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Size Comparison - Science Fiction Spaceships by DirkLoechel on deviantART

Size Comparison - Science Fiction Spaceships by DirkLoechel on deviantART

The future of space suits could be in shrink wrap, not balloons Looked at from a certain perspective, even ultra-modern space suits look a bit archaic. They have the general aesthetic of a diving bell, like a steam-punk imagining transported into space. The diving bell itself was basically a huge pressurized balloon, a way of taking the atmosphere at the surface down into the depths of the sea, but it’s very difficult to keep a balloon inflated against the crushing pressure of the deep; eventually, the bell gave way to modern diving suits, and divers learned how to deal with the pressure changes through behavior and specialized equipment. That’s made diving both safer and easier and more accessible than ever before, and now scientists think we might be able to do the same thing for space. A team of researchers from MIT hope to use mechanical pressure to replace the pressurization of the balloon suits we use today, making suits both far lighter and less restrictive to use. Even this prototype Z2 suit from NASA is big, bulky, and filled with air.

Fullerite: harder than diamond, and now made at room temperature It sure does suck to be diamond, these days. It seems like a day doesn’t go by that we don’t hear of diamond being bested in some way — despite its millennia-long reign as the king of all sorts of physical properties, diamond has fallen behind in many ways. In terms of hardness, an entire class of materials called “ultra-hard” have the gemstone beat, and in the case of super materials like graphene, the margin is not small. Still, diamond does have one big advantage over all these new fangled scientific rivals: the Earth has already done all the work of synthesis for us. All we have to do with diamonds is dig them up and cut them, making them an incredibly easy alternative to still-developing technological solutions. This diamond anvil (!) The material, called fullerite, is not actually new. Diamond tipped saw blades are a necessity in many industries and home shops — and they’re surprisingly affordable. Now read: New 2D material could self-assemble into a transistor

Cyr wheel The Cyr wheel (also known as the roue Cyr, mono wheel, or simple wheel) is an acrobatic device popularized in the early 21st century. It consists of a single large, metal hoop[1] and is similar in some ways to a German wheel, with the acrobat spinning inside the wheel while maneuvering around the stage. There are records of people using a similar apparatus as sports equipment during the 19th[citation needed] and 20th centuries.[2] The cyr wheel was further popularized as a circus skill by numerous acrobats and circus artists during the 1990's and later by Daniel Cyr in 2003, who presented the first cyr wheel circus act at the 2003 Festival Mondial du Cirque de Demain in Paris. He won the Silver Medal for his performance.[3] Cyr claims he created it without any awareness of previous similar devices, although there is no evidence for this claim. Since its recent re-popularization as a circus apparatus, hundreds of circus artists from around the world have performed in the wheel.

If Disney Princesses Were Princes Tumblr user Let There Be Doodles! edited a few screenshots of our lovely Disney ladies... as men! If you like genderbenders, here's another gallery with a similar concept, no w we just need someone to do the princes as princesses! ;) Artist: Let There Be Doodles! (via: Geeks are Sexy) Follow us on: Crystal invented that can store, release, and replenish oxygen on command In what sounds like the most efficient weapon that an alien race can threaten the human populace with, scientists at the University of Southern Denmark have invented a crystal that pulls oxygen from a room and even water. According to the researchers, only a bucket full of the crystalline material is needed for the effect to take place. The substance is a salt made from cobalt, and aside from rhyming, is capable of slurping up oxygen at 160 times the concentration of the air we breathe. Professor McKenzie at the lab. Christine McKenzie, the author of the study, says that the crystals work similarly to our own hemoglobin, which captures and releases oxygen into our blood using iron as a trigger. Of course, if a crystal can hold enough oxygen until it’s triggered to release, it could theoretically be used to replace heavy oxygen tanks — even underwater. If the crystal sounds too good to be true, that’s because — in its current form — it basically is.

Astarte Astarte riding in a chariot with four branches protruding from roof, on the reverse of a Julia Maesa coin from Sidon Astarte /æˈstɑrti/ (Ancient Greek: Ἀστάρτη, "Astártē") is the Greek name of the Mesopotamian (i.e. Assyrian, Akkadian, Babylonian) Semitic goddess Ishtar known throughout the Near East and Eastern Mediterranean from the early Bronze Age to Classical times. It is one of a number of names associated with the chief goddess or female divinity of those peoples.[1] She is found as Ugaritic 𐎓𐎘𐎚𐎗𐎚 (ʻṯtrt, "ʻAṯtart" or "ʻAthtart"); in Phoenician as 𐤕𐤓𐤕𐤔𐤀 (ʻštrt, "Ashtart"); in Hebrew עשתרת (Ashtoret, singular, or Ashtarot, plural); and appears originally in Akkadian as 𒀭𒊍𒁯𒌓 D, the grammatically masculine name of the goddess Ishtar; the form Astartu is used to describe her age.[2] The name appears also in Etruscan as 𐌖𐌍𐌉 𐌀𐌔𐌕𐌛𐌄 Uni-Astre (Pyrgi Tablets), Ishtar or Ashtart. Overview[edit] Astarte was connected with fertility, sexuality, and war. See also[edit]

Water splitter runs on an ordinary AAA battery -- ScienceDaily Hongjie Dai and colleagues have developed a cheap, emissions-free device that uses a 1.5-volt battery to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The hydrogen gas could be used to power fuel cells in zero-emissions vehicles. Stanford University Professor Hongjie Dai has developed an emissions-free electrolytic device that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen at room temperature. In 2015, American consumers will finally be able to purchase fuel cell cars from Toyota and other manufacturers. Now scientists at Stanford University have developed a low-cost, emissions-free device that uses an ordinary AAA battery to produce hydrogen by water electrolysis. "Using nickel and iron, which are cheap materials, we were able to make the electrocatalysts active enough to split water at room temperature with a single 1.5-volt battery," said Hongjie Dai, a professor of chemistry at Stanford. The promise of hydrogen Earlier this year, Hyundai began leasing fuel cell vehicles in Southern California.

Plants Can Hear Themselves Being Eaten A small, flowering plant called Arabidopsis thaliana can hear the vibrations that caterpillars trigger when they chew on its leaves. According to a new study, the plants can hear danger loud and clear, and they respond by launching a chemical defense. From anecdotes and previous studies, we know that plants respond to wind, touch, and acoustic energy. “The field is somewhat haunted by its history of playing music to plants. That sort of stimulus is so divorced from the natural ecology of plants that it’s very difficult to interpret any plant responses,” says Rex Cocroft from the University of Missouri, Columbia. In this first example of plants responding to ecologically relevant vibrational sounds (i.e. predation), Cocroft and Mizzou’s Heidi Appel combined audio and chemical analyses. After they recorded the seemingly inaudible vibrational sounds of caterpillar chewing, they played the recordings back to one set of Arabidopsis plants, while silence was played to another set.

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