Homely Scientist

Need a daily dose of ideas to help save energy (and the planet…but that is such a huge concept, too distant for many…stick to stuff closer to home and you)?  Check out LiveEarth’s Twitter feed:
Shading windows. It can lower your home’s temperature and reduce your cooling costs by 30%. Source: Twitter / LiveEarth070707
This tip is especially good right now as the hottest part of the summer is coming our way in the Northern Hemisphere (the Dog Day … which are named such because Sirius the Dog Star become visible this time of year).  Another great one is to put a …read more

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Last week I talked about how we could be looking at a disaster of Biblical proportions (think Noah) if some of the major ice sheets melted, now comes word that the largest of the world’s ice sheets, the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, is safe for the time being:
While studies of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets show they are both at risk from global warming, the East Antarctic ice sheet will “need quite a bit of warming” to be affected, Andrew Mackintosh, a senior lecturer at Victoria University, said Wednesday.
The air over the East Antarctic ice sheet, an ice …read more

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Insulating buildings is one of the most important aspects of the building process.  Insulation not only has to, well, insulate, but it also has to not grow nasty things and last for a long time (who wanted to rip open all their outside walls every few years–if ever).  Insulation, which is typically fiberglass now, does take resources to make and isn’t recyclable (although it is made from recycled glass).  Now, what if you could grow insulation?  Yeah, grow.  Couple smart guys figured out how to make a growing medium for oyster mushroom spores that could become suitable insulation material:
Placed in …read more

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 When I’m ranting and raving about alternative energy and lauding companies like Google, I talk about being able to feed into the system and get credit for it.  Looks like the Province of Ontario is finally getting it:
One of the key elements in the incentive programs is a solar “feed-in” tariff that pays people and organizations with solar panels cash for any electricity they feed into the grid. In the United States, utilities offer credits for solar power; a homeowner or business can reduce their electricity bill with these credits, but at best end up owing nothing to the utility.
With …read more

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LOL!  Not really, but learning from how gecko’s stick to walls and even glass, scientists are working on better and better adhesives.
Unbundled, their nanotube tape was nearly as adhesive as a live gecko, but as these same tubes were clustered into bundles, their strength went up. By the time the authors optimized the combination of fiber length and bundle width, their tape was over four times stronger than a gecko: a square centimeter was sufficient to support nearly four kilograms. Although this was weaker than the initial strength of a standard piece of adhesive tape, the “gecko tape” had staying …read more

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I saw this profiled on the Discovery Channel this week.  The boat looks, um, odd, but saved tons of fuel.
The boat, conspicuously named Sun21, is the first of its eco-friendly kind to attempt the journey. The 46-foot catamaran made the trip — from the Canary Islands to the Bahamas — in just under a month, and according to MW-Line, the operating costs are 20 to 45 times lower than traditional motorboats. Source: Solar-powered Swiss boat crosses the Atlantic – Engadget
So if we think about a ship with solar power plus a biddies-powered engine, you could make a huge dent in …read more

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While biodiesel is cool (and according to the article below you can drink it…eeewww) manufacturing is still not 100% there.  So here comes the handy home biodiesel test:
Biodiesel is sort of like buying cheese. Some of it is fantastic, and some isn’t so hot.
Enter the pHLip, a testing system from CytoCulture, which specializes in oil spill technology. Place a few drops of the biodiesel you are thinking of buying into the vial, shake it up, and then let it stand. If the fluid on the bottom stays cherry red, you have yourself good biodiesel, says Randall von Wedel, principal researcher …read more

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 Chemistry sets are getting a tad passe, if not whimpy.  Well, try this book on for size:
Controversy over potentially hazardous chemistry experiments is nothing new. This amazing book only lasted two editions because it was considered too dangerous for children. Now, only 126 copies exist in libraries. Fortunately, a beautiful PDF version is available online. Modern texts still shy away from child-damaging pyrotechnic experiments but contain hundreds of very important projects. Geekkids can learn about gases and solids, acids and bases, atomic structure, osmosis, chemical bonding, solvents, crystallization… everything. Source: Geekdad – Wired Blogs
I downloaded the book and started to …read more

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 Sad news this week…
Mr. Wizard Passes Away at 89 Source: Geekdad – Wired Blogs
I always liked Mr. Wizard over Bill Nye and others.  Another icon of science education passes on.
Technorati Tags: Mr. Wizard, science education

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 Today is not one of my better post title days…regardless…
Jean-Baptiste Denys, personal physician to France’s Louis XIV, is generally credited with performing the first human blood transfusion, although some sources award that distinction to Englishman William Lower. What is not in dispute is the year — 1667 — and the patient — a 15-year-old boy who had been bled so much by his doctor that he required an infusion of blood.
The source is also not under dispute: Whoever the physician was, he used a sheep’s blood. And, somehow, the kid recovered. Source: June 15, 1667: First Human Blood Transfusion Is Performed …read more

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