M8 and M20 in CFHT Filters — Cesar Blanco

vjeranski:

Gertrud Goldschmidt

engineeringhistory:

Nikola Tesla’s CV when applying for the membership grade of Fellow from the American Institute of Engineers (AIEE), their highest membership grade, 1916. The AIEE is one of the predecessor societies of the modern IEEE.

thenewenlightenmentage:

Deep Lakes and Catastrophic Floods of Mars

Eroded channels and chasms from catastrophic floods between martian basins are the strongest evidence yet that there were once large, deep bodies of water on early Mars, according to a new study using the latest imagery and topographic data.

The outflow channels of Mars have been a puzzle ever since they were first spotted in images from the Viking spacecraft four decades ago. In that time every sort of mechanism has been called on to carve them — among them winds, lava and carbon dioxide-powered debris flows. But none has settled the issue.

“These features have been wracking people’s brains since the 70s,” said planetary scientist Keith Harrison of the Southwest Research Institute. And they aren’t settled yet.

Continue Reading

ikenbot:

‘Smart Skin’ Transistors Give Robots “Sense of Touch,” Better Interaction With Touch Screens for Humans

The creation of an array of piezotronic transistors using nanowires that convert mechanical motion to electronic controlling signals means we will now have better touch-screen interactions with our tablets and smartphones—but also robots that have “a sense of touch.”

The arrays contain about 8,000 touch-sensitive transistors called taxels that are thin, clear, flexible sheets that wrap around a robotic limb like our skin.

“When we [humans] touch fire, we know it’s hot. [This technology] can allow robots to have that human sense - in other words, make robots more like humans,” lead researcher Zhong Lin Wang told TechNewsDaily.

The achievement of mimicking touch through electronic devices came through measuring changes in resistance caused by mechanical touch.

“Any mechanical motion, such as the movement of arms or the fingers of a robot, could be translated to control signals. This could make artificial skin smarter and more like the human skin. It would allow the skin to feel activity on the surface,” said Zhong Lin Wang, from the Georgia Institute of Technology and one of the study authors.

“This is a fundamentally new technology that allows us to control electronic devices directly using mechanical agitation,” Wang added in a news release. “This could be used in a broad range of areas, including robotics, MEMS, human-computer interfaces and other areas that involve mechanical deformation.”

The study was published in the journal Science.

richellebelle:

Heh I love science jokes :D

sagansense:

The sun rising over the South Pacific as seen from the International Space Station. Thanks NASA!

Stay Curious | Watch Brian Cox present one of the most beautiful and important Wonders of the Solar System as he travels 18km above the surface of the Earth beyond the atmosphere to The Thin Blue Line.

ikenbot:

Red Sun with Sunspots

May 3rd, 2013 - as on the day before, smoke from forest fires tinted the sun an unusual shade of red. The smoke also dimmed the sun enough to make it possible to see the larger sunspots without a protective filter. — Florian Kainz

Moon Wobble

This time-lapse depicts a typical view from the northern hemisphere. The most dramatic monthly change is the moon’s phase, caused by the shifting angle of the sun as the moon orbits the Earth every 27 days. Also, due to the tilt and shape of the moon’s orbit, we see it from a slightly different angle over the course of a month generating a slight wobble or libration. Because of this we actually see more than half of the lunar surface over a month, about 59%.

The size differences you see are due to the orbit of the moon around the Earth being elliptical. The moon will appear larger when it reaches the closest point to Earth in its orbit or perigee, the opposite being apogee. The size differences are around 10% and when perigee also happens around a full moon, this creates a so called “Super-Moon”. Combine that sight with the Moon Illusion and you have - what seems like - an extremely large moon.

Via NASA