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The term "nano" refers to the metric prefix 10-9. It means one billionth of something. Nanoscience is the study of structures and materials on the scale of nanometers. To give you an idea of how long a nanometer is, a printed page is about 75,000 nanometers thick. When structures are made small enough -- in the nanometer size range -- they can take on interesting and useful properties.
Nanoscale structures have existed in nature long before scientists began studying them in laboratories. A single strand of DNA, the building block of all living things, is about three nanometers wide. The scales on a morpho butterfly’s wings contain nanostructures that change the way light waves interact with each other, giving the wings brilliant metallic blue and green hues. Peacock feathers and soap bubbles also get their iridescent coloration from light interacting with structures just tens of nanometers thick. Scientists have even created nanostructures in the laboratory that mimic some of nature’s amazing nanostructures.
This week, a look at nanotech.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "Everyone's trying to...look out for us. Protect us from ourselves. But in the end, all that matters is how we feel...and what we do about it. Because either way, we're the ones who have to live with the consequences." - Jadzia Dax, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, "Rejoined"
It's not the destination, it's the journey. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Ernest Hemingway, Arthur Ashe, Zig Ziglar, Brian Eno and many others had something to say about this. I've had many interesting journeys along the way and look forward to many more.
Still, wouldn't getting wherever it is you are traveling to in a few seconds beat spending hours in a car or a crowded airplane?
This week, a look at getting somewhere in the blink of an eye.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "I’ll never understand this obsession with accumulating material wealth. You spend your entire life plotting and scheming to acquire more and more possessions until your living areas are bursting with useless junk. Then you die, your relatives sell everything and start the cycle all over again." - Odo, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, “Q-Less"
I was a terrible tooth brusher as a child and, consequently spent many hours in the dentist chair. I learned to loath the Kit-Cat Clock hanging in the examination/torture room with it’s iconic swinging tail, rolling eyes and scary smile, laughing at me as the doctor put that foot long needle through my cheek and jaw to anesthetize my mouth.
This week, a look at hyposprays.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "I will not sacrifice the Enterprise. We've made too many compromises already. Too many retreats. They invade our space and we fall back. They assimilate entire worlds and we fall back. Not again. The line must be drawn here! This far, no further!" - Captain Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek VIII: First Contact
I had my first pair of glasses when I was in sixth grade. A novelty at first, I wore them only when I needed to, putting them on and taking them off in a sort of rythmic gymnastic progression. I lost and or broke a few pairs this way, so by the time I was in college they became a permanent addition to my eyes. Over the years they have corrected my vision, shaded my eyes from the sun and allowed for much laughter when looking at photos from decades past as fashions changed.
This week, a look at, well, looking.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "Damn it, Bones, you're a doctor. You know that pain and guilt can't be taken away with a wave of a magic wand. They're the things we carry with us, the things that make us who we are. If we lose them, we lose ourselves! I don't want my pain taken away! I need my pain!" - Captain James Kirk, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
ST50 - Geordi's Visor by fredwine on Scribd
A tractor beam is a device with the ability to attract one object to another from a distance. The concept originates in fiction: In Philip Francis Nowlan's Buck Rogers novel, Armageddon 2419 A.D. (1928), the enemy airships used "repellor beams" for support and propulsion, similar to the "eighth ray" beams used for support and propulsion of Martian airships in the Barsoom/John Carter of Mars series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, first published 1912-1943.
The term "tractor beam" was coined by E. E. Smith (an update of his earlier "attractor beam") in his novel Spacehounds of IPC (1931). Since the 1990s, technology and research has laboured to make it a reality, and have had some success on a microscopic level.
Gravity impulse and gravity propulsion beams are traditionally areas of research from fringe physics that coincide with the concepts of tractor and repulsor beams..
This week, a look at tractor beams.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "Do you want to tell me what’s bothering you or would you like to break some more furniture?" - Counselor Deanna Troi, to Commander Worf, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Birthright"
ST50 - Tractor Beam by fredwine
The communicator is a fictional device used for voice communication in the fictional universe of Star Trek. In a twist of the science fiction future infliencing present day technology, Dr. Martin Cooper, inventor of the first handheld mobile phone, credits the Star Trek: The Original Series communicator as being his inspiration for the technology. Although the first "brick" mobile phones were much larger, modern flip phones like Motorola´s StarTAC strongly resemble the original series communicator.
This week, a look at communicators.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: Kirk: "My God, Bones, what have I done?" McCoy: "What you had to do; what you always do: turn death into a fighting chance to live." Doctor Leonard McCoy to Admiral James T. Kirk while witnessing the destruction of the Enterprise, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
ST50 - Communicator by fredwine
A laser is a device that emits light through a process of optical amplification based on the stimulated emission of electromagnetic radiation. The term "laser" originated as an acronym for "light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation". The first laser was built in 1960 by Theodore H. Maiman at Hughes Research Laboratories, based on theoretical work by Charles Hard Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow.
Phasers are common particle-beam weapons first seen in the original Star Trek series and later seen or referenced in almost all subsequent films and television spin-offs. The phaser was originally a "PHoton mASER", because at the time of writing the laser was a relatively unknown. Masers, on the other hand, were already established and produced long-range coherent beams of electromagnetic radiation.
This week, a look at light amplified weapons.
TTFN, Fred.
Quote of the week: "There are creatures in the universe who would consider you the ultimate achievement, android. No feelings, no emotions – no pain. And yet, you covet those qualities of humanity. Believe me, you're missing nothing. But if it means anything to you...you're a better human than I." - Q to Commander Data, Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Déjà Q"
ST50 - Phaser by fredwine
