Places to Meditate

 

Updated June 20, 2015. There are benefits to regular meditation, but setting aside a block of time to do it can sometimes be tough. One strategy that helps people maintain a daily practice, even on the most hectic days, is to do short bursts of meditation throughout the day. Here are some often-overlooked places to sneak in a couple of minutes of meditation. Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy/Cultura/Getty Images 1.  In a waiting room. The next time you're stuck in a waiting room, try using the time to practice diaghragmatic breathing, a simple technique for engaging the muscles involved in breathing. Here's a quick tutorial on how to do it. JLP/Jose Luis Pelaez/Fuse/Getty Images 2.  At your desk. The hardest part about establishing a regular meditation practice is taking the time to do it every day, even if it's just for a minute. Try setting up a daily reminder to take a one-minute meditation break. Here are tips to get started. Jupiterimages/Photolibrary/Getty Images 3.  In bed. For a better night's sleep, try these 5 mind/body practices. A mind/body exercise that works particularly well when lying in bed is progressive muscle relaxation. Some people find it helpful to take a few minutes every morning after waking up to meditate in bed. Jason Dewey/Stone/Getty Images 4.  While standing in line. Waiting in line can be a frustrating experience, but it doesn't have to be. With your eyes open and gazing at the ground or at a point in front of you, try focusing on your breath and practicing this simple mindfulness meditation exercise. Laurence Monneret/Taxi/Getty Images 5.  In the shower. The shower is a great place to practice mindfulness. Pay attention to the way the water feels on your body. Notice your hand movements as you wash yourself and your body movements as you wash and rinse.  Paul Bradbury/Caiaimage/Getty Images 6.  While commuting to work. Everyone around you may be on their devices, but the next time you're commuting to work, try sitting or standing quietly. Be in the present and observe your surroundings.  Marc Romanell/Blend Images/Getty Images 7.  While brushing your teeth. The next time you brush your teeth, try practicing mindfulness. Pay attention to the way the toothbrush feels on your teeth, how the toothpaste tastes, the water collecting in your mouth, and the movements you make to spit. You don't have to change anything about the way you brush your teeth, but be fully present as you do it. Peter Cade/The Image Bank/Getty Images 8.  In the bathroom Although the bathroom may seem like a strange place to meditate, once you close the door or the stall door, you're by yourself in a quiet place. Close your eyes, take a breath in, and exhale slowly. Image Source/Getty Images 9.  While washing your hands Like toothbrushing, washing your hands is a routine daily activity that can easily become a regular time to practice mindfulness. Try focusing on the way your hands feel as you are lathering them with soap and then rinsing them off with water. JGI/Jamie Grill/Blend Images/Getty Images 10.  While eating a meal. Resist the urge to rush through your next meal. Put your fork down after each bite. Chew slowly, tuning in to the taste and texture of your food. Try to notice the sensations of swallowing each bite. Take a moment after your first bite to see what it feels like with your mouth empty. Is there a tendency  to quickly get your next bite ready while you are still chewing your last piece of food? Cathy Wong 11.  Tips on Meditating on the Go - When meditating in a public place, most people prefer to keep their eyes slightly open to maintain awareness of their surroundings.   Disclaimer: The information contained on this site is intended for educational purposes only and is not a substitute for advice, diagnosis or treatment by a licensed physician. It is not meant to cover all possible precautions, drug interactions, circumstances or adverse effects. You should seek prompt medical care for any health issues and consult your doctor before using alternative medicine or making a change to your regimen.   source – www.about.com

Physical study may give boost to hydrogen cars

 

