Armour made from ‘bullet-proof custard’
Researchers at BAE systems in Bristol combined a “shear-thickening” liquid with the existing material used in bullet-proof vests – called Kevlar – to create the new armour. The chemical formula of the new liquid is being kept secret but scientists say it works by thickening and becoming sticky on impact with a bullet.
Stewart Penny, BAE’s business development manager, described the new material as “bullet-proof custard”. He told the BBC: “It’s very similar to custard in the sense that the molecules lock together when it’s struck.” To test the new armour, scientists used a large gas gun to fire spherical-shaped bullets at more than 300 metres per second. They fired one set of bullets at 31 layers of untreated Kevlar and another set at 10 layers of Kevlar combined with the new “shear-thickening” liquid.
The results showed that the Kevlar and liquid mix was more effective. “The Kevlar with the liquid works much faster and the impact isn’t anything like as deep,” Mr Penny said. Mr Penny claims the new light-weight material could eventually replace the “thick, heavy-layered plates” of Kevlar used in existing bullet-proof vests for soldiers.
Read more at The Telegraph
Through The Wormhole – Is Time Travel Possible?
“Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says that time travel is perfectly possible — if you’re going forward. Finding a way to travel backwards requires breaking the speed of light, which so far seems impossible. But now, strange-but-true phenomena such as quantum nonlocality, where particles instantly teleport across vast distances, may give us a way to make the dream of traveling back and forth through time a reality.
Step into a time machine and rewrite history, bring loved ones back to life, control our destinies. But if we succeed, what are the consequences of such freedom? Will we get trapped in a plethora of paradoxes and multiple universes that will destroy the fabric of the universe?”
Via Streaming Madness (Thanks Tracey)
Human Evolution Recapped in Kids’ Brain Growth
Image: Top row, a comparative map of cortical differences between the average adult macaque and human; middle row, a comparison between the infant and adult human brain; bottom, a comparison of human developmental and evolutionary changes.
“For a quick summary of the last 25 million years in human brain evolution, just watch how our brains change between infancy and adulthood. Over its first few decades, the human cerebral cortex — the brain’s wrinkled outer tissue — evolves in ways that parallel its evolution since we last shared a common ancestor with macaque monkeys.
It’s not an absolute one-to-one correlation, but the overlap is so striking that it’s hard to ignore, said neurobiologist David Van Essen of Washington University in St. Louis.
In a study published July 12 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Van Essen’s team compared brain scans of infant and adult humans. The resulting differences were then mapped against a comparison of cortex shape differences in adult humans and macaques, with whom our species last shared a common ancestor 25 million years ago.”
Read more at Wired (Thanks DG)
Derren Brown’s Artworks At The Saatchi Gallery In October
Derren Brown will be exhibiting limited edition artworks at the Saatchi Gallery this Autumn as part
of the new Art of Giving charity art exhibition. Art of Giving will be showing three works: Rufus Wainwright, Judi Dench and Clint Eastwood.
The Art of Giving exhibition is organised to raise money for a series of charities including: The Red Cross Disaster Fund, Crisis, CHASE, Help a London Child, Independent Age, Elsa Trust, GAWPT and Water Aid. Works by well‐known artists such as Gavin Turk and Alexa Meade will be exhibited alongside the work of the finalists of an open national art competition. Comedian Vic Reeves, photographer Terry O’Neil and portrait painter Christian Furr are judging the competition.
More information on the competition and Art of Giving exhibition and auction can be found on www.artofgiving.co.uk.
Automatic origami: “programmable matter” can fold itself
“Watch your backs, professional origamists: researchers are working on a sheet of material that can fold itself. The sheets of material, called “programmable matter” by their inventors, use electric pulses to stimulate themselves into various folded shapes.
So far, one sheet can fold itself into a little boat or an airplane, but the creators envision wide-ranging applications for their programmable matter, from shelving to measuring utensils to a modern Swiss Army knife.
The programmable matter actually works much like origami, and the researchers have integrated some origami folding into its development. One of the first steps in the creation of their folding algorithms is to record a step-by-step unfolding of a real origami object, which they can then reverse and apply to the programmable matter sheets.
