The Art of Science

To boldly go where no man has gone before

[fyphysica]

Source: Linear Algebra Done Right

[fuckyeahfluiddynamics]

Pumping air through a bed of sand can make the grains behave just like a liquid. This process is called fluidization. Air introduced at the bottom of the bed forces its way upward through the sand grains. With a high flow rate, the space between sand grains gets larger, eventually reaching a point where the aerodynamic forces on a grain of sand equal gravitational forces. At this point the sand grains are essentially suspended in the air flow and behave like a fluid themselves. Light, buoyant objects – like the red ball above – can float in the fluidized sand; heavier, denser objects will sink. Fluidization has many useful properties – like good mixing and large surface contact between solid and fluid phases – that make it popular in industrial applications. For a similar (but potentially less playful) process, check out soil liquefaction. (Image credits: R. Cheng, source; via Gizmodo; submitted by Justin)

[fyphysica]

Fluidized bed combustion and cleaning

One of the important application of fluidized bed is for combustion and thermal cleaning. Here is a video by Schwing that illustrates how a fluidized bed aids in cleaning and coating of materials

And if you would like to learn about the Fluidized bed combustion, this website gives a really good insight. Do check it out!

[the-wolf-and-moon]

Center of Rosette

[holthx]

[scienceisbeauty]

Example of a multifractal electronic eigenstate at the Anderson localization transition in a system with 1367631 atoms. Each cube indicates by its size the probability to find the electron at the given position. The color scale denotes the position of the cubes along the axis into the plane.

By RudoRoemer (GFDL or CC BY-SA 3.0), via Wikimedia Commons

–

50 Years of Anderson Localization, Short History -  Sympossium, Institut Henri Poincaré, Paris, December 4-5, 2008

[wapiti3]

A guide to the study of lichens

By Schneider, Albert, 1863-1928

Publication info Boston,Knight and Millet,1904.

Contributing Library: NCSU Libraries (archive.org)

BIODIV LIBRARY

[fishstickmonkey]

German zoologist Wilhelm Giesbrecht’s illustration of copepods — tiny crustaceans related to crabs and lobsters — glowing against a background that is dark like their daytime ocean environment, from his ‘Systematik und Faunistik der pelagischen Copepoden des Golfes von Neapel…’ (‘Systematics and geographical distribution of the pelagic copepods of the Gulf of Naples…’) (1892) (© AMNH\R. Mickens)

(via Hyperallergic)

[scientiaphilia]

“It is always raining sulphuric acid on Venus, all over the planet, and not a drop ever reaches the surface.” - Carl Sagan in Cosmos The thick clouds that engulf Venus are composed of highly concentrated acids that condense and form literal acid rain. As the droplets near the unbearably hot surface, they evaporate and break down into gases which circulates back up to the clouds to create acid again.  Images taken by Venera 14 on the surface of Venus

[marineexplorer]

Waratah anemone garden - Actinia tenebrosa #marineexplorer by John Turnbull Via Flickr: Bare Island

[nonfatchai]

[scientiaphilia]

Mortal as I am, I know that I am born for a day. But when I follow at my pleasure the serried multitude of the stars in their circular course, my feet no longer touch the Earth...

Claudius Ptolemy

[scientiaphilia]

Photos from Venera 14 on the surface on Venus “See that picture on the right? Do you see that big chunk of semi-circular metal in the middle? That's a lens cap. It protects the camera from the Lovecraftian hell that is Venus' atmosphere during the decent. Once the probe lands it pops off so the camera can take a few pictures before being destroyed by the weather.

The Russians had a huge number of problems with those caps; they wouldn't come off. They sent a bunch of probes to Venus that had issues with those lens caps failing to work.

See that picture on the left? Do you see that extended arm-like thing? Once the probe has landed, that arm extends so it touches the ground and gets details of what the surface of Venus is composed of.

Do you see what it's sitting on? That's right. The lens cap.

They finally got the lens cap to come off successfully and it fell in exactly the spot where their surface instrument was supposed to go.

All that instrument did was send back to Russia information about the composition of their own lens cap.”  Credit: Reddit (not me, essentially)

[fruitsoftheweb]

A SJTU Unfoldable Robotic System for Single Port Laparoscopy “SURS’s functionality can be seen from the video clips above, including the deployment, pick-and-place, tissue peeling, knot tying and tissue resection.”

[scientiaphilia]

The Cosmos is all that is, ever was and ever will be.

Carl Sagan, 1980 on Cosmos

[scientiaphilia]

Most museums are like icebergs with only a minute fraction of available exhibits rotated periodically to be open to the public. Here, Roy ‘Chip’ Clark photographs the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History’s numerous storage rooms that house treasure troves of anthropological and natural specimens, some being the most impressive and comprehensive in the entire world.

[scientiaphilia]

From the ‘Evaporation’ exhibition in the Manchester Museum of Science and Industry: Tania Kovat draws inspiration from Lovelock’s Gaia theory— the Earth as a supermassive interconnected ecosystem made up of millions of living organisms and the elements that surround them. 

[beautyofmicroscopy]

From the U.S. Geological Survey, “Harmful Water Organisms”

“Harmful Water Organisms — Here’s a photo taken of gloeotrichia echinulata under an epifluorescent microscope which emits ultraviolet light. Using ultraviolet light, the filaments glow red from chlorophyll, while other pigments give various hues of purple, which may be a hint about the health of the cells.

There may be organisms in lakes, reservoirs, rivers and streams, that produce natural toxins. When a harmful algal bloom is present with these toxins, there is a risk from drinking the water or consuming fish and shellfish. This organism is just one example. The Native American and Alaska Native communities that are dependent on subsistence fishing have an increased risk of exposure to these cyanotoxins. It is important to recognize the presence of an algal bloom in a waterbody and to distinguish a potentially toxic harmful algal bloom from a non-toxic bloom.

Scientists at USGS created a guide which provides field images that show cyanobacteria blooms, some of which can be toxin producers, as well as other non-toxic algae blooms and floating plants that might be confused with algae. The guide also provides microscopic images of the common cyanobacteria that are known to produce toxins, as well as images of algae that form blooms but do not produce toxins. You can see the full report aton.doi.gov/HarmfulAlgalBlooms.”