Wed, 07/01/2015 - 12:21pm Jason Bardi, American Institute of Physics Smaller is more stable. Smaller Mg nanoparticles display better mechanical performance that is good for structural stability during cycling and also hydrogen storage kinetics. Courtesy of Qian Yu/Zhejiang UniversityWASHINGTON, DC—The dream of a cleaner, greener transportation future burns brightly in the promise of hydrogen-fueled, internal combustion engine automobiles. Modern-day versions of such vehicles run hot, finish clean and produce only pure water as a combustion byproduct. But whether those vehicles ever cross over from the niche marketplace to become the mainstay of every garage may depend on how well we can address lingering technical and infrastructure hurdles that stand in the way of their widespread use. One of these is the fuel tank—how do you engineer them so that they can be more like gasoline tanks, which are relatively safe, easy to fill, carry you hundreds of miles and can be refueled again and again with no loss of performance? This week in the journal Applied Physics Letters, a team of researchers in the United States and China has taken a step toward that solution. They describe the physics of magnesium hydride, one type of material that potentially could be used to store hydrogen fuel in future automobiles and other applications. Using a technique known as in situ transmission electron microscopy, the team tested different sized nanoparticles of magnesium hydride to gauge their mechanical properties and discovered lessons on how one might engineer the nanoparticles to make them better. "Smaller particles have better mechanical properties, including better plastic stability," said Qian Yu, the lead author on the paper. "Our work explained why." Yu is affiliated with Zhejiang University in Hangzhou, China; the University of California, Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Other collaborators on the work are affiliated with the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor; General Motors Research and Development Center in Warren, Michigan; and Shanghai Jiaotong University in Shanghai, China. The Problem of Storing Hydrogen with Magnesium Hydrogen storage for automobile engines is still something of an application in search of its technology. We know that the next generation of hydrogen fuel tanks will need to offer greater storage capacities and better gas exchange kinetics than existing models, but we don't know exactly what it will take to deliver that. One possibility is to use a material like magnesium hydride, long seen as a promising medium for storage. Magnesium readily binds hydrogen, and so the idea is that you could take a tank filled with magnesium, pump in hydrogen and then pump it out as needed to run the engine. But this approach is hampered by slow kinetics of adsorption and desorption—the speed with which molecular hydrogen binds to and is released from the magnesium. This is ultimately tied to the how the material binds to hydrogen at the molecular level, and so in recent years researchers have sought to better engineer magnesium to achieve better kinetics. Previous work had already shown that smaller magnesium nanoparticles have better hydrogen storage properties, but nobody understood why. Some thought it was primarily the greater overall magnesium surface area within the tank realized by milling smaller particles. But Yu and colleagues showed that it is also highly related to how the particles respond to deformation during cycles of fueling and emptying the tank. Fuel cycles in a hydrogen tank introduce tremendous internal changes in pressure, which can deform the particles, cracking or degrading them. Smaller particles have greater plastic stability, meaning that they are more able to retain their structure even when undergoing deformation. This means that the smaller, more plastic magnesium nanoparticles can retain their structure longer and continue to hold hydrogen cycle after cycle. But it turns out that in addition to greater plastic stability, the smaller particles also have less "deformation anisotropy"—a measure of how the magnesium nanoparticles all tend to respond, uniformly or not, across the entire tank. Deformation anisotropy is strongly reduced at nanoscales, Yu said, and because of this, smaller magnesium nanoparticles have more homogeneous dislocation activity inside, which offer more homogenously distributed diffusion path for hydrogen. This suggests a path forward for making better hydrogen storage tanks, Yu said, by engineering them specifically to take advantage of greater homogeneous dislocation. Next they plan to do similar studies on hydrogen storage materials as they undergo fuel cycling, absorbing and desorbing hydrogen in the process. The article, "Size-dependent mechanical properties of Mg nanoparticles used for hydrogen storage," is authored by Qian Yu, Liang Qi, Raja K. Mishra, Xiaoqin Zeng and Andrew M. Minor. It will be published in the journal Applied Physics Letters on June 30, 2015 (DOI: 10.1063/1.4921003). After that date, it can be accessed at: http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/106/26/10.1063/1.4921003 SOURCE: American Institute of Physics

