fountain yet, have a look here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=quYx0uJtzLo
(or simply search youtube for mentos and diet coke*)

And now we know how it works:
http://www.sciam.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=A0F42D0D-E721-EABE-745EA5C44B66F777

It turns out not to be a chemical reaction at all, but a physical one. In fact, it is nucleation, the same process that I talked about here. This time, instead of bubbles of steam, they are bubbles of carbon dioxide that had been dissolved in the soda. The rough surface of the mentos provides lots of nucleation points at which the bubbles form and the bubbles then form nucleation points for more bubbles, etc. It all adds up to a whole lot of bubbles!! Because of the rapid expansion (bubbles take up a lot more space than liquid), a lot of the bubbly mix gets forced out the small neck of the bottle and voila! A mentos-soda fountain.

*Note that although youtube has mostly mentos and diet coke, it should work with any type of soda. If you are experimenting, it would be worth trying other sweets as well