Fearing The Spectacle Would Be Misunderstood, Community Representatives Last Week Visited The 22 Migrants

Coating Makes Steel Tougher, Keeps Microbes From Sticking

More and more objects are getting superhydrophobic coatings that make liquids bounce right off. Surfaces with complex nanoscopic structures that prevent wetting will soon be deployed on wind turbine blades and aircraft wings to prevent ice from sticking, and even concrete is being doped with superhydrophobic compounds to help it last decades longer.

Much still needs to be done, though, to strengthen these coatings because any damage can remove the ability to repel liquids. Such an advance is hugely important since there are potentially life-saving healthcare applications if this hurdle could be overcome with a stable, nontoxic coating for steel. Just imagine if implants, scalpels and other tools used on patients had a surface impossible for infection-causing microbes to cling to.

Now, Joanna Aizenberg and her colleagues at Harvard’s Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering have demonstrated a possible solution. They’ve been able to coat stainless steel with nanoporous tungsten oxide, which repels all liquids. What’s more, the surface is extremely tough, maintaining superhydrophobicity even after being scratched with sharp steel objects and diamond.

Keep reading

Fly to Mars without leaving home!

A couple people asked me about this little clip from my “Why Do We Go To Space” video (<- requisite plug for my YouTube show). What you’re seeing on my iPhone screen there is a 360-degree panorama of the Martian surface as captured by the Curiosity rover.

You can view it here. It works great on your computer, but the real magic is when you view it on your phone or tablet.

Congratulations. You’re a space traveler!

The asteroid Nemesis is named after a Greek goddess who wields an apple branch, lash and sword. She is know for setting the scales right and often identified with revenge. The asteroid is in play with today & tomorrow’s cosmic weather. Good time to ask yourself who, or what, is your worst enemy and what role you play in the dynamic. And maybe make some #apple #tarts too….,

Not measured by money but by positive influence :) respect.

Study: Superconducting Technologies Will Soon Be Used for Transportation, Power Storage

Ifixit repair kits: everything you need to fix everything

Ifixit produce open repair guides for everything imaginable, in a variety of languages, and help sustain a global community of independent repairers who divert electronics from e-waste dumps and keep poor and marginalized people connected to their work, school and families.

The Ifixit repair kits are thoughtful, high-specification, low-cost toolkits designed to work on all modern gadgets, as well as traditional ones (for example, Ifixit manufacture their own drivers for Apple’s bizarre “pentalobe” screws, which Apple had instructed its Genius Bar staff to quietly swap in during routine repairs).

The big daddy of Ifixit kits is the $130 128-bit Universal Bit Kit, which comes in a handsome wooden case and is covered by Ifixit’s lifetime warranty.

But Ifixit makes smaller, more specialized kits, including theSmartphone Repair Kit, priced at $25, specifically aimed at the budgets of enterprising high-school students who want to start their own smartphone repair businesses, using Ifixit’s manuals.

http://boingboing.net/2015/12/02/ifixit-repair-kits-everything.html

Surf Girls And Waves http://bit.ly/1bNWtfB

What China Has Been Building in the South China Sea 

It’s easy to be overwhelmed by the myriad of options in the haircare section of your local store, but it turns out that of all those products, the formula within most shampoo and conditioner doesn’t vary much across brands. 

A new Y Combinator company, Function of Beauty, is looking to change all that.

The company lets the user choose a scent and describe their own hair type, with options from straight to curly, dry to oily, and thin to coarse hair. From there, users can choose different hair goals, combining things like strengthening to heat protection to anti-frizz. 

Function of Beauty currently offers 450 million different combinations based on hair type and goals.

(via Function Of Beauty, Backed By Y Combinator, Offers Customized Shampoo And Conditioner | TechCrunch)

Researchers at MIT have developed a new method for harnessing energy generated by very small bending motions, which could be capable of harvesting power from a broader range of natural human activities such as walking and exercising.

Yale Environment 360: New Device Harvests Energy From Walking and Exercising, Researchers Say