Wednesday, 8 February, 2012

Hitting the road? What could be more enlightening than gawking at a cave, exploring a desert, or eyeballing the largest telescope in the world? Need proof that science is not just books and websites or equations and software? Get moving!

Long ago, nature devised the hinge and ball and socket for appendages like legs and wings. The screw is the latest simple machine to be discovered in nature. Why do weevils, a type of beetle, have a screw? How does it help weevils survive their 3-D world?

With three nuclear reactors and three pools of spent fuel teetering on the edge of meltdown, Japanese technicians struggled to throttle the nuclear demons after the gigantic tsunami. Is Fukushima closer to Chernobyl or Three Mile Island? How will the disaster affect plans for a renaissance of nuclear power?

Military technology supports atmospheric and ocean science! 1: a robot sub smart enough to find stuff in the deep ocean 2: a metal fish glides for weeks under the ice 3: an electric sinker-bobber that never needs recharging 4: a research jet that flies miles above airliners.

Plywood used to be bonded with soybean glue; then along came synthetic adhesives. They were strong and cheap, but they did release toxic formaldehyde. Now, industry is switching to a new, improved soy adhesive. Tough, water-resistant soy glue does not release formaldehyde, and is already being used for interior plywood.

We need more electricity. More alternative energy. Less greenhouse warming, and better ways to manage our power supply. Can the electric grid meet multiple challenges and help us survive prosperity? What good are smart meters? And what is this going to cost?

Imagine a transistor so tiny that it can slip inside a living cell to measure electrical potential. Now coat that transistor so the cell will pull it inside without damage. Then adapt the transistor to measure RNA and proteins. Nanofabrication tricks convert science fiction into science fact!

Strong, tough, sticky, elastic and biodegradable, silk may be used for a mesh to support injured tissues, or as a temporary container for drugs, stem cells and growth factors. As scientists divine the secret of how spiders and silkworms make silk, they are finding ways to engineer silk into medical devices.

When big tech goes bad, we ask: How do engineers design fail-safe mechanisms for nuclear weapons, radioactive waste, spaceships?

A small constriction in a buried pipe shows that the Maya were using pressurized pipes before year 750. It’s more proof that when it comes to water, people get inventive! And what did the Maya do with the New World’s oldest plumbing? How about storing water, supplying drinking water, and flushing toilets?