Xeeban's Musings

It is a big universe

Pictures like this are so sweet. It hints at how totally fricken huge this universe is:

Click on it for the full version.

More amazing Hubble shots can be seen here: http://hubblesite.org/gallery/album/the_universe_collection/

10th Dimension

Ever stay awake at night trying to visualize the 4th dimension? Yeah, me too. It's a bitch. Here is a site that not only helps... it helps you to visualize the 10th dimension! Halp, brane hurts!

http://www.tenthdimension.com/

Space Elevator inching closer to reality

The concept of the space elevator is one step closer to reality. The LiftPort Group, a company planning on building a space elevator, received FAA clearance (a waiver) to use airspace to start testing models of the elevator using a robotic device to climb a free hanging ribbon attached to a balloon initially as much as a mile high.

http://www.techzonez.com/comments.php?shownews=14880

Scientitsts Find Atlantis! (...again)

There is a new claim for the location of the Lost City: Spain. Check it out:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3766863.stm

Detect Parallel Universes at Home

Now with just a red laser pointer, a pin and a piece of cardboard, you can prove the existance of parallel universes in the confort of your living room!

For more information, check out this great book:

The Fabric of Reality: The Science of Parallel Universes-And Its Implications

by David Deutsch

Ben and Jerry's to Chill Ice Cream with Sound

Some links today on