Interest of the day

IOP has posted a short summary of the book Quantum Man: Richard Feynman's Life in Science by Lawrence Krauss. I've been a long time fan of Dr. Feynman and have read most of the popular books about him, and use his physics lectures as a reference. What interests me about this book is that it describes his scientific theories and his work instead of his personal history. It's on my reading list.

NASA Goddard produced this short video of brane universes colliding. Watch a big bang in action.

The Periodic Table of Videos has an interview with an aeronautical engineer on how a jet engine works, and what happens to it when volcanic ash passes through it. The result is not good. It's very bad as a matter of fact. Volcanic ash contains glass like particles and the combustion temperature in the jet engine can reach over a 1000 °C. The ash melts an coats the turbines with liquid glass. The engines tend to stop after a while.

Amazing as it may sound, engineers in Africa have harnessed microbes in dirt to create a microbe fuel cell.

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured the UFO galaxy in the Vergo Cluster which is 85 million miles from earth.

An amateur photographer created a 5 Gigapixel image of the Milky Way Galaxy using 6 cameras and 37,000 images taken across North and South America.

In 2006, Charlie Rose interviewed Lisa Randall about her research in theoretical physics and cosmology, and book "Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of The Universe's Hidden Dimensions". The interview is fascinating. The opera Hypermusic Prologue based on her work and in collaboration with Hector Parra was produced and performed in Paris in June.

This TED video by Arvind Gupta on makning Toys from trash is just amazing. You and your kids can learn how to make them at Arvind Gupta web site.

I just discovered that you can buy a shower curtain embossed with the Period Table. This is the coolest thing ever (well mostly). It is available at Amazon.com and ThinkGeek.com.

Professor Martyn Poliakoff describes why alcohol can be naturally radioactive.