Applied Physics

Plumbonacrite: The Red Lead Reason Van Gogh's Paintings Are Fading

Red lead is familiar to us due to rustproof paint but artists have treasured the brilliant color for its durability since ancient times. Yet it has limits and now scientists are learning more about why.  A combination of X-ray diffraction mapping and tomog ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 10 2015 - 2:19pm

Erector Set Stand Chip Clip Mount

In a previous blog post, I demonstrated how to build a magnetic optical mount for a laser using Erector set parts. Here's another method of attaching a chip clip to the Erector set stand. Parts Needed Erector set right angle bracket 3-hole (mine is a ...

Blog Post - Steve Schuler - Mar 18 2015 - 6:45am

LaserOscope

Build a laser oscilloscope using Lego, littleBits, Erector set, and the Kano Computer. In honor of The International Year of Light I’ll demonstrate how use the Kano computer to drive a littleBits motor with an optical coupler, or optocoupler. An optocoupl ...

Article - Steve Schuler - Mar 31 2015 - 7:42am

My All-Time Favorite April Fool's Day Gag

My wife and I were in an airport newsstand. I was looking through the magazines to find something to read on the flight when I saw something that didn't make sense. Quite confused, I had to blink a few times to make sure I was seeing what I was seeing ...

Blog Post - Steve Schuler - Mar 25 2015 - 11:45am

Phonons Controlled: Magnets Manipulate Sound Too

Researchers have discovered proof that acoustic phonons, the elemental particles that transmit both heat and sound, have magnetic properties.  In a new paper, the authors describe how a magnetic field roughly the size of a medical MRI reduced the amount of ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 23 2015 - 11:57am

End Of Latency: Musicians Rehearse 1,000 Miles Apart With No Delay

Latency is so ingrained into modern communication we almost forget about it but in live or recorded events, like performances or rehearsals over a long distance, it is crippling.  When recording a soundtrack over a pre-recorded base, the latency is percept ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 23 2015 - 12:19pm

Pulsed Electric Fields- An Alternative To Thermal Pasteurization In Milk For Low-Income Countries

Milk has a long been a nutritional and economic staple in western countries but it is quickly susceptible to pathogens quite easily, which is why pasteurization, which kills harmful microbes, is the norm for all but the food fad fringes. Due to harmful mic ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 24 2015 - 9:56am

God Particle Analog In Superconductors Found

The Nobel Prize-winning Higgs boson – the “God particle”- believed to be vital for understanding all of the mass in the universe, was found in 2012 at CERN’s Large Hadron Collider, but that's not where the search began. Instead, the first hint of the ...

Article - News Staff - Mar 25 2015 - 8:00am

Light-Harvesting Molecules Absorb Any Color Of Sunlight

In 2005, scientists studying tiny sac-like creatures called sea squirts found bacteria containing two types of chlorophyll (a and b) in cavities inside the squirts' tissues. Those two pigments were soaking up most of the sunlight- the violets, indigos ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 2 2015 - 3:18pm

Liquid Crystal Rodeo

Scientists have achieved an unprecedented level of control over defects in liquid crystals that can be engineered for applications in liquid matter photonics. They can lasso an intangible ring created out of liquid crystal defects- attaching a microsphere ...

Article - News Staff - Apr 6 2015 - 8:30am