1

Radio Show & Podcast Feedback / Can you do a show on ionic liquids please?

« on: 15/11/2007 14:08:42 »

I heard the Material World podcast on this stuff - it gives me hope that we can survive in an industralised world without poisoning ourselves in the process. More people should hear about this.

2

Physiology & Medicine / Re: Toxoplasmosis: how does one know one's infected, and should I worry?

« on: 08/05/2007 00:08:07 »

Toxoplasma research in patients affected by psychiatric disorders is going further and certainly we deserve an update around here.  For the discussion, to keep this topic alive. 

Jeepers! How expensive is the diagnosis? What's the treatment? Aaaaghhh!

3

Physiology & Medicine / De-furring arteries

« on: 06/04/2007 17:30:34 »

I've never seen an answer to this.

We all know furred up artieries are bad - but is there anything available that can de-furr them? I guess you can't go injecting washing up liquid into the bloodstream - but I'd heard that garlic can do it, and then heard that refuted.

How about it - can I have my cake AND eat it indefinately?


Albert

4

General Science / Creationist Challenge (proving the existence of light)

« on: 07/03/2007 20:48:45 »

I've just read a fantastic NY Times articles about hard-wired theism.

We're all belief fridge-magnets - compelled to stick to a belief in 'something' mystical.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/04/magazine/04evolution.t.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5088&en=a43cfb7b24423cc6&ex=1330664400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

5

General Science / Creationist Challenge (proving the existence of light)

« on: 07/03/2007 14:29:46 »

A challenge issued by a creationist on a forum I frequent - I wasn't quite sure how to respond....

"I challenge YOU to PROVE the existance of "LIGHT" to a BLIND man, using ONLY scientific methodology!".

We could perform an experiment to show heat radiation in the IR spectrum - a blind person could percieve that. Come on guys give me some meat to throw back at him....


Albert

6

General Science / Can you help with my project...

« on: 06/03/2007 23:20:18 »

Me too ... first stop ... the curry house!

7

General Science / Can you help with my project...

« on: 06/03/2007 14:53:11 »

Thanks for your input guys.

Muscle wire (aka nitinol / flexinol) seems the most suitable until electroactive polymers hit the streets.

If I ever get a patent and a prototype made you'll catch me making a fool of myself in the Dragon's Den. Any venture capitalists reading - feel free to throw some money at me... £50,000 gets you 0.5% (I think that's the usual ratio hoped for).

Albert

8

General Science / Can you help with my project...

« on: 01/03/2007 23:41:12 »

Thanks Robert,

I've already got ten of those (ebayed from Hong Kong - much cheaper) but they are far too big.

I see there are developments in the field of electroactive polymers which might offer a solution...

Albert

9

Physiology & Medicine / Toxoplasmosis: how does one know one's infected, and should I worry?

« on: 28/02/2007 03:50:44 »

Following the question on the program:

We've a dog and a cat - both cared for properly, wormed, innoculated and all that.

My son is still a thumbsucker and despite our badgering demonstrates pretty poor hygiene regarding playing with pets, eating food etc..

Is there a test available to check for the presence of parasitic infections that he (or indeed anyone) might have? I seem to recall hearing that toxoplasmosis can have psychological effects while the individual is unaware that they are infected.

Do I need to worry? How would I know if I was infected?

Albert

10

General Science / Can you help with my project...

« on: 28/02/2007 03:38:10 »

I project I have in mind requires an array of actuators to provide rapid fore/aft movement. They don't need to be powerful, but they do need to be small and preferably to have proportional control.

I've bought a handful of micro-servos to prototype with, but they are far too big and expensive for the product I have in mind.

Does anyone have any experience of working with flexinol/nitinol? From what I've read it can be quite slow to expand/contract when heated. Is there anything else in the pipeline?

A few years ago there were battling star wars figures that had a range of movements. I should have bought one from the bargain bin just to dismantle to see how the actuators worked - I'm guessing that they were some sort of solenoid. I've researched this for several years but haven't found a solution and wondered if any micro robotics boffins could help.

thanks

Albert

11

New Theories / a new look at gravity

« on: 18/02/2007 23:17:31 »

I've read theories (and since it was on t'internet it must be true) that gravity is caused by the drag on all particles as the 'ether' flows towards the centre of mass.

Whether the 'ether' is the same thing as the quantum vacuum I don't know.

Whether it's a load of balony, again, I don't know but I'm off to try inventing and ether-umbrella to see if I can create zero-g - now where's that baking foil...


Albert

"There are 10 kinds of people in the world: those who understand binary and those who don't."

12

General Science / Alternative motorcar engines

« on: 18/02/2007 23:00:20 »

To suppliment the mcD and BK fuel supply I made a proposal on another site that liposuction clinics should donate their erm... byproducts (which are likely to be have been sourced from mcD and BK) so that the couch potatoes of the future can do their bit for humanity...

Then some boffin replied - raining on my parade...

"Let us not assume free energy, but rather let us assume the entire planet is filled with obese couch potatoes. If 100 pounds of fat could be harvested from each of 6 billion people each year, that is 600 billion pounds or 300 million short tons of fat each year. If we assume human fat has the same energy content as crude oil, and since 1
ton of oil equals about 8 barrels, this is 2.4 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE). Since the world currently consumes about 30 billion barrels of crude oil per year, this method will not go far toward eliminating our dependence upon oil."

