Sandcast aluminum Decepticon symbol
Vrogy, whose cosplay work we featured recently, poured this Decepticon logo in aluminum from his home foundry. He’s also done an Autubot logo. I wonder where he got that idea? :)
Chemistry
How-To: Cure colorblindness in an adult primate
OK, OK, this is probably something you shouldn’t try on yourself, a loved one, or even a close friend. Still, it’s pretty flippin’ amazing: a full-grown animal, permanently (apparently) cured of a genetic defect by a few injections. Can X-people be that far behind?
(That’s a rhetorical question, BTW; those of you who know the real answer to that question is “yes,” just chill and give me my moment.)
Here is the original abstract at Nature.
The pitch drop experiment
In 1927 Dr. Thomas Parnell at the University of Queensland heated a sample of petroleum pitch, also called bitumen, and poured it into a glass funnel, with a sealed neck, set in a ring stand. Three years later, in 1930, he broke the neck off the funnel and set it aside. It took eight years for the first drop of pitch to fall. The experiment has been running continuously ever since, and has produced a total of eight drops to date. The man shown in the photograph is Dr. John Mainstone, who is the experiment’s current custodian.
Make: Projects – Bottle cutting
There are lots of ways to do this particular trick. You may have seen bottles “cut” using a bucket of ice water, a string soaked in fuel and set alight, a hot narrow gauge resistive wire, or some combination of the above. I’ve tried all of these ways, at one point or another, with varying […]
Do you eat the moldy stuff?
My husband and I have battled continuously for years about whether scraping the mold off the top of — well, anything — makes it OK to eat, or if once a spot of green invades the top of a barely used jar of jam we’ve got to call it a loss and toss it out. […]
Amazingly simple magnetic heat-switching valve
Here’s an interesting article about a very clever gizmo by two scientists at Denmark’s Risø National Laboratory for Sustainable Energy. It’s being hyped as a totally original invention, but the idea is so conceptually simple that I have a hard time believing it’s entirely new under the sun. Still, though–very cool. So, quick science review: […]
Theo Gray on electrochemical machining
In this Boing Boing Video, PopSci columnist and author of the splendid and high-recommend Theo Gray’s Mad Science, explains how electrochemical machining (ECM) works and shows off a rig he put together to do ECM in his shop. The entire how-to can be found at popsci.com. Carve Steel with Saltwater, Electricity and a Tin Earring […]