50 More of the Most Useful Websites on the Internet

 

by Johnny Webber 1. MapC.am – Call and connect with a random person somewhere in the world. 2. Pective.com – Find out the actual size of things. 3. ShareOnFB.com – Share fake news stories, and prank your friends. 4. WhichDateWorks.com – Find out which date works best with your friends. 5. imo.im – Free voice, messaging, and video calls. 6. LiveShare.com – Beautiful messaging for your groups. 7. Rappad.co – Write a song about whatever you want. 8. MySlideRule.com – Find online courses on any topic. 9. KeyboardTester.com – Test your keyboard’s functionality. 10. SndTst.com – A sound test for various games. 11. InternetDirectory.info – The Yellow Pages but for the Internet. 12. ABetterQueue.com – Use Rotten Tomatoes standards to create a better Netflix queue. 13. LucyPhone.com – Never wait on hold for a company ever again. 14. ZeroDollarMovies.com – Find free movies online. 15. Alertful.com – Get reminded of important appointments via email. 16. CommercialTunage.com – Find out which song was used in that one commercial. 17. JazzAndRain.com – Listen to the soothing sounds of jazz and rainfall. 18. OffTheRoost.com – Find a place to eat. 19. Studio.StupeFlix.com – Make amazing videos in seconds. 20. TypingWeb.com – Learn to touch type. 21. Bonanza.com – Remove backgrounds from images. 22. CloudConvert.org – Convert a file to anything. 23. 7CupsOfTea.com – Connect with someone who will listen to your troubles. 24. Boostgr.am – Promote your Instagram photos. 25. Chordify.net – Extract high quality guitar chords from any song. 26. Archive.today – Take a snapshot of a webpage so it will always be online. 27. TuneIn.com – Listen to over 100,000 real radio stations. 28. TakeLessons.com – Search thousands of teachers for local and online lessons. 29. Forget.me – Remove yourself from Google search results. 30. PizzaCodes.com – Get coupons for your pizzas. 31. AlternativeTo.net – Find alternative software. 32. Gixen.com – Automatically place eBay bids. 33. MapMyRun.com – Plan out every stride of your jog. 34. XKCDGraphs.com – Create your own XKCD style graphs. 35. WarrantyGenius.com – Organize and track all of your product warranties. 36. TheSquatrack.com – Track your workouts. 37. GodChecker.com – An encyclopedia of over 3,700 gods, demons, spirits, and beasts. 38. EasyASCII.com – Quickly copy ASCII characters. 39. PrintablePaper.net – Printable lined, graph, and music paper with more. 40. IP-Grabber.com – Grab an IP address from a link. 41. GifCtrl.com – Reverse gifs. 42. YourLogicalFallacyIs.com – Learn your logical fallacies. 43. HabitRPG.com – Create habits and earn rewards. 44. Jog.fm – Find the perfect music for your run. 45. HaveIBeenPwned.com – Check if you have an account that has been compromised in a data breech. 46. TeachMeAnatomy.info – Learn about human anatomy. 47. WobZip.org – Uncompress zip files online. 48. PDF.yt – Imgur for PDF documents. 49. UnplugTheTV.com – Watch educational YouTube videos at random. 50. 50WaysToGetAJob.com – Find out what you should do next to get a job. source : http://johnnylists.com

Eedu may be the drone kit for the rest of us

 