The half-millimeter thick sheets used in the experiment are squares made up of 32 triangles joined by flexible silicon seams. Each triangle has an actuator wired to it which, when stimulated, can force the triangle to fold at an angle to the surrounding triangles.
The folding instructions are stored in stickers that users can place on the surface of the sheet. Once a current is supplied, the sheet executes the folding algorithm in the sticker, following the steps until it reaches its final shape.”
Read more at Ars Technica (Thanks Tracey)
Superconductor breakthrough could power new advances
“The first batch of a new range of powerful superconductors which could revolutionise the production of machines like hospital MRI scanners and protect the national grid has been developed by scientists.
Engineers at the University of Cambridge used new techniques to manufacture high-temperature superconducting materials, producing samples that can carry record quantities of electrical current for their type and size. The breakthrough has improved the effectiveness of yttrium barium copper oxide (YBCO) and a related family of superconducting materials. It raises the prospect of more powerful and affordable samples that could have huge benefits in a number of fields.
Researchers discuss these possibilities and demonstrate some of the materials’ remarkable magnetic properties in a short film released today.”
Head over to Physorg to watch the video.
Life on Earth gets wiped out every 27 million years, say boffins
“Much of life on Earth gets regularly wiped out every 27 million years, according to boffins. It had been thought that this was caused by a dark star named “Nemesis”, but apparently that was wrong. The next globo-extinction event is due in about 16 million years’ time.
According to Bambach, there’s no doubt at all that every 27 million years-odd, huge numbers of species suddenly become extinct. He says this is confirmed by “two modern, greatly improved paleontological datasets of fossil biodiversity” and that “an excess of extinction events are associated with this periodicity at 99% confidence”. This regular mass slaughter has apparently taken place around 18 times, back into the remote past of half a billion years ago.
This had previously been noted by other scientists – though not confirmed so far back into the past – which had led to theorising on what could have caused such long-separated, regular disasters.”
Read more at The Register
Honda ASIMO Robot Demonstration
This is a demonstration of the Honda ASIMO robot’s features, including running, balancing, kicking a ball and climbing stairs. Quite amazing.
With 2000′s ASIMO model Honda added features that enable ASIMO to interact better with humans. These features fall under 5 categories:
1. Recognition of moving objects
2. Recognition of postures and gestures
3. Environment recognition
4. Distinguishing sounds
5. Facial recognition
Read more at Wikipedia (Thanks Tracey)
Terahertz Detectors Could See Through Your Clothes From a Mile Away
“Someone may soon be able to tell what types material are in your pockets from tens, and possibly thousands, of feet away.
Using terahertz remote sensing, detectors could see through walls, clothing and packaging materials and immediately identify the unique terahertz waves of the materials contained inside, such as explosives or drugs.
Until now, detecting terahertz waves — the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum between infrared and microwave light — hasn’t been possible from distances more than inches because the waves are absorbed by ambient moisture in the air, killing the signal.
“A lot of other researchers thought that terahertz remote sensing was mission impossible,” said physicist Jingle Liu of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, lead author of the study published July 11 in Nature Photonics.
Liu’s team solved the problem by not relying on the terahertz waves themselves to generate or carry the signal back to the detector. Instead, they used the reflection created by lasers pointed at the target.”
Read More at Wired
Earth is much younger than previously thought
“Researchers have calculated that the planet could have taken far longer to form following the birth of the solar system 4.567 billion years ago than scientists have previously believed. By comparing chemical isotopes from the Earth’s mantle with those from meteorites, geologists at the University of Cambridge claim the planet reached its current size around 4.467 billion years ago.
Scientists have in the past estimated that the Earth’s development, a process known as accretion where gas, dust and other material clumped together to form the planet, happened over just 30 million years. But the new research suggests this process may have taken up to 100 million years – more than three times.
Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, however, the researchers claim that while the Earth probably grew to 60% of its current size relatively quickly, the process may well have then slowed, taking about 100 million years in all. “The whole issue hinges on working out how long it took for the core of the Earth to form, which is one of the big unknowns in this area of science,” said Dr John Rudge, one of the authors at the University of Cambridge.”
Read more at The Telegraph
