HA! So, today’s my last day working in my lab, today’s Dilbert is amazingly appropriate, eh? :) On to bigger and better things! I’ll be working the science beat at Wired Magazine in San Francisco this summer, and my PBS YouTube show continues on and on. Thanks, everyone. In a way, I feel like we did this together. Let’s see what else we can learn! (Or at least pretend to learn) -Dr. Joe
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HA! So, today’s my last day working in my lab, today’s Dilbert is amazingly appropriate, eh? :)

On to bigger and better things! I’ll be working the science beat at Wired Magazine in San Francisco this summer, and my PBS YouTube show continues on and on.

Thanks, everyone. In a way, I feel like we did this together. Let’s see what else we can learn! (Or at least pretend to learn)

-Dr. Joe

Sound in Space - The B-Sides - Voyager 1, The Symphony

It’s time for another Episode Extra! (which is where you special blog readers get to check out really cool stuff to go along with my YouTube videos, like special features on a DVD, only way more special-er)

In this latest episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart, we got to explore some musical and sonic art projects that were not only inspired by space, but created from space.

Voyager 1, the most distant manmade object ever created, a day anda half of light travel away from our sun, is approaching 18.5 billion kilometers from Earth as it makes its way out of our solar system. That’s a heck of a road trip. Like everyone knows, a good road trip needs good tunes, right?

Well, Domenico Vicinanza has converted actual magnetic field sensor data from Voyager 1 into music! Like yesterday’s goosebump-worthy choral suite written to the words of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, this one is a more creative take on space sonification. 

There’s real data beneath these sounds, with a particular level on the magnetic field sensor set to a particular note, but the instruments and rhythms are modified by human hands. It’s a never-before-heard blend of sound inspired by space, and made from space.

Read more about Vicinenza’s Voyager music at Discover.

Music credit: Sonification run on the GEANT network through EGI

Source: SoundCloud / Music From The Space

(This question is in reference to this post) I would read that magazine. But yeah, they are most definitely a thing. I’ve covered them here before. When solar systems are forming, and young planets condense out of gases and debris, their orbits are not always stable. Either because of collisions (like the one that created our moon) or extreme elliptical orbits at the distant edges of their star system, they can be catapulted out of regular orbits and sentenced to a life among the darkness. It would look something like this:
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(This question is in reference to this post)

I would read that magazine.

But yeah, they are most definitely a thing. I’ve covered them here before.

When solar systems are forming, and young planets condense out of gases and debris, their orbits are not always stable. Either because of collisions (like the one that created our moon) or extreme elliptical orbits at the distant edges of their star system, they can be catapulted out of regular orbits and sentenced to a life among the darkness.

It would look something like this:

infinity-imagined: Exoplanets orbiting stars near the Sun. Hopefully no one takes this to mean that other stars, and their attendant planets, revolve around us, right? I mean, we’re cool, but we’re not THAT cool.Although the number of confirmed exoplanets is only in the hundreds, the number of estimated exoplanets could be as high as 100 billion (or more?), or one for every star in the Milky Way.And that doesn’t count the cold, presumably dead, rogue planets wandering interstellar space, forever alone.
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infinity-imagined:

Exoplanets orbiting stars near the Sun.

Hopefully no one takes this to mean that other stars, and their attendant planets, revolve around us, right? I mean, we’re cool, but we’re not THAT cool.

Although the number of confirmed exoplanets is only in the hundreds, the number of estimated exoplanets could be as high as 100 billion (or more?), or one for every star in the Milky Way.

And that doesn’t count the cold, presumably dead, rogue planets wandering interstellar space, forever alone.

In the “Atoms In Motion” introduction to Richard Feynman’s famous Lectures on Physics (which you can actually watch, thanks to Microsoft), there’s a very interesting footnote. I saw it in the condensed and immensely enjoyable Six Easy Pieces, which everyone should read:

“One can burn a diamond in air”

That took me by surprise. But it’s true! The video above from Theodore Gray (who is really good at burning stuff) shows that diamond will ignite if brought to a certain temperature and given enough oxygen to latch on to. Like Feynman said, those carbon atoms and oxygen atoms love each other, and want to snap together (which gives off heat), but enough input energy must be applied first to break down the diamond crystal, (which also makes carbon atoms pretty happy).

Interesting note about cheap old zirconium in there, too …

(tip of the torch to Freelance Astrophysicist, where I found the video)

via thekidshouldseethis:

From medicalschool, watch this time lapse clip of how bacteria reproduce by dividing into two every 20 minutes. 

Bacteria are microscopic single-cell organisms that are found in the air, inside and on our bodies, in the dirt, and everywhere in nature. There are both harmful and beneficial kinds. Some cause diseases, while others help our bodies function. For example, there are more than 400 types of bacteria live in the human digestive system. There are also kinds that are used to make medicines, and others that make foods like cheese and yogurt. (Might anyone know what kind of bacteria this is?)

More mentions of bacteria are in these videos.

And thanks to those little bugs’ ability to grow so unbelievably fast, scientists like Richard Lenski have ben able to recreate eons of evolution in just a couple decades. Check out one of the longest-running experiments ever: The E. coli evolution experiment.

Source: medicalschool

Sound In Space - The B-Sides - Cosmos, A Choral Suite

It’s time for another Episode Extra! (which is where you special blog readers get to check out really cool stuff to go along with my YouTube videos, like special features on a DVD, only way more special-er)

In this latest episode of It’s Okay To Be Smart, we got to explore some musical and sonic art projects that were not only inspired by space, but created from space. Actual astronomical data, from planetary orbits to solar wind, converted into music! Unfortunately, I couldn’t feature all of the great space sound projects out there, so I’m going to put up the extras this week. Lucky you!

We’ll start with perhaps my favorite piece choral music ever: Kenley Kristofferson’s three movement tribute to Carl Sagan and his poetic opus: Cosmos. I get honest-to-goodness chills (all the way from my nebula to my black hole, I tell ya) when I hear them sing this line:

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known.

Perhaps it’s not sound created from space, per se, but it’s inspired by the wonder of cosmic discovery. That is truly something to marvel, with our ears and our eyes.

More Space Sounds B-sides coming your way this week! Share this beautiful mix of science and art with a friend, and be sure to stay curious.

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
Zoom Info
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
Zoom Info
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
Zoom Info
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
Zoom Info
Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow? Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale. Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures.  If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.
Zoom Info

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your nanogarden grow?

Harvard engineer Wim Noorduin has a green thumb. Only his thumb is only a few microns wide. By carefully controlling gradients of chemicals, he guided the construction of flower-like crystal structures to match their larger biological forms. It’s certainly art, but it also demonstrates a masterful manipulation of chemistry on the nano scale.

Just how small are they? As NPR reports, these flowers could fit in the lapel of the tiny Abraham Lincoln statue on the back of a penny (back when pennies had the Lincoln Memorial on them, anyway). These electron microscope images are false colored to recreate fantastic flowers, and these manipulations will one day help control the construction of useful microstructures. 

If you’re seriously engineering-inclined, here’s the original research as it appears in Science.