Homely Scientist

Ever need or want to know what something is in inches, centimeters or other unit conversions?  Did you know you can use Google to figure this out?  Yep, you bet.
For example, in my last post I had 8 in is about 20 cm.  That conversion is here.  How about half a mile as .8 km? Here.
Here’s the format: what is [number] [units] in [unit] E.g. what is 5 in in cm.  Works like a charm, cause who can remember what degrees Kelvin is in Fahrenheit or Celsius!
So anytime you need a quick conversion (it’s about 15 C here … what …read more

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Deb sent a cool link over to me on the weekend on building a scale model of the solar system from things like balls, peppercorns (that would be Earth, Venus, and Mars) and other easily found household objects.
Visit the site for the details, but the big lesson here (pun intended) is the scale of the solar system.  Even at the the size of this solar system (the Sun as an 8-in/20 cm ball) Pluto is a half a mile (.8 km) from the starting point!
This is totally an outside, maybe part of a fun summer party, thing.  a little walk …read more

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At the beginning of April I got my daughter SeaMonkeys for her brother’s birthday.  I hadn’t ever had SeaMonkeys before, but remember the cool ads in my comics of days gone by.
So, things have been going well for the past month.  Lot’s of monkeys (yes, I know they are brine shrimp), even breeding and babies.  Rock on!  Until this morning.
The container was on a shelf (the only South facing one that gets good sunlight) that is also frequented by the cats.  For the past couple weeks it’s been okay.  No serious problems.  Until this morning.  Said little brother from above …read more

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Another cool use for cell towers!  Weather prediction!  Okay if you have a cell phone you know that when it rains reception can get a little wonky.  Turns out while this is a bad thing for callers, it can be a good thing for meteorologist.
By using the changes in signal strength between and among towers, it can be determined where it’s raining and how hard.  Think of the massive network of cell towers out there and this could be a boon for storm prediction and potentially a life-saving thing if severe storms can be plotted.
From Discovery Canada
Tags: cell towers, cell …read more

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Gee, like you should need another reason to snog with your partner, but it seems that kissing for 30 mins to relaxing music relieves hay fever symptoms!  As reported on Discover Canada, two sets of couples where put in a room with 30 mins of soothing music.  One group just snuggled, the other group were instructed to kiss.  The kissing group show a decrease in hay fever symptoms!  Alright!  Now, one must wonder about kissing versus … Well I won’t go there.
Tags: hay fever, kissing

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Ah summer.  Sun, fun, beaches and ‘ritas.  I haven’t been a huge margarita fan in the past, but sometimes they go so well with a meal (I’m a microbrew beer fan myself).  Ah but with popularity comes a price, fake popularity comes imitation, or fakery.  It seems that people are making fake tequila, or "tequila" that isn’t 100% tequila.  It turns our that tequila is one of the most controlled and regulated liquors out there and now Mexican scientists have found a high-tech was to tell the real stuff from the impostors.
Using chemical analysis scientists have found the signature of …read more

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Via CuriousCat I found this CNN article on how a physicist figured out that the top corner of the goal really is unreachable.
Sure this might be a "well duh" finding, it also shows how looking at all the factors in sport, from a scientific point of view, can lead to better play.
Using biomechanics to look at goalies Dr. Ken Bray has found that there is no way to reach the top corner in time.  Don’t worry though, goalies draw from Dr Bray’s research to move before the kick is made, otherwise the ball is halfway there before they even have …read more

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Just Star Trek?  Wishful thinking?  I guess not.  Mathematicians have found a way to make light travel backwards.
Graeme Milton and his team at Utah University and Nicolae-Alexandru Nicorovici at Sydney University of Technology have created a formula based on a new superlens technology that makes light behave in unconventional ways – employing a phenomenon known as negative refractive index – making light travel backwards. Discovery Canada
How does this work?  Complicated, I’m not going to fool you.  Here’s what I get. We know that we see because light is reflected into our eyes.  Humans only see part of the spectrum of …read more

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So Scott asked about sparks coming from grapes in the microwave in my latest questions answered post.  Scott directed me to this post that explains what’s going on … in detail, lots of detail.  It also seems that folks in San Diego were in this too.
So, what’s going on?  Amazingly the sphereoid shape of grapes makes an awesome dipole antenna .. the grape starts increasing the signal.  Now, two grapes, which was the question, oooh boy then the fun begins!  The two grape-tennas start interacting with each other and as super heated steam (grape juice) starts coming from the grapes,   …read more

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Every wonder why swimmers shave off all their body hair?  No, it’s not to look extra sexy in their suits (though … no I’m not going to go there).  It’s all about laminar flow.  While runners, bikers, and other athletes have to consider wind resistance, swimmers have to have a totally different side of physics to consider.  Scott Goldblatt (an Olympic gold medalist and b5 blogger)  talks about the new developments in swimsuits in competitive swimming over on Timed Finals.  All the developments, and shaving, all do one thing … make bodies as smooth as possible so water not only …read more

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