In recent years, epidemics caused by HIV, SARS, and swine flu have worried health experts across the globe. While public health officials and epidemiologists have been tasked with combating these outbreaks, physicists have also lent support by modeling disease outbreaks. Researchers at Boston University have delved into how our increasingly interconnected networks contribute to the spread of disease.
A peculiar electrical property in arteries could lead to non-invasive heart disease treatments.
Mathematician explains how series can make use of actual patterns that exist in nature.
As many of you know, President Obama gave the State of the Union address last night. I, of course, was listening for the word "science." He made some interesting statements and I would like to sum them up here.
Read the rest of the post . . .
Moviegoers crave imaginative storytelling and fantastic settings. But they also want movies to be believable, and that's where scientists play their part. Behind some of Hollywood's biggest movies—such as Watchmen, Tron: Legacy, and Star Trek—there's a team of science consultants that help directors create new worlds that remain (mostly) true to the laws of physics. And some of that movie magic has translated into exciting new technologies.
 |  |  |
Ask any kid what they want to be when they grow up, and there's a good chance they'll say astronaut. Now kids don't have to wait quite as long to work with NASA. High School students from around the country were given the chance to furnish code that controls bowling-ball sized satellites aboard the International Space Station. Earlier today, NASA beamed down footage of the students' code at work, and a winner for the best-designed code was announced.
Eat or be eaten—that's the simple idea behind Hemisphere Games' Osmos. In the popular Iphone/Ipad game, players must maneuver an orb through outer space and devour smaller circular specks. The game's intuitive design, however, belies the complex orbital dynamics and thermodynamics that form the game's backbone. Since its release, the game has garnered numerous awards, and now Android users can share in the physics of orb-gobbling fun.
Read the rest of the post . . .
The scale of the universe is almost incomprehensible. Galaxies are so massive it bends the mind, while on the other end of the size spectrum, subatomic particles are so tiny it twists the brain in completely different ways. There's a 1977 short movie, "Powers of Ten," which takes viewers on a journey of scale, showing the size of things in the universe from the building blocks of atoms, to the entire cosmos.
There are likely over 100 billion planets in our galaxy, according to a review of studies spanning over the past six years. This amounts to about 1.6 planets per star according to a research article published in Nature this week. With this new data, physicists are one step closer to solving a formula used to calculate the amount of extraterrestrial life: the Drake equation.
One of my favorite hobbies, apart from riding my bike and lighting things on fire, is knitting. I like knitting because there is a lot of math involved. Math is used to figure out how to make stitches create the shapes you want, be they sweater sleeves or cozy wool socks. This holiday season I decided to use the math of knitting to create something, well, mathy; a Klein Bottle.
Read the rest of the post . . .
Real Klein Bottle Hat
Read fun stuff about both Klein bottles and the origin of this pattern here:
Size
Fits most heads, unless they are unusually large or small.
Materials
Yarn:
Worsted weight wool in your choice of colors. I used scrap wool that was given to me long ago. Lambs Pride worsted or Cascade 220 would work well. I used roughly 100 yards of each color. Maybe 150 for the main color (buff).
Needles
Set of US #8 DPN
Notions:
Scrap yarn for provisional cast on
Yarn needle
Notes:
I used a stripe pattern that I liked. I’m going to write the pattern as if the hat were all one color, but please put your own special pattern on it. This is a basic hat pattern with the addition of the weird tube at the top.
Directions:
The “outside” of the hat will be knit first, then the “inside.” The “outside” part needs a hole to allow the tube from the “inside” to go through.
“Outside”:
Cast on 80 stitches using provisional cast on.
Place marker and join in round
Work in [K1, P1] ribbing until the piece measures 5” from cast on edge.
Starting in the next round continue in ribbing pattern for 20 stitches, Bind off 4 stitches, continue in ribbing till marker. (76 stitches left on needles).
Work back and forth for 4 rows.
Work 20 stitches from marker, which should bring you to the bound off stitches.
Cast on 4 stitches using backwards loop cast on and work to marker. Continue in the round until the whole piece measures 6”
Begin decrease:
Work 10 stitches and place marker. Continue to end of round.
Work to first marker, knit two together, repeat to end of round.
Repeat this step till you have 16 stitches left on needles.
Knit in the round till the top tube measures 6”
Thread stitches through scrap yarn to hold them.
“Inside”:
Pick up the 80 stitches from the provisional cast on.
Repeat as for inside till decrease except do not bind off stitches to create the hole.
The decrease will be done the same way, only instead of K2T you will P2T (yes, unorthodox, I know).
When you have 16 stitches left on the needles PURL till you have a 6” tube.
Hold stitches on scrap yarn.
Finishing:
Fold “inside” into “outside” pulling the tube of the inside through the hole in the outside. The knit side of the “inside” should now be seen.
Using kitchner stitch, graft the two tubes together. Lining them up will be difficult. The markers, which mark the start of the rounds should line up. This is tricky, but the only way to make it look like one continuous surface.
Wear to your favorite geek conference or present to your favorite math nerd.
Read the rest of the post . . .
Fine-tuning evidence has raised compelling questions about the universe's beginning, evolution and eventual end.
Tesla coils are the brain child of the early 20th century scientist Nikola Tesla—a man with roughly 300 patents to his name ranging from arc lamps to a helicopter prototype. Although not all of Tesla's ambitious plans came to fruition, his legacy lives on as electricity enthusiasts are still hard at work building enormous Tesla coils. One group is actively seeking funding to build the world's largest pair of Tesla coils capable of producing arcs around 100 yards long.
Google Earth has a number educational uses ranging from flight simulators to undersea exploration. Now a researcher has suggested extending the virtual globe's applications to physics.
