"Bubbles can do computations, says Stanford professor Manu Prakash. Just like electrons running through wires in your computer, Prakash and Neil Gershenfeld, of MIT, directed bubbles through tiny etched tubes and showed basic computations were possible. Because the presence of a bubble can influence the behavior of another bubble, Prakash was able to build "and," "or" and "not" gates. Bubbles are bigger and slower than electrons, but they can carry things--meaning you could create as you compute, Prakash says."
"Visit Robert Sabin's pumpkin patch: he has been growing giant pumpkins for over ten years. But these pumpkins just aren't meant for the pie pan: Sabin says they're more like children than fruit to him. He raises his pumpkins for competition--the heavier, the better. Does his top pumpkin have the heft to win the Long Island Giant Pumpkin Weigh-Off at Hicks Nurseries? We'll find out."
"With the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade less than a week away, it's crunch time for the 'balloonatics' at Macy's Parade Studio. The balloons themselves, which are designed and fabricated in a warehouse in New Jersey, are getting their final checkup before the show. John Piper and Jim Artle take us around the studio and spill the secrets of inflation, explain how to calculate whether your balloon will float, and explain why the balloons look better after a little time in the sun."
"Carve first, scoop later--that's just one of the tips from Maniac Pumpkin Carvers Marc and Chris. Based in Brooklyn, these professional illustrators switch to the medium of pumpkin during October. Their pumpkins, which go for between $150 - $400, rarely end up on stoops. You are more likely to find them in Tiffany’s ads and in window displays. They gave us some tips for how to bring our pumpkins to the next level this Halloween."
"The New York Department of Environmental Protection installed a prototype "algal turf scrubber" at once of its wastewater treatment plants in Queens. The scrubber--two 350-foot metal ramps coated with algae that grows naturally--is designed to use algae to remove nutrients and boost dissolved oxygen in the water that passes through it. John McLaughlin, Director of Ecological Services for the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and Peter May, restoration ecologist for Biohabitats, explain how the scrubber works, and where the harvested algae goes."
"This toilet floats. It's an outhouse and sewage-treatment plant in one, processing human waste through a "constructed wetlands." Green builder Adam Katzman, the inventor and builder of the toilet-boat, says it's meant to be more inspirational than practical. His paddle-boat-toilet ("Poop and Paddle"), parked at a marina in Queens, demonstrates how sewage and rainwater can be converted to cattails and clean water. It's a zero-waste waste disposal system."
"Water striders don't really stride, they row on the water. But their legs are spindly and don't seem good for paddling. David Hu, mechanical engineer at Georgia Tech, wanted to understand the basic physics of how water striders glide. By filming them stride on food coloring and building his own robotic strider, he found out that the secret to the stride is in the paddle."
"From death caps to puffballs, the fruiting bodies of fungi can be grouped into about a dozen major categories. Mycologist Roy Halling walks us through the wide world of mushrooms and takes us on a fungi foraging foray on the grounds of the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx. With record-breaking rainfall in the northeast in the last few weeks, mycologists say that mushroom numbers seem to be up this year. Wet weather is prime for mushroom emergence because the fruits of fungi form through a hydraulic process, says Nicholas Money of Miami University in Ohio."
"Maxwell von Stein, a 22-year-old graduate of The Cooper Union, built bicycle that uses a flywheel to store energy. Instead of braking, Max can transfer energy from the wheel to the flywheel, which spins between the crossbars. The flywheel stores the kinetic energy until Max wants a boost, then he can transfer the energy back to the wheel using a shifter on the handlebars."
Yup, it's Friday.
So let's not beat around the bush.
Science FridayCourtesy Science Friday
This week,
"Malcolm Beck was farming organically in the 1950s, and that's how he got into compost. What started out as a little manure pile on his farm became a 40-acre compost-processing business five decades later. Beck sold his company, Garden Ville, but still works there and is constantly experimenting with different fertilizer formulas--from bat guano to earthworm tea.
When San Antonio’s Malcolm Beck got into the compost business over fifty years ago, many people had never heard of compost, Beck says. Beck began making it for his organic farm and found that his compost more profitable than produce. Science Friday stopped by for a tutorial in the art of composting.
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