Eedu is an aerial drone kit that aims to take the pain out of using a programmable drone, with a quick and simple assembly process and an easy-to-use development environment for creating new applications Image Gallery (10 images) Programmable, do-it-yourself drones are fun. They're cool. But the thought of building one and getting started with flying and programming it can be super intimidating. Skyworks Aerial Systems hopes that its Eedu kit will change that perception. Eedu can be assembled in half an hour with a few simple tools (no soldering required) and it comes with a drag-and-drop development environment that's meant to allow kids and hobbyists alike to be up and running with custom drone applications in a flash. Skyworks is specifically pushing the educational value of Eedu, with the idea being that it could teach a new generation of coders in much the same way that personal computers did in the era of BASIC – hopefully with resultant increases in enrolments in STEM education. Instead of people having to spend weeks or months learning how to build a drone from scratch, they can get straight into programming. Eedu is preprogrammed out of the box as a standard quadcopter, able to function in pilot (manual controls) or mission mode (follow a flight pattern), but its on-board flight controller can be reprogrammed in the open-source, web-based Forge development environment and expanded further with any bits and bobs you might want to mount on it – for drone racing, photography, reconnaissance, aerial dogfighting, or whatever else. Skyworks used Forge to build a laser tag drone game as a proof of concept, which you can see in action below. Those who are scared by code can ease themselves into it by starting with the drag-and-drop and tick-box interfaces of Forge's Blocks Mode, but the real value of Eedu – as with all drone building thus far – lies in its use as a creative coding platform. For that, you can develop apps in JavaScript and/or Arduino C/C++. In an effort to kickstart community development, Skyworks has built a number of "mods" that add capabilities to Eedu beyond basic flight controls – like data collection or automatic behaviors that trigger under certain circumstances. The company hopes that a community will form in which people share and swap modified or custom-made mods. The 13.84-inch (35.15 cm) by 12.03-inch (30.56 cm) Eedu aerial drone weighs half a kilogram (about a pound) and can fly for up to 10 minutes at a time. It comes with an included controller, though it supports most of the Bluetooth and Wi-Fi gamepads on the market as well, and you can build mobile apps to control it too. (An official Eedu app is planned, but there's no firm release date.) There's also an autopilot to handle flying when you don't want to control it directly, and a number of safety mechanisms are meant to take over if something goes badly wrong. Eedu is currently seeking to raise US$100,000 on Kickstarter and the campaign has just a few days to go. Pledges for the Eedu flight controller start at $299, while complete Eedu kits start at $449. If successful, Skyworks plans to ship units out to backers at the end of this year or early next year. If not, the company still hopes to have a product to market soon. A spokesperson for Skyworks tells Gizmag that they have "solid financial backing" and "the drone's release is not contingent" on Kickstarter success. Eedu's retail price will be somewhere around the $600 mark, with a separate Inspire a Dronesmith campaign set up to provide Eedu drone kits to schools across the US later this year. While Eedu may lower the barrier to entry on the side of assembly and coding, it has no such impact on the cost side in comparison to other do-it-yourself options. When Gizmag visited a first-person view drone racing event earlier this month, we were told that it'll only cost you around $250 to $300 to get all the gear you need to make a DIY quadcopter for that emerging sport. (You'd likely want something more robust and less versatile than an Eedu, regardless, if you plan to get into drone racing.)   Sources: Skyworks, Kickstarter

Compound discovery sets stage for speedier electronic devices

 

Electronics can get faster and better more quickly thanks to the discovery that niobium phosphide has an especially high magnetoresistance – a phenomenon illustrated here in which electrons are deflected from their original direction of flow (green arrow) by a magnetic field (black arrows), increasing electric resistance (Credit: Yulin Chen) A discovery at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Physics of Solids could pave the way for further leaps forward in the speed of electronic systems. The scientists, who worked in collaboration with colleagues at Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf and Radbound University, found that a material called niobium phosphide, which is a compound of transition metal niobium and phosphorus, dramatically increases its resistance in a magnetic field. The material could find use in faster, higher-capacity hard drives and other electronic components. Electronic components such as hard disks typically use layers of different materials in filigree structure (tiny beads and threads of metal soldered onto the surface) to exploit a phenomenon known as magnetoresistance to develop a high electric resistance, which allows for higher density of data and thus greater storage capacity. What happens here is that a tiny amount of electricity causes the charge carriers to deflect via a phenomenon called the Lorentz force, and then that causes electrons to flow in the "wrong" direction – thereby increasing electric resistance and allowing a very precise read of the data that's magnetically stored in a given location. "The faster the electrons in the material move, the greater the Lorentz force and thus the effect of a magnetic field," explains study lead author Binghai Yan. The electrons in this material, niobium phosphide, travel very quickly. Niobium phosphide contains superfast charge carriers, or relativistic electrons, that move at 300 km/s (186 mi/s), which is one-thousandth the speed of light. And that extreme speed allows the resistance to increase by a factor of 10,000. The researchers believe that niobium phosphide has "enormous potential for future applications in information technology" – not only in hard drives but also in many other electronic components that use magnetoresistance to function. A paper describing the study was published in the journal Nature Physics. Source: Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf

