The owner probably drives a big, fast car.
Courtesy Poco a pocoHave you ever played that little mental game where you pretend that you won the lottery a few dozen times, or that your eleven billionaire uncles all died in a Thunderdome-style cage match, and left all their money to you? How you get the money isn’t that important in the game. That you have more money than you could possibly know what to do with is a given, and your feeble attempts at finding something to do with it is the game. New robot servants every day, all of which will be forced to tear each other to scraps each evening. Stradivari-smoked barbeque every weekend. A private mountain with guard dragons. A solid gold ocean. That sort of thing.
It’s a fun game, especially if you’re one of the elite of the United Arab Emirates, because then the game is pretty much real. I don’t think anyone has made his own solid gold ocean yet, but, at least when it comes to architecture, pretty much everything else is fair game. The UAE, see, is a federation of very small political territories on the Arabian Peninsula, and thanks to oil and some favorable trade-laws (or lack of them?) some people there have lots and lots and lots of money. And that money goes into things like building fake islands shaped like the world and palm trees large enough for hundreds of thousands of people to live on, or hotels shaped like thousand-foot-tall sailboats.
Supposedly there has been some sort of global economic issue recently (I don’t really read the news, seeing as how it takes time away from my fancy rat hobby), and that has put the brakes on a few of the UAE’s more shark-jumping projects… but not before they finished building the tallest freakin’ building in the world, the Burj Dubai! Today was the building’s grand opening, and it turns out that it’s super tall. Like, two Sears Towers tall. Like, half a mile tall. Like, really, very tall. Like, 2,717 feet tall.
When dealing with something that tall, sciency things are unavoidable. A lot of it is physics and engineering, and therefore the details are beyond me. Seriously, it took all I’ve got to wrote “details” instead of “deets,” so the deets of what it takes to erect something that tall, and keep it erected are a little more than I can reasonably be expected to reproduce. But consider the following: temperatures in Dubai, the emirate the Burj Dubai building is in, can reach 122 degrees, and concrete that cures in the heat isn’t as strong as concrete that cures in cooler temperatures, so the concrete had to be mixed at night, or with ice; the temperature at the top of the structure is 11 degrees cooler than at the base (or as much as 20 degrees cooler, according to this article); heat from the sun can cause one side of the building to expand more than the other, making the top of the building lean 3 feet in one direction; the structure had to be designed to cope with high winds, and can sway up to 6 feet at the top; the structure will use about 250,000 gallons of water a day (and, because we’re sort of in the desert here, it’ll be desalinated ocean water); captured condensation on the building’s exterior is expected to supply about 3500 gallons of water a year, to be used to help irrigate the building’s landscaping; to cool the building, it will need cooling facilities “equivalent to 10,000 tons of melting ice”; the foundations needed to keep the 2,717-foot structure up are 150 feet deep; the building has already sunk an additional 2.5 inches into the ground; and… everything else. How bizarre. If the building every catches fire, the 25,000 people who could be in it at any one time won’t necessarily have to run down half a mile of steps—supposedly there are pressurized, air-conditioned rooms throughout the building where people can “huddle to await rescue.” Huddling in a hopefully fireproof room a thousand feet up a burning building sounds awesome.
Anyway, look into it, Buzzketeers. Whatever your science preferences are, the Burj Dubai probably has something for you. (Including social sciences—you don’t building the tallest man-made structure in the history of the world without involving lots of people. You astrophysicists might be out of luck, though.)
Tags : New device prints human tissue
The manufacture of replacement body parts just might happen this year. Organovo just took delivery of the world's first production grade 3D bio-printer developed for them by Invetech.
The printer includes two print heads, one for placing human cells, and the other for placing a hydrogel, scaffold, or support matrix. The position of a capillary tip, can position droplets of "ink" containing virtually any cell type, with micron accuracy.
"Invetech plans to ship a number of 3D bio-printers to Organovo during 2010 and 2011 as a part of the instrument development program. Organovo will be placing the printers globally with researchers in centers of excellence for medical research." Organovo press release
A Forest of Fuel: Coming soon, to your gas tank!
Courtesy Stef Maruch
Move over, old, lame bio-fuels!
Algae! The wondrous plants that can grow easily in controlled conditions and whose needs are very basic for rapid growth is now being tested for use in bio-fuels. ExxonMobil, looking to expand and diversify their alternative fuel options will team up with Venter's Synthetic Genomics Inc. to conduct research on different types of algae to test their effectiveness as biofuels.
The so-called "first generation" bio-fuels caused problems globally when the price of corn (for corn ethanol) sky rocketed when it was being used for food and fuel . Though a small percent of corn (or other) ethanol is added to gasoline, it still has a huge effect on the market, and is therefore not the best long term solution to eliminating our addiction to oil.
The Future?: Someday...someday. Let's keep 'em crossed for a day when all houses are like this!
