MAKE’s interview with hardware hacker Akiba highlighted a fascinating trend: individuals and small groups taking their safety into their own hands by creating, modifying, and networking radiation detectors, a.k.a. Geiger counters, rather than relying on governments for information. The following projects and kits aim to put Geiger counters in the hands of ordinary makers. Resources […]
Yale Student Killed as Hair Gets Caught in Lathe (NY Times) – horrifying and so sad: As a Yale undergraduate majoring in astronomy and physics, Michele Dufault was used to extreme physical environments. She worked on underwater robotic vehicles last summer as a fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. She also traveled […]
Piezoelectric materials are about as close to magic as you can get. They turn physical pressure into electricity and can even turn electricity into physical pressure – an amazing sort of bidirectional converter for mechanical and electrical energies. Perhaps even more amazing is the fact that you can easily ‘grow’ your own piezoelectric crystals overnight […]
Amateur astronomy is now within the reach of anyone, and this is the ideal book to get you started. The Illustrated Guide to Astronomical Wonders offers you a guide to the equipment you need, and shows you how and where to find hundreds of spectacular objects in the deep sky — double and multiple stars as well as spectacular star clusters, nebulae, and galaxies.