Graphene takes on a new dimension

 

A new process for creating 3D objects out of graphene opens up the possibility of fashioning a whole new range of innovative electronic devices (Credit: Shutterstock) Graphene is the modern go-to material for scientists and engineers looking to create all manner of new electronic devices. From ultra-frugal light bulbs (both big and small), to super-efficient solar cells, flexible displays and much more, graphene is a multi-tasking marvel. However, in all of these instances, graphene in its original form of atom-thin, flat sheets has had to be used with peripheral supports and structures because it lacks a solid shape and form of its own. Now researchers from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC)have come up with a way of creating 3D objects out of graphene that opens up the possibility of fashioning a whole new range of innovative electronic devices. To create 3D shapes in graphene, the researchers first had to ensure that their approach was sufficient to maintain the structural integrity of the material when it was subjected to deformation. As such, the team used an underlying substrate former over which they laid a film of graphene that had been soaked in solvent to make it swell and become malleable. Once overlaid on the former, the solvent then evaporated over time, leaving behind a layer of graphene that had taken on the shape of the underlying structure. In this way the team was able to produce a range of relatively intricate shapes. "To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first to demonstrate graphene integration to a variety of different microstructured geometries, including pyramids, pillars, domes, inverted pyramids, and the 3D integration of gold nanoparticles (AuNPs)/graphene hybrid structures," said SungWoo Nam, assistant professor of mechanical science and engineering at UIUC. "Our swelling, shrinking, and adaptation steps are optimized to minimize the degree of graphene suspension around the 3D microstructures and facilitate successful 3D integration. We control the amount of substrate swelling by adjusting the time of immersion in organic solvent and the mixing ratios of monomer and curing agent of the polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) substrate." Varying in size from just 3.5 to 50 μm, the dimensions of the graphene microstructures developed by UIUC put them right in the middle of a range of electronic devices, including various types of photodetectors, nano antennas, and other sub-miniature components that were once only the domain of silicon-based products. According to the team, these factors, along with graphene's high carrier mobility, chemical inertness, and biocompatibility, mean that three-dimensional graphene could be adapted over even wider areas. "We also expect that our new 3D integration approach will facilitate advanced classes of hybrid devices between microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and 2D materials for sensing and actuation," said SungWoo Nam. Due to the fragility of atom-thin graphene, previous methods to bend or mold it into complex shapes resulted in uneven, ill-formed objects at best, and a ruptured mess at worst. In investigating the new technique, the researchers at UIUC were diligent in their testing of the formed graphene via electron microscopy, atomic force microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, and electrical resistance measurement to confirm that it maintained its shape and consistency after forming. "Our results demonstrate a simple, versatile, and scalable method to integrate graphene with 3D geometries with various morphologies and dimensions," said Jonghyun Choi, a graduate student in Nam’s research group. "Not only are these 3D features larger than those reported in previous works, but we also demonstrate the uniformity and damage-free nature of integrated graphene around the 3D features." The results of this research were recently published in the journal Nano Letters. Source: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Don’t struggle with stubble – Get The Razorpit

 

Posted: 10 Jun 2015 11:00 AM PDT

Here’s the deal with hair, it’s a nuisance to comb, it gets in our food, it clogs our bathrooms, and here’s the recent grievance. With constant shaving, the edge of the blade becomes ineffective because of hair particle buildup, and cleaning it is next to impossible because you have to be super careful while handling the sharp blades. Now with waxing your beard not being a mentally sane option, the only alternative has been to periodically switch razor blades; which can really burn a hole in your pocket if you sprout whiskers faster than the Wolfman. Do want Razorpit!