Courtesy Bjorn Appel
Many view bio-fuels as only a transitionary solution to the oil problem, hoping that a sustainable energy type (like solar or wind) may soon be widely available. Algae if successful as a bio fuel, it may be used for a longer period than the "first-generation" bio fuels because of how fast it can grow and how easy it can be to care for. It also isn't used for much else, not like corn anyway. Engineers are hoping to develop artificial environments for algae to grow in knowing that this is the only way to produce enough of the green slime to sustain our needs.
It is encouraging, in some ways, that a big business like ExxonMobil is getting involved because research will not be short funded. If there is a will, there is some green slime that can't wait to get in your car!
Science triumphs at boat races
in Physical Science, Structure of Matter, Energy Transformations, Scientific Enterprise, and Motion
USS SMM prepares to launch
Courtesy Mark RyanI watched the Aquatennial's Milk Carton Boat Races today at Lake Calhoun in Minneapolis. One of the early heats included an entry from the Science Museum. 
Houston we have a problem!: Most of the ship's hull and all of the bilge had to be removed to correct flotation problems.
Courtesy Mark RyanI don't know who was sailing the ship but dang if science didn't prevail!
The boat looked sea-worthy enough on land but once it was placed into the water, it just didn't want to remain upright. But the hardy crew never despaired, and instead re-engineered the ship (ala Apollo 13) on the spot by removing the entire pesky bottom half and using only the deck to complete the race. 
Science prevails!: The crew of the reconfigured USS SMM limps bravely and safely toward the finish line with honor and dignity intact.
Courtesy Mark Ryan
They didn't win by any means, and at times it looked like they weren't using a boat at all, but they worked together to solve problems and got to shore safely.
Mecha-hobby will lift, bend and sit-up you into robo-oblivion
The Willow Ptarmigan Award in its natural habitat: The original W.P.A.o.M. was given to Anchorage native Troy Smoltz for taping a clock radio to his forehead. The award was then taken back after Smoltz took a bath while wearing his new invention.
Courtesy National Park ServicePopular Science’s website is featuring another clever engineering dude with time on his greasy hands. You’ll remember last year’s “Beaver State Award of Mega”—this is pretty much the same thing.
Carlos Owens of Wasilla, Alaska, has built himself an 18-foot-tall mecha suit.
For those of you not in the know (out of the know, if you will), I suppose “mecha” is just a prefix for anything made to be mechanical. But as far as popular culture is concerned, “mecha” is a prefix for anything vaguely Japanese and robotic. (And popular culture is the arbiter of anything worthwhile knowing.) In this case, it’s the latter definition that applies; Owens’ 18-foot-tall suit is vaguely Japanese and robotic.
According to the article, the suit mimics its pilot’s movement though a system of cables attached to hydraulic cylinders, and it can “raise its arms, bend its knees, and even do a sit-up.”
Oh, um… awesome. Except, why wasn’t “fight a laser-sword space battle” on that list of features? Or “rip a dragon in half”? Or, you know, “walk”? Because I can do a sit-up (singular) and I can walk, and, even wearing a watch, I could hardly be considered mecha.
Anyway, it’s still pretty neat. Check it out. And, for consistency’s sake, Carlos Owens will be receiving the Willow Ptarmigan Award Of Mecha. Look for it in the mail, Mr. Owens.
Stronger, lighter, cheaper
Courtesy superciliousness
"Researchers have figured out a way to use 30 percent less reinforcing steel in the manufacture of the concrete beams, or spandrels, used in the construction of parking garages.
In addition to using less steel, the new design cuts labor and manufacturing time in half – significantly decreasing costs." North Carolina State University
Russian indie scientists announce breakthrough against vodka taxation
Scientists?: Progress?
Courtesy Renato SouzaWell, okay, that headline needs some clarification and elaboration.
By “Russian,” I mean Russian and Estonian. By “indie scientists,” I mean engineering-inclined criminals. By “breakthrough against,” I mean secret pipeline to avoid. But “vodka” and “taxation” mean exactly what you think they mean. (Vodka and taxation, respectively.)
Now put it all together! That’s right, some clever criminals built a 1.2-mile-long pipe for smuggling vodka across the border from Russia to Estonia. They managed to smuggle about 1600 gallons of vodka through the pipe before the vodka police caught them and put them in jail.
Vodka-piping is a big deal, apparently. See, Russia has vast natural reserves of vodka, and so it can be obtained on the cheap in that country. Its little neighbor, Estonia, isn’t so lucky, however. Vodka isn’t as cheap in Estonia, and you have to pay taxes on Russian vodka if you want to bring it across the border. That’s why these guys built a pipe.
So, right, a long pipe full of booze. Why are we reading about this on award-winning Science Buzz?
