Cafe Science

Being able to calculate the failure front velocity of a Prince Rupert's drop is a pretty big deal. For years this was a scientific mystery. High speed camera technology is only recently fast enough to provide data like this. Thanks to Vision Research for letting me use the V1610 to try to unravel this mystery for the public in general.

The snooze button - one of life's luxuries. But is it really helping you out, or making you more tired?

Chickens have a great ability to keep their heads stable. Our bodies use a gyro-like mechanism in our ears which has 3 mutually orthogonal inertial measurement devices. Modern motion processors use something called an Inertial Measurment Unit (IMU). These devices provide movement data which can be used to compensate for the movement. Chickens apparently have the same type mechanism only with a higher update rate.

A minor geomagnetic storm caused the Aurora Australis. This is footage from the International Space Station.

NASA scientist debunks 2012 end of the world doomsday scenarios.

Tel-Aviv University demos quantum superconductors locked in a magnetic field.

Do you want to have your mind blown? Watch this. (This will cost you 13.5 minutes) Hugh Herr, Director of Biomechatronics at MIT University delivers an amazing talk that will touch your soul. I was in the audience. I was almost in the back row. For the opening few minutes of the talk, I couldn't see his feet. So imagine what happened when I finally stood up and saw his legs.