Ah well - out of the madness a good idea might just turn up!

Albert

13

General Science / Alternative motorcar engines

« on: 15/02/2007 01:00:14 »

The problem is not so much whether one fuel is better than another, the problem is trying to set up the infrastructure to support it.  In that respect, it matters not whether you are talking about hydrogen or battery, you need the support infrastructure to allow you to top up during your journey (i.e. filling stations).  The car is the easy bit.

Yes that's true. Current recharge times are look to be minutes for the latest UltraCapacators.

So should we just dump the car? I don't think that'll happen any time soon. There's an interesting comment I heard about the car being that last bastion of perceived personal freedom left - hence all the kerfuffle over speed cameras and RFID road pricing. If that's true then it's a pretty sad reflection of how stupid we're all getting and how empty our lives have become.

But the fact remains that our whole society has developed over the last 50 years on the basis of full and unrestricted mobility of the population - shops at the edge of town, jobs 40 miles away, leisure and recreation facilites no longer on the doorstep.

It wasn't always this way - once there were no dual-carriageways and no motorways, people worked where they lived and walked to the shops - but there's no going back and so it is STOOPID to try and turn back the clock unless we're going to also try and restructure the way towns and cities are built. Public transport cannot solve this, so we are stuck with the car and that in the future we will be dependent on low-power, low weight, power efficient EV's to move us around.

In the short-term we should introduce strict emission AND power limits on cars if we're that bothered - this will change the design and performance profiles of the machines and will prepare us for more moderate expectations for our future personal transportation podules. It'll be goodbye to Ferrari, Range Rover and Lambo - but really - who needs 300bhp to sit in a traffic queue or trundle at 40mph in road works?

Quite how near that future is is a matter for science and the correct routing of R&D development money through universities towards viable technologies and NOT headline grabbers like that ludicrous 'Intelligent Energy' hydrgen powered version of the Raleigh Grifter that gets so much exposure and has cost goodness knows how much. They should rename it 'Intelligent Elephant' and paint it white!

Rant complete...

Phew!

Albert

14

General Science / Re: What's the best way to dispose of nuclear waste?

« on: 15/02/2007 00:11:27 »

More madness....

I think DARFA or NASA has awarded a grant to a team proposing to build a humungous mag-lev rail gun satellite launching device.

If that could reliably and cheaply launch small capsules at escape velocity then there's no risk of launch pad failure, crashes or re-entry and we can launch the pellets into the sun.

Or we could just bury it....

My worry is that even in 100 years we could see some catastrophic decline in present day civilsation due to war, disease, environmental degradation, biological/nanotechnological contamination, the emergence of a new AI driven species that we're predicted to initialiate in 2020 - or most likely a religious fundamentalist fuelled, post-industrial dark age.

So who be around to tell folk to keep away from the derelict nuclear stations and radioactive waste stockpiles if we entered a post-industrial decline?

I don't think we should be so smug as to believe that things will always be this way (like I bet the Egyptians, Greeks, Romans did) and for this reason I think that we either need to avoid more nuclear developments or to be able to put this stuff far out-of-reach for the sake of whoever (or whatever) follows us.


Albert

15

General Science / Re: What's the best way to dispose of nuclear waste?

« on: 14/02/2007 23:46:53 »

Ah - I was assuming 'the core' had a flow and like a post-apocalyptical game of nuclear pooh sticks, the caskets would be  drawn away under the mantle never to re-emerge!

I guess it's a little like weeing in your own bathwater though - I'll put my drill away and cancel the meeting with BNFL!

Albert

16

General Science / Alternative motorcar engines

« on: 14/02/2007 22:13:39 »

Battery powered vehicles are the only way forward.

Serious advances in battery and capacitor technology really should have the 'Hydrogen Economy' exponents shutting up shop by now. The trouble is with who owns the chain of energy supply - the likes of BP, Shell, Exxon - want to keep hold of their monopoly and so Mr.Bush and Mr.Blair back them by wasting public money for research and development.

Hydrogen is such an inefficient and inconvenient way of moving about. It uses so much energy to creaate it, it's dangerous, and as I understand it causes catastrophic damage to the atmosphere - more so than C02.

So I'll be hoping that the likes of Toshiba come up with the goods soon and we can all lead healthier lives with zero emission (for the user) vehicles whizzing about the streets powered by carbon neutral nuclear/renewable power generation.

Albert

17

General Science / What's the best way to dispose of nuclear waste?

« on: 14/02/2007 22:02:41 »

There are a million reasons why this couldn't work - but I'll throw it into the pot anyway....

Caskets of nuclear waste are dropped into a post-eruption volcano - where the pressure has been released and before the lava has started to set. The caskets (oh how stupid this sounds) sink down to the fluid core where even if they break open, the radioactive material is dispersed within the core.

Or maybe, where the earth's crust is thin enough, we could bore a hole through and 'inject' the caskets into the core.

Go on - debunk me!

Albert Titan