Investigators say evidence recovered from an explosion Saturday at the National Institute of Standards and Technology near Washington, D.C. is consistent with the production of methamphetamine. The evidence? “Pseudoephedrine, drain opener, and a recipe for methamphetamine.” Read more…
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"Recipe for Meth" Among Evidence Found in Suspected Federal Meth Lab
In 2010, divers rescued some amazingly old alcohol from a shipwreck off the coast of Finland. They’ve already published some detailed tasting notes about the beer —but now they’ve carried out an in-depth analysis of the champagne. Read more…
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This Is What 170-Year-Old Champagne From a Shipwreck Tasted Like
sarahnaomi writes There sits, in the Clarendon Laboratory at Oxford University, a bell that has been ringing, nonstop, for at least 175 years. It’s powered by a single battery that was installed in 1840. Researchers would love to know what the battery is made of, but they are afraid that opening the bell would ruin an experiment to see how long it will last. The bell’s clapper oscillates back and forth constantly and quickly, meaning the Oxford Electric Bell, as it’s called, has rung roughly 10 billion times, according to the university. It’s made of what’s called a “dry pile, ” which is one of the first electric batteries. Dry piles were invented by a guy named Giuseppe Zamboni (no relation to the ice resurfacing company) in the early 1800s. They use alternating discs of silver, zinc, sulfur, and other materials to generate low currents of electricity. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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At Oxford, a Battery That’s Lasted 175 Years — So Far
KentuckyFC writes Physicists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Germany have measured sulfur hydride superconducting at 190 Kelvin or -83 degrees Centigrade, albeit at a pressure of 150 gigapascals, about the half that at the Earth’s core. If confirmed, that’s a significant improvement over the existing high pressure record of 164 kelvin. But that’s not why this breakthrough is so important. Until now, all known high temperature superconductors have been ceramic mixes of materials such as copper, oxygen lithium, and so on, in which physicists do not yet understand how superconductivity works. By contrast, sulfur hydride is a conventional superconductor that is described by the BCS theory of superconductivity first proposed in 1957 and now well understood. Most physicists had thought that BCS theory somehow forbids high temperature superconductivity–the current BCS record-holder is magnesium diboride, which superconducts at just 39 Kelvin. Sulfur hydride smashes this record and will focus attention on other hydrogen-bearing materials that might superconduct at even higher temperatures. The team behind this work point to fullerenes, aromatic hydrocarbons and graphane as potential targets. And they suggest that instead of using high pressures to initiate superconductivity, other techniques such as doping, might work instead. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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High Temperature Superconductivity Record Smashed By Sulfur Hydride
Of the many theories swirling around why legendary Stradivarius violins are so great (aside from, you know, it’s just all in our heads ), almost all have something to do with the wood . Maybe it was trees growing in a Little Ice Age or logs being stored in Venice lagoons or a special wood preservative. It makes sense, then, that one way to spot a fake is to go back to the wood—specifically, back to tree rings . Read more…
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You Can Spot a Fake Stradivarius By the Tree Rings in the Wood
There’s no denying that graphene is a wonderful material —strong, flexible, and highly conductive—but it’s taking a long time to become a commercial reality. Now, scientists working with a material called cadmium arsenide believe it offers many of the same benefits—but could actually be far easier to use in the real world. Read more…
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Cadmium Arsenide: A 3D Alternative to Graphene That’s Way More Useful
Phosphorus is an essential element for life. Forms of it are found in DNA, RNA, and all living cell membranes. It is the sixth most abundant element in any living organism. Phosphorus can also be highly poisonous and combustible (white phosphorus is used in many destructive weapons, such as napalm). It was also the first element discovered since ancient times. The person who made this discovery was Hennig Brand in 1669, who did so while he was playing around with large amounts of human urine. Read more…
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How One Man’s Love of Urine Led to the Discovery of Phosphorus
From Motherboard comes this description of what may turns out to be the newest entry on the periodic table, newly synthesized element 117, created by researchers at the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research of Darmstadt, Germany, and described in results published this week in Physical Review Letters. From the article: “Element 117 has been temporarily given the very literal name ununseptium (one-one-seven in Latin), and will only honored with a real name once the the International Union of Pure and Applied Physics and Chemistry (IUPAPC) confirms its synthesis at the GSI accelerator. Ununseptium is 40 percent heavier than lead, making it on par with the heaviest atoms ever observed. … Its properties seem to confirm that the existence of the so-called “island of stability”—a theory suggesting that the half-lives of superheavy isotopes will lengthen as their atomic numbers increase further away from uranium. Any element with an atomic number greater than 103 is considered superheavy (or in the ‘transactinide class, ‘ if you prefer the scientific jargon). Transactinides can only be observed artificially in a laboratory, and synthesizing them is no easy task.” Note: that “real name” process isn’t a mere formality; just a few years ago, another attempt to synthesize a 117th element looked promising enough to be declared done, but could not be confirmed with the IUPAPC’s tests. Read more of this story at Slashdot.
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Meet Ununseptium, Best Contender Yet For Element 117
Graphene may be the supermaterial to rule them all —but it turns out you can make it at home . In your kitchen blender. Here’s how. Read more…
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How You Can Make Graphene at Home in Your Blender
Getting a little bored of your usual workout routine? Here are nearly 100 workout posters that will motivate you to train like Rocky, workout with the strength of Thor, or simply switch up your exercises. Read more…
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Exercise Like a Jedi, Superhero, or Warrior with Free Workout Posters