Since quite a while now, Razor companies have started using what is called a DLC, or a Diamond-Like Carbon coating on the blades, giving it its dangerously sharp edge. However, within a fortnight of usage, the blades stop working as smoothly, often pinching or nicking the skin. This coating doesn’t wear off easily, and more times than you’d be led to believe, the blades just need a good cleaning to be restored to their former glory. The Razorpit, developed by Firtal Brands boasts of cleaning your blades so well, that they can be used to 300% of their promised potential.

With a patented friction surface that gently removes particulate matter from around your blades, the Razorpit cleans your blades to an extent that you can notice the difference on even a microscopic level.

Here’s what you have to do:

After shaving, lubricate the Razorpit surface with thin layer of your shaving cream/foam.
Smoothly, yet firmly, rub your blades (face down) on the surface, upwards (opposite to the shaving direction).
Make sure you run the blade from one end of the surface to the other. Do this roughly 5 times after every time you shave.
Don’t forget to rinse your blade in warm water once you’re done.
Lastly, go buy something cool with the money you save from not having to purchase extra shaving blades.
Don’t struggle with stubble. Now you can shave the way every man aspires to, like playing Fruit Ninja with your beard.

The Infrared Walking Cane

 

Posted: 29 Jun 2015 12:00 AM PDT

Simply called the Safe Stick, this revolutionary walking stick for sight-impaired individuals goes beyond the limitations of traditional designs, utilizing a network of checkpoints at landmarks like bus stops and intersections to help users navigate safely and more effectively. The design relies on RIAS (Remote Infrared Auditory Signage) technology installed at the landmarks that communicate with the walking stick and signal an auditory message to the user with details on their location as they approach a checkpoint. For nighttime use, a bright red LED flasher gives additional safety by notifying drivers of the user’s location.

 

Trans fat: Avoid this cholesterol double whammy

 

Trans fat is double trouble for your heart health Trans fat raises your LDL ("bad") cholesterol and lowers your HDL ("good") (HDL) cholesterol. Find out more about trans fat and how to avoid it. By Mayo Clinic Staff Trans fat is considered by many doctors to be the worst type of fat you can eat. Unlike other dietary fats, trans fat — also called trans-fatty acids — both raises your LDL ("bad") cholesterol and lowers your HDL ("good") cholesterol. A high LDL cholesterol level in combination with a low HDL cholesterol level increases your risk of heart disease, the leading killer of men and women. Here's some information about trans fat and how to avoid it. What is trans fat? Some meat and dairy products contain small amounts of naturally occurring trans fat. But most trans fat is formed through an industrial process that adds hydrogen to vegetable oil, which causes the oil to become solid at room temperature. This partially hydrogenated oil is less likely to spoil, so foods made with it have a longer shelf life. Some restaurants use partially hydrogenated vegetable oil in their deep fryers, because it doesn't have to be changed as often as do other oils. Trans fat in your food The manufactured form of trans fat, known as partially hydrogenated oil, is found in a variety of food products, including: Baked goods. Most cakes, cookies, pie crusts and crackers contain shortening, which is usually made from partially hydrogenated vegetable oil. Ready-made frosting is another source of trans fat. Snacks. Potato, corn and tortilla chips often contain trans fat. And while popcorn can be a healthy snack, many types of packaged or microwave popcorn use trans fat to help cook or flavor the popcorn. Fried food. Foods that require deep frying — french fries, doughnuts and fried chicken — can contain trans fat from the oil used in the cooking process. Refrigerator dough. Products such as canned biscuits and cinnamon rolls often contain trans fat, as do frozen pizza crusts. Creamer and margarine. Nondairy coffee creamer and stick margarines also may contain partially hydrogenated vegetable oils. Reading food labels In the United States if a food has less than 0.5 grams of trans fat in a serving, the food label can read 0 grams trans fat. This hidden trans fat can add up quickly, especially if you eat several servings of multiple foods containing less than 0.5 grams a serving. When you check the food label for trans fat, also check the food's ingredient list for partially hydrogenated vegetable oil — which indicates that the food contains some trans fat, even if the amount is below 0.5 grams. How trans fat harms you Doctors worry about trans fat because of its unhealthy effect on your cholesterol levels — increasing your LDL and decreasing your HDL cholesterol. There are two main types of cholesterol: Low-density lipoprotein (LDL). LDL, or "bad," cholesterol can build up in the walls of your arteries, making them hard and narrow. High-density lipoprotein (HDL). HDL, or "good," cholesterol picks up excess cholesterol and takes it back to your liver. If the fatty deposits within your arteries tear or rupture, a blood clot may form and block blood flow to a part of your heart, causing a heart attack, or to a part of your brain, causing a stroke. What should you eat? Don't think a food that is free of trans fat is automatically good for you. Food manufacturers have begun substituting other ingredients for trans fat. Some of these ingredients, such as tropical oils — coconut, palm kernel and palm oils — contain a lot of saturated fat. Saturated fat raises your LDL cholesterol. In a healthy diet, 25 to 35 percent of your total daily calories can come from fat — but saturated fat should account for less than 10 percent of your total daily calories. Monounsaturated fat — found in olive, peanut and canola oils — is a healthier option than is saturated fat. Nuts, fish and other foods containing unsaturated omega-3 fatty acids are other good choices of foods with monounsaturated fats.

Ultra-stable JILA Microscopy Technique Tracks Tiny Objects for Hours

 

From NIST Tech Beat: June 30, 2015 Contact: Laura Ost 303-497-4880 JILA researchers have designed a microscope instrument so stable that it can accurately measure the 3D movement of individual molecules over many hours—hundreds of times longer than the current limit measured in seconds.* The technology was designed to track the machinery of biological cells, down to the tiniest bits of DNA, a single "base pair" of nucleotides among the 3 billion of these chemical units in human genes. But the instrument could be useful well beyond biology, biochemistry and biophysics, perhaps in manufacturing. JILA is a partnership of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Colorado Boulder. "This technology can actively stabilize two items relative to each other with a precision well below one nanometer at room temperature," JILA/NIST physicist Tom Perkins says. "This level of 3D stability may start to interest the nanomanufacturing world, when they look at making and characterizing things on the single-nanometer scale." The work builds on JILA's world-leading expertise in measuring positions of microscopic objects. The latest tweaks extend stability for a much longer time period, many hours at a time. With the longer observation times, researchers can see more successive steps of molecular motors, for instance. These biochemical processes are responsible for a broad range of movement in living organisms, including moving molecules around the interior of a cell or copying DNA into another form of genetic material, RNA. The new JILA instrument also can aid in measuring individual proteins as they fold into specific positions, a process required for them to work properly. Until now, researchers had difficulty detecting more than a few individual, one-base-pair steps in succession before instrumental "drift" would blur the signal. Observing such sets of repetitive steps is very rare. The instrument must be stable to within about one-tenth of a nanometer (1 angstrom to biologists, equivalent to the diameter of a hydrogen atom). Typically, a microscope can only occasionally achieve this level of stability. But when augmented by the new JILA measurement platform, it can reliably achieve tenth of a nanometer stability for up to 100 seconds at a time. And it can do this over and over again for extended periods—the JILA team operated the system for up to 28 hours straight. In addition to its high precision and stability, the instrument can detect motion over a wide range of time scales, critical for calibrating instruments and measuring short-lived states in protein folding. The JILA method can be applied to optical trapping techniques, atomic force microscopes and super-resolution imaging. The method uses two lasers to measure the positions of opposite ends of a molecule, or two different objects, based on the intensity of scattered light. The scattered light is detected by a common photodiode, and the signals are digitized, analyzed and used to calculate the positions of the samples. Crucially, the JILA team verified the stability of the technique by using the two lasers to make two separate, independent measurements of a single sample. Without this confirmation, researchers can't determine if it is the sample or the lasers moving, Perkins explains. "This technology excites me because it opens the door to measuring the tiniest protein motions," Perkins says." The research was supported by the National Science Foundation and NIST. * R. Walder, D.H. Paik, M.S. Bull, C. Sauer and T.T.Perkins. Ultrastable measurement platform: sub-nm drift over hours in 3D at room temperature. Optics Express. Vol. 23, Issue 13, 2015. pp. 16554-16564. DOI: 10.1364/OE.23.016554.

Two World Trade Center with Steps Will be Added to the NYC Skyline

 

Posted: 30 Jun 2015 12:00 PM PDT

Le cabinet d’architecture danois Bjarke Ingels Group (aka BIG) a imaginé un nouvel horizon pour la ville de New York et de nouvelles Tours Jumelles. Le World Trade Center aura peut-être la forme de deux énormes marches d’escaliers qui montent au ciel, avec 80 étages au total. On pourra y trouver des commerces mais aussi des bureaux.

Brick-laying robot can build a full-sized house in two days

 

The Hadrian robot can lay up to 1,000 bricks per hour As robots get smarter, cheaper and more versatile, they're taking on a growing number of challenges – and bricklaying can now be added to the list. Engineers in Perth, Australia, have created a fully working house-building machine that can create the brick framework of a property in just two days, working about 20 times faster than a human bricklayer. Named Hadrian (after Hadrian's Wall in the UK), the robot has a top laying speed of 1,000 bricks per hour, which works out as the equivalent of about 150 homes a year. Of course there's no need for the machine to sleep, eat or take tea breaks either, giving it another advantage over manual laborers. At the heart of Hadrian is a 28 m (92 ft) articulated telescopic boom. Though mounted on an excavator in the photo below, the finished version will sit on a truck, allowing it easier movement from place to place. The robot brick-layer uses information fed from a 3D CAD representation of the home for brick placement, with mortar or adhesive delivered under pressure to the head of the boom. The boom auto-corrects itself 1,000 times per second to prevent interference from vibrations or sway. The concept is similar to the additive manufacturing process used by 3D printers, and it's several steps up from the Tiger Stone paver we've featured in the past, which is able to lay out a pattern of bricks on a flat road. After pauses in funding, Fastbrick Robotics is now ready to launch the first commercial version of Hadrian at some point next year. "The Hadrian reduces the overall construction time of a standard home by approximately six weeks," Fastbrick Robotics CEO Mike Pivac told Gizmag. "Due to the high level of accuracy we achieve, most other components like kitchens and bathrooms and roof trusses can be manufactured in parallel and simply fitted as soon as the bricklaying is completed." Pivac says Hadrian improves site safety, reduces the level of waste created with each house construction, and cuts down on associated emissions too. And rather than taking human jobs, he hopes Hadrian creates them. "The machine will fill the void that exists due to shrinking numbers of available bricklayers, whose average age is now nearly 50 in Australia," he says. "[Hadrian] should attract young people back to bricklaying, as robotics is seen as an attractive technology." Mike's brother Mark is an aeronautic and mechanical engineer and has been working on the idea of Hadrian for 10 years, having been inspired by the technology he came across during his stint in the Air Force. With seven million Australian dollars having been spent on the technology so far, Fastbrick Robotics was this week acquired by DMY Capital Limited, and is promising "very exciting plans that will attract global attention" in the near future. "Bricks remain the most preferred product for home buyers everywhere due to their thermal and acoustic qualities, and this machine will keep it cost effective to use them into the future," says Mike Pivac. Source: Fastbrick Robotics