Teachers | Classroom Activity | Elegant Universe, The: Einstein's Dream Background Matter particles are only one part of the recipe for everything students see around them. The particles in matter must interact; otherwise the universe would just be one big collection of quarks and leptons. Particles, which undergo a number of interactions, are acted upon by four fundamental forces: gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force. In this activity, students will determine the interactions that are governed by each of these different forces. Objective To learn about the four fundamental forces and the interactions they govern. copy of the "Forces of Nature" student handout (PDF or HTML)copy of the "Finding Forces" student handout (PDF or HTML) * The relative strength of an interaction depends on the distance of separation of the particles. ** A secondary effect of the strong force—known as the residual strong force—binds together protons and neutrons, is experienced by hadrons, and is carried by mesons. Why is almost no antimatter observed?
Tadpole eye transplants reveal neuroplasticity in Tufts lab. Photo by David McNew/Getty Images Recently, we have witnessed remarkable, fictional-sounding advancements in science and medicine. There’s a guy who can hear color, another with a bionic eye attached to his brain, and a woman fighting back against the debilitating symptoms of multiple sclerosis by placing electrodes on her tongue. But for our next trick, we’re going to need a bucket of tadpoles with eyes on their butts and some good old-fashioned alternating current. In other words, things are about to get all kinds of weird. There’s a great deal of wow to unpack here, so let’s take it piece by piece. As the eyes grow, they send out snaking tendrils of nerve fiber, or axons. Before they could test the ectopic eyes however, the native ones had to be severed and removed. Finally, it was time to put the cyclops to the test. As for the main event? Obviously, enormous questions remain. Ahead lies everything from better computer brain interfaces to bioengineered organ systems.
A Robot's Body of Knowledge Photo: Humanoids and Intelligence Systems Lab/Karlsruhe Institute for Technology Click on the image for a larger view. 15 November 2010—Early risers may think it’s tough to fix breakfast first thing in the morning, but robots have it even harder. Even grabbing a cereal box is a challenge for your run-of-the-mill artificial intelligence (AI). Frosted Flakes come in a rectangular prism with colorful decorations, but so does your childhood copy of Chicken Little. Do you need to teach the AI to read before it can grab breakfast? Maybe not. The robot’s thinking is not separated from its body, because it must use its body to learn how to think. Embodied cognition also requires sophisticated two-way communication between a robot’s lower-level sensors—such as its hands and camera eyes—and its higher-level planning processor. The PACO-PLUS system’s masters tested it in a laboratory kitchen.
How to Say Hello in Different Languages Steps Method 1 of 8: Saying Hello in a Non-Verbal Way 1Consider using a non-verbal greeting. Method 2 of 8: Saying Hello in European Languages 1Say hello in Albanian: Hello in Albaian is Tungjatjeta, pronounced "toon-jah-TYEH-tah," which literally means "have a long life." 46Say hello in Swedish: Hello in Swedish is god dag. Method 3 of 8: Saying Hello in Asian Languages This no-budget science fiction short looks better than most movies The Good: AMAZING effects and character design! The battle droids actually *looked* like devices built for live combat situations—heavily-armoured, heavily-ARMED, and just...heavy! The Bad: 1) WHEN will people finally drop the completely stupid "careful withdrawal of consciousness from virtual environment" trope? 2) If a battle bot has some way of overloading its batteries or onboard generator to generate an EMP, IT WILL FRY ITSELF IN THE PROCESS. I know, I know, I'm a nitpicking geek...but, really, what's the excuse for complete scientific illiteracy in so-called "sci-fi" film-making?
Teaching Robots To Interact Better With Humans The 6th annual ACM/IEEE Conference on Human-Robot Interaction just ended in Switzerland this week, and Georgia Tech is excited to share three of their presentations showcasing the latest research in how humans and robots relate to each other. Let's start from the top: How Can Robots Get Our Attention? Humans rely on lots of fairly abstract social conventions when we communicate, and most of them are things that we don't even think about, like gaze direction and body orientation. Georgia Tech is using their robot, Simon, to not just try to interact with humans in the same ways that humans interact with each other, but also to figure out how to tell when a human is directing one of these abstract social conventions at the robot. More info here. How Do People Respond to Being Touched by a Robot? This expands on previous Georgia Tech research that we've written about; the robot in the vid is Cody, our favorite sponge-bath robot. More info here. Teaching Robots to Move Like Humans More info here.
Dana Ullman: How Homeopathic Medicines Work: Nanopharmacology At Its Best It is commonly assumed that homeopathic medicines are composed of extremely small doses of medicinal substances. And yet, does anyone refer to an atomic bomb as an extremely small dose of a bomb? In actual fact, there is a power, a very real power, in having atoms smash against each other. Homeopathic medicines are made through a specific pharmacological process of dilution and vigorous shaking. It should be noted that a large number of homeopathic medicines sold in health food stores and pharmacies are made in doses with known physiological doses. Homeopathic medicines can and should be considered to be a type of "nanopharmacology" (Ullman, 2006). For 200 years now, millions of physicians and hundreds of millions of homeopathic patients have observed and experienced the power and effectiveness of homeopathic medicines The Power of Nano-doses For instance, it is commonly known that a certain species of moth can smell pheromones of its own species up to two miles away. Quantum Medicine
Simple animation to explain complex principles - Electronics 1, aircraft radial engine 2, oval Regulation 3, sewing machines 4, Malta Cross movement - second hand movement used to control the clock 5, auto change file mechanism 6, auto constant velocity universal joint 6.gif 7, gun ammunition loading system 8 rotary engine - an internal combustion engine, the heat rather than the piston movement into rotary movement # Via World Of Technology. 1, inline engine - it's cylinders lined up side by side 2, V-type engine - cylinder arranged at an angle of two plane 3, boxer engine - cylinder engine arranged in two planes relative Liquid universe Public release date: 13-Oct-2004 [ Print | E-mail Share ] [ Close Window ] UK CONTACT - Claire Bowles claire.bowles@rbi.co.uk 44-207-611-1210New Scientist Press Office, London US CONTACT – Toni Marshalltoni.marshall@newscientist.com617-558-4939New Scientist Boston office The cosmos was born in a churning fluid 300 million times hotter than the sun. In QCD, it is the vacuum that imprisons the quarks. A pair of virtual particles from the vacuum are given enough energy that they become real, and fly apart in opposite directions. "There's no doubt. This makes the plasma more similar to a liquid than a gas. This is part of a Feature article that appears in New Scientist issue: 16 October 2004. [ Print | E-mail AAAS and EurekAlert!