A science blog collecting short, curious explanations of physics, engineering, and history oddities like train wheels, flour explosions, and pyramids.
HN links it as a source for science curiosities, with commenters citing its pages on train wheels, the Great Pyramid, and microwave heating.
Thanks for highlighting these parts, I wouldn’t have read it otherwise.
Wise words. Humans appear to need resistance between themselves and the achievement of a goal/wish, else we don’t seem to give it any real value.
This example has stuck with me, from https://awesci.com/the-role-of-wind-in-a-trees-life/
> The major discovery from it was something they had never expected. The most interesting thing they learnt from it was the importance of wind in a plant’s life. Who’d have thought!
>
> In the biosphere 2 [without wind], they had trees growing faster than they would grow in the wild. Also, they found that these trees wouldn’t completely mature. Before they could, they used to collapse. Later it was found that this was caused by the lack of wind in the biosphere. And it turns out, wind plays a major role in a trees life. The presence of wind makes a tree stronger, it is thus able to mature and not fall down due to its own weight.
Maybe all kinds of life need some sort of resistance to thrive?
This concept has an interesting similarity to plant growth, in particular stem development. Strong stem growth in early plant development relies in part on wind exposure, and without any wind, plants will collapse later in development under their own weight (a common problem in greenhouse and indoor cultivation).
https://awesci.com/the-role-of-wind-in-a-trees-life/
However, trees can't reshape themselves. Once a woody structure is formed, it's set. This allows for highly durable structures, and that might be a problem with this technology - i.e. the wear and tear that comes with continually reforming the material. This is solved in animals (i.e. muscle tissue) by continually regenerating the material in an active turnover process, which might be required here as well.
> "The lead epidemic is the longest-running epidemic in our country"
This is probably one of the most depressing lines I read in this article. I've watched some of John Oliver's videos on PFAs and Lead (regardless of what you think about his other political views, I would say his videos on subject matter like this is quite informative). It's astonishing to think that organizations like the EPA were formed in the latter half of the twentieth century to remedy the negligence in making chemically and biologically safe products for human beings to use.
Seriously, up until the 50s we were making "radioactive toothpaste" and advertising it to the general population as being safe and effective: https://awesci.com/radioactive-toothpaste-shocking-ad-50s/
I've a vague fantasy about returning to the remote Scottish island where I was born, which is pretty windswept with almost no trees, and building a house and garden inside a large Solar Dome, growing trees and plants that otherwise wouldn't survive in such a hostile environment. Apparently it has been done to some extent[0]. Side note - they discovered in the Biosphere 2 that trees need some wind, because the stress helps form reaction wood to strengthen the tree[1].
[0] http://www.solardome.co.uk/case-study/the-nature-house-north-norway/
[1] http://awesci.com/the-role-of-wind-in-a-trees-life/
I'm pretty sure that IR LEDs [1] are the new lemon juice [2].
[1]http://www.instructables.com/id/How-not-to-block-cameras/
[2]http://awesci.com/the-astonishingly-funny-story-of-mr-mcarthur-wheeler/
One approach that's been considered: https://awesci.com/microwave-room-heater/
Then there's the Active Denial System: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Active_Denial_System