Fun Science

Such miracles are possible if you know exactly what the Leidenfrost effect is Here is a little trick: a grooved surface heated much higher than the boiling point of the liquid. That's where the effect, named after Johann Gottlob Leidenfrost, occurs. An elastic layer of vapor forms under the liquid droplets. As it is a poor heat conductor, the droplet evaporates slowly. And the tricky grooving "pushes" it upwards.

A classic example of a "trick" with the center of mass As a child, many people probably had a chumbley toy that, contrary to the fact that all bodies tend to fall, did not wanna do it, and returned to its upright position whenever you deflected it. Everyone knows the secret of this toy is that its mass is concentrated at the bottom, or, to speak scientifically, the center of mass is below the center of curvature of the base. The center of mass is such a physical abstraction. When gravity, for example, acts on a solid body, it is applied to every part of it. But it turns out that absolutely nothing will change if we imagine that all this force is applied to one single point — the center of mass. It's not hard to find it. 💡One should add all the masses that make up the body multiplied by their coordinates and divide by the total mass.

​​Device to Control iPad With One’s Gaze The Swedish company Tobii Dynavox has created TD Pilot — a case for iPad, which allows you to use all the functions of the gadget, controlling it with your eyes only. A person can communicate, work, use applications, and do all this relatively quickly. The back of the device also equipped with a screen for displaying messages, allowing you to communicate not only online but also with other people in the room. The TD Pilot has reinforced speakers and cameras, a wheelchair mount, and in addition comes a text-to-speech app. ✔️ It opens up great prospects for people with disabilities.

The Sixth Finger You've probably already seen the "Sixth Finger" that you can 3D-print and hang on your hand? There' s an interesting study on this: Scientists trained a group of people to use this device (while allowing them to take it home from the lab) and came to these conclusions: - After a while, the brain perceives the extra finger as a full-fledged part of the body - Participants learned to do many tasks with one hand that required two hands - This is a promising research area as such "augmentations" will give surgeons or other workers the ability of doing more work with one hand!

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Self-Balancing Cube and Centrifugal Force Centrifugal force is the force with which a moving material point acts on a body (bond), constraining the freedom of movement of the point and forcing it to move in a curvilinear fashion.

Device to Monitor Lung Health The device is called Sylvee and is designed to monitor lung health for asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and after a severe form of coronavirus. Mechanism: The device is attached to the lower chest and periodically measures lung volume, breathing and pulse rate, lung sounds, and body temperature, and then sends these data to the appropriate app. All of this happens continuously for two weeks. 🧬 A large-scale scientific study is now being conducted on 500 volunteers with lung pathology. The results to be available by the end of 2022.

People: "All these robots are harmless, the battery runs down in five minutes, why be afraid of them?" Scientists: "The bipedal robot ran five kilometers for the first time – it took 53 minutes and one battery charge to do it" 🤖😳 The Cassie robot was created by students at Oregon State University with one million dollars in grants from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 2017. The bipedal robot is controlled by a neural network using deep machine learning with reinforcement.

DNA in the Air Scientists have come up with a way of detecting the tiniest traces of DNA in the air. The discovery, for example, enables studying wild animals, which normally live in hard-to-reach places, deserts, rainforests, caves, etc. Otherwise, it could transform forensic investigations at crime scenes, or on-site processes (rubble, etc.). This is no longer just a theory⚡ The DNA collection technique was tested in a zoo by installing sensitive filters attached to vacuum pumps at 20 points throughout the facility. The equipment appeared so sensitive that it picked up DNA from pets living in the zoo's neighborhood and animals that were food for predators. Though the technique is in the early stages of study, it shows impressive results. No less epic results with human DNA. Exciting prospects are coming up in forensics...

Archimedes' law is one of the laws of statics of liquids (hydrostatics) and gases (aerostatics): the upward buoyant force that is exerted on a body immersed in a fluid, whether fully or partially, is equal to the weight of the fluid that the body displaces

Such a beauty appears if you water the screw with ferromagnetic liquid (it is strongly polarizing in the presence of a magnetic field liquid, which contains ferromagnetic nanoparticles).

Robot-drone hybrid can walk, fly, and skateboard Most robots are limited to one type of movement as they can either fly, swim, walk, or ride on the ground. Still these bots may have a better chance of overcoming obstacles if they combine several modes of movement. Standing about 0.8 m tall, LEO moves on three-jointed legs and balances thanks to four propellers on its shoulders, which not only help to correct the position of the body, but also allow it to take off to overcome various obstacles.

Gravity Clock ⏰ The mechanism of such a clock runs by slowly rolling the clock down a special base. It is this movement that provides the energy for the movement of the hour and minute hands.

​​⚡️Festo has developed the BionicKangaroo, a kangaroo-cyborg that partially recovers energy when jumping, stores it and uses for the very next jump. It's essentially a dynamo capable of recharging itself. The robot is also equipped with rubber elastic spring elements, akin to Achilles tendon — mounted on the back of the foot and on the knee joint. This artificial tendon cushions the jump, absorbs kinetic energy and releases it to jump again.

Venter's Move — “Game of God" In 2010, Venter's team obtained a synthetic copy of the M. mycoides genome. Scientists transferred it to a cell from which their own DNA had been removed beforehand; the resulting mycoplasma divided and functioned properly. It was this work that the staff of the American magazine Newsweek dubbed "The Game of God." However, if it was a game, in 2016 Venter "outplayed" the Creator by reducing the original mycoplasma genome by about half and getting perfectly viable cells again. Craig Venter: "Thanks to genetic engineering, and now the field of synthetic biology, we can manipulate DNA to an unprecedented extent, just as we can edit software in a computer."

Brain Capabilities in the Future A promising and somewhat frightening method of improving brain abilities is the brain-computer interface. 🧠💡Such a system allows the brain to receive information directly from the computer. For humans, interfaces also have considerable potential, still they can also cause harm. Plus, it raises a number of ethical questions. Science fiction? A recurring problem with brain-computer interfaces is the possible emergence of "superhuman" abilities in humans. So this idea is often greeted negatively both among laymen and in scientific circles. Some fear that cyborgs will catch up with them, others afraid of interface to control the mind. And a third group sees it as a tremendous benefit to humanity, elevating human beings and society. All of these perceptions are only hypothetical. In fact, real experience with the interface is still too little. As a result, our views are based primarily on emotion: "wise disgust" or blind faith that technology can fix and improve everything.

☝🏻This robotic serpent was designed specifically for finding victims of disasters under rubble.

The Rupert's drop and a hammer ⚡️ The Rupert's drop or Batavian tears are frozen droplets of tempered glass with extremely high internal mechanical stress. The main part of the droplet (head) is capable of withstanding a huge strain, but if its "tail" will be even slightly damaged, it will scatter to smithereens in a matter of seconds.

​​Acetylene Balloon Explosion 🌀Acetylene is a colorless, flammable poisonous gas with a foul odor consisting of carbon and hydrogen. Such an experiment is better not to be repeated for sure, as it would leave behind a poisonous gas. Therefore, this experience should only be carried out in the open air.

Humanoid Robots Specialized robots handle assembling cars, carrying goods, and other programs much better than humans, though they fail anything else but their narrow range of tasks. If we want the most versatile robot possible, it has to be comfortable in human environments and infrastructure, which means to be human-like — after all, a robot-cleaner cannot get a cup off a shelf, and a robot-welder will not tell you how to get to the library.