"Invisibility Cloak" created, no kidding...

So we have known for a long time that the way to make an "invisibility cloak" was to get the rays of light to bend completely around an object. That way we see what is behind that object instead of the object itself. Your eye assumes that light rays travel in a straight line, so the light that comes in to your eye always appears to be coming straight at you. If you bend the light you can trick the eye into thinking things are in a different place than they are.

A really simple example of this is is when you have a straw in a glass of water and it looks like the bottom of the straw is larger and moved to the side. The light bends when it passes form the water to the air. Our eyes think it travels in a straight line so we see it as larger and it a different place than it really is.

Now we have know that this was the way to make an invisibility cloak for a long time, we just haven't been able to actually make that happen.

But now a team of scientists in Germany has done it. They created a structure of crystals that bends lights to hide a small bump of gold. The light rays bend completely around the gold bump, making it invisible. Pretty cool huh?

Read more about it:

Reuters: Scientists hide gold with 3D invisibility cloak

The Associated Press: Cloak of invisibility takes a step forward

What Males Will Do

From PBS: Nature

Quiz: Animal Mating Antics

Which Creatures Have "Game"?

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/nature/episodes/what-males-will-do/quiz-animal-mating-antics/950/

It's a solid, it's a liquid...it's a non-newtonian fluid!

Ever want to watch someone walk on water? Or at least, on something liquid? This is an awesome video that shows the amazing and bizarre properties of non-newtonian fluids. A non-newtonian fluid acts like a liquid until something puts pressure on it, then it acts like a solid....at least for a little while.



Everything on the video is real, they really are walking, and falling into, a giant tub of this stuff. It is not movie magic. Maybe it is real magic??? Nah, just awesome science.

Pi for everyone!

Happy Pi Day!

Yes, there is a day dedicated to celebrating the wonderful number pi. You all remember pi from math class? And maybe from rotational motion if you took physics? It has been known for a long time and we just keep getting to know it better. It never repeats and as far as we know it goes on forever. It has been calculated to over a trillion decimal places. That is more than you could even hope to count. It is used by scientists, mathematicians, teachers and even the ever reluctant students to calculate more things than you could even imagine. There is at least one thing you use in your daily life that owes it's existence, or at least it's current better-than-it-used-to-be condition to pi.

So I leave you with pi...to 50 decimal places
3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716939937510

http://www.piday.org/

Dance Robot Dance!

So I think dancing robots are awesome. So I think you should see some dancing robots...

Super Simple Dancer


Synchronized robots


Japanese Dancing

15 year old ABE lost at sea

Did I mention that ABE is a robot? The "Autonomous Benthic Explorer" has been exploring the ocean all alone for 15 years. It hasn't actually been swimming around for 15 years, it has completed 221 separate dives. It dives down to the seafloor to examine things that people almost never get to see and could explore for as long as a day at a time. It was actually already retired but it's replacement was busy, so they brought the old guy out of retirement for one more dive. They lost communication during the last dive and haven't been able to find ABE since...

News Release : Pioneering Deep-Sea Robot Lost at Sea : Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution

All models of the atom you have ever seen are wrong...

So if you know anything about how atoms are actually put together, you know that every model you have ever seen of an atom is wrong. The electrons are too big, too close to the nucleus and usually too planetary-orbit-like. This clip from Nova Science does an excellent job of showing (and fixing) these problems, as well as a few I hadn't thought of before.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fPOCcj7gEU

In reality the real reason the models are wrong is that there isn't any way to make an accurate model that is of a size and scale that people could actually see and use. That's part of the problem with atoms after all, they are very small and very hard to wrap our brains around.

Welcome Copernicium!

Once upon a time there were some lonely lead atoms in Germany. Then, in February of 1996 some scientists saw that the lead atoms were lonely and decided to introduce them to some friendly zinc atoms. So they loaded up the particle accelerator and played nuclear matchmaker. Much to the scientists delight, the lonely lead atoms and the friendly zinc atoms got along really well. So well in fact that their nuclei combined together to make the very first atoms of brand spanking new baby element, number 112. Baby 112 didn't last very long, only fractions of a second, but it's birth meant the world had yet another new element to name.

And nearly 14 years later little element 112 was still unnamed. Relegated to the temporary name of "ununbium" and confusing symbol of Uub. And now, finally, little 112 has a name! I would like to introduce you to Copernicium!! Named after Nicolaus Copernicus, on February 19, 2010 the IUPAC finally agreed on the name and symbol (Cn because Cp was too easily confused with other scienc-ey symbols).


So let us all welcome yet another element about which high school students will ask "what it is?" and we will say "it the element fill-in-the-blank" and they will say "no, I mean what is it?" and we will say "it is an element that only lasts for few seconds, it isn't anything you have seen or anything" and they will say "then why do we have to know about it?" and we will sigh, and try to remember why we thought it would be fun to be a science teacher.....


Want to find out more?
Element 112 is Named Copernicium (official IUPAC News Brief)
Element 112 Gets a "Planetary" Namesake

Earthquake made days shorter. No, really....

So when I saw this headline in someone's Facebook status I was sure it was a link to The Onion (www.theonion.com) which has humorous and satirical news stories. But it was real. Did you know an earthquake could affect the length of a day on Earth?

NASA: Chile Quake Shifted Earth's Axis, Shortened Day

How The Chilean Quake Moved An Entire Planet

Your Day Feel Shorter? Blame Chile's Earthquake

Somehow it kind of shatters a little illusion of constancy that I had. A day is exactly as long a 1 day, that's the whole point. And if the length of a day can change then nothing at all is constant.

Which I really do know. And it isn't as if the change is big enough to make any difference, and it has happened before and it will happen again.

Goodbye 1.26 microseconds of every day...I will miss you! (or not)