What? How could you even ask that? Because, like, it’s super clever! Clever in sort of a dumb, cartoony way, but still… I mean, this is an engineering challenge, isn’t it? It’s a lot of vodka, and a long pipe. Like… let’s see here… we can squeeze some math into this…
Let’s treat this booze pipeline like a long, skinny cylinder. The formula for the volume of a cylinder is the area of its base by its height. Height, of course, will be 1.2 miles. To get the area of the base, we just need to use ol’ pi times the radius squared. Your average garden hose is about ½ to ¾ inches in diameter, but because these are clearly slightly above average guys, we’ll give them a pipe 1 inch in diameter. The radius, then, will be .5 inches. So .5 squared is .25. Pi (3.14159265) times .25 equals .7854 square inches. Ooookay. Now let’s just multiply that by the height (or length, in this case) of the pipe. But, wait… we need to keep our units straight, so lets have that height in inches. 1 mile is 5280 feet, so 1.2 miles is 6336 feet. 6336 times 12 is 76,032. So there are 76,032 inches in 1.2 miles. 76,032 times .7854 (the area of the base, remember) is 59,715.5.
So that pipe held 59,715.5 cubic inches of vodka at one time. But what is that in gallons? Well, there are 231 cubic inches in a gallon, so… 59,715.5/231= 258.5 gallons! Holy Cats, am I right? Hopefully Estonia is down hill from Russia, or there’s a bunch more calculations I don’t feel like thinking about.
Wasn’t that fun? 6th grade math for a 21+ theme? And next time you hear a classmate flapping their mouth hole about how they want to be a Russian gangster when then grow up, so why would they need to learn any math, just point them this way.
Stradivarious secret is in the sauce
Courtesy caribb
Stradivarius violins soaked in "secret sauce"
Having obtained minute wood samples from restorers working on Stradivarius and Guarneri instruments, scientists now have verified that the wood was treated with borax, fluorides, chromium and iron salts. Borax is a wood preservative and an insecticide. It makes sense that wood craftsmen would want to protect their creations from being chewed up by worms.
Joseph Nagyvary, a professor emeritus of biochemistry, first theorized in 1976 that chemicals used on the instruments – not merely the wood and the construction – are responsible for the distinctive sound of these violins." Texas A&M University
Joseph Nagyvary, a professor emeritus of biochemistry, along with Renald Guillemette, director of the electron microprobe laboratory, and Clifford Spiegelman, professor of statistics, all Texas A&M faculty members published their research in the current issue of the scientific journal Public Library of Science (PloSONE).
Learn more about Nagyvary's research
Source: "Secrets Of Stradivarius’ Unique Sound Revealed"
Nagyvary's website: Nagyvary Violins
Stonehenge: A 19th Century engraving of the mysterious monument.
Courtesy Mark RyanStonehenge is back in the news. Archaeologists working on the mystery-laden prehistoric site located in south central England have now pinpointed the time of its construction to around 2300 BC. This radiocarbon-derived date connects it more closely with burial date of the Amesbury Archer, a wealthy metalworker from Europe’s alpine region, whose tomb was discovered not far from Stonehenge. Examination of the archer’s corpse revealed damage to his knee and other potentially fatal health issues.
This has led Tim Darvill and Geoff Wainwright, the two professors heading the excavation, to believe that the circle of megalithic stones existed as a healing center. Not everyone agrees, but you can find out all the details here. The dig's progress is also being recorded for an upcoming BBC Timewatch documentary.
All very well and good. But scientists remain uncertain as to how these huge stone monoliths were put in place by Stonehenge’s ancient technopeasant builders. Well, Wally Wallington, a retired construction worker in Flint, Michigan, just might have the answer. This following video came to my attention this past weekend, and I find it quite impressive and amazing. See for yourself.
SOURCES and LINKS
BBC website story
More about Stonehenge
Guardian website story
More on the Amesbury Archer
You always be my little man
in Structure of Matter, Scientific Inquiry, Scientific Enterprise, and Human Organism
The original Minifig: mocked horribly by later generations of minifigures, but, fortunately, incapable of feeling emotion of any kind.
Courtesy WakuranI'm a couple days late here, but it's time we recognized the Lego minifigure's 30th birthday.
That's right—on August 25th, 1978, Lego introduced the little yellow Lego guy. Lego had been manufacturing plastic interlocking bricks since 1949, allowing children across the world to practice engineering without realizing that they shouldn't be having fun, but it wasn't until 78 that they sold a little human like thing to enjoy our Lego creations.
Technically there were minifigures available in 1974, but the were faceless, armless pylon-men, and they couldn't enjoy anything. 1978 brought the lovable little man we know today.
Wired's piece on the birthday features this epic video embed:
And, yes, that does make me want to buy a bunch of Lego friends, and have a party for the 20th century, but I thought I'd leave you with a different, though no less triumphant, Lego celebration. Enjoy.
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