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Materials library lets you play with exotic samples

Materials library lets you play with exotic samples

If you’re interested in materials science, design, architecture, and/or chemistry, and you live in Austin or the central Texas area, you should not miss the UT Austin School of Architecture Materials Lab, located in room 3.102 of the West Mall Office Building on The University of Texas Campus. They’re closed this week for Spring Break, but are normally open from 9-5 every weekday. It’s open to the public, and is chock-a-block with physical samples of all kinds of exotic materials that would otherwise be difficult to get your hands on in small quantities. Anyone can poke around, and registered students can check out samples just like a book-library.

If you’re not in the area, the UTSOA Materials Lab is building an online database of its collection organized by composition, form, properties, process, and application. And although they don’t have photos of all the samples uploaded yet, it’s still fascinating browsing.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan
Brilliant low-tech soil moisture sensor

Brilliant low-tech soil moisture sensor

Two galvanized nails set in a plug of plaster-of-Paris. That’s it. The Cheap Vegetable Gardener, who created the sensor for an automated grow box project, explains:

Technically a gypsum block measures soil water tension. When the gypsum block is dry it is not possible for electricity to pass between the probes, essentially making the probe an insulator with infinite resistance. As water is added to the problem more electrons can pass between the probes effectively reducing the amount of resistance between the problem to the point when it is fully saturated where the probe has virtually zero resistance. By using this range of values you can determine the amount of water than exists in your soil.

[via Hack a Day]

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan2
How-To: Collect whale snot using an RC helicopter

How-To: Collect whale snot using an RC helicopter

Lately we’ve had lots of folks writing in seeking practical advice on collecting tissue samples for use in studying diseases of whales. I had no idea there were so many amateur cetopathologists among our readers!

As you folks know–all too well, I’m sure–it is extremely difficult to collect blood from a wild whale without injuring or killing it in the process. However, as is common knowledge even among laypersons, the next best thing to live whale blood is live whale snot. Turns out it spews from their blowholes when they exhale, so the process is really very simple:

1. Find breaching whale.
2. Hold petri dish over blowhole to intercept spout.
3. Return to lab, enjoy sample.

Step 2 is actually the hard part. And although your first instinct may be to just jump in your rowboat, paddle out to a whale pod, lean way out over the side with your sample container, and wait, that’s actually not as safe as it might sound. Each year, untold millions die attempting this maneuver.

Enter Dr. Karina Acevedo-Whitehouse, of the Zoological Society of London. Her recent paper in Animal Conservation (abstract), irresistibly entitled “A novel non-invasive tool for disease surveillance of free-ranging whales and its relevance to conservation programs,” introduces the ground-breaking methodology of strapping a petri dish to a toy RC helicopter and flying it into the spout. This landmark paper stands not only to revolutionize our understanding of whaleborne disease, but to save countless lives, and establishes Dr. Acevedo-Whitehouse as a serious contender for this year’s (Ig) Nobel Prize.

[via The Thoughtful Animal]

P.S. Dr. Acevedo-Whitehouse, you are made of awesome. And although I have never met you and probably never will, I love you with all my heart.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan8
Plastic plywood substitute

Plastic plywood substitute

I make a bunch of stuff out of plywood. A lot of it is utilitarian furniture–bookshelves, workbenches, occasional chairs and stools. I’ve been wishing for a long time that I could find a plastic substitute material, like the synthetic decking and lumber I see for sale in the hardware stores these days, to use instead, not only for the eco-friendly aspect, but because I’d like to have a material that was naturally water-resistant and did not require finishing.

That’s why I was excited to learn, a few months ago, about EcoSheet, which is a “plywood replacement” panel material manufactured by British firm Environmental Recycling Technologies. I hit them up for a sample and they sent me a 4″ x 4″ x 3/4″ piece of the stuff, which is pictured above. It does not weigh as much as plywood, but seems just as rigid, and drills and cuts easily. And although their initial market seems to be the construction industry, specifically temporary structures erected as barriers and pouring forms, I’m looking forward to experimenting with “off-label” uses when and if it becomes available in small quantities in the US.

EcoSheet is manufactured from 75% recycled material, mostly waste electrical and electronic equipment, and can itself be recycled at the end of its useful life.

Continue Reading Sean Michael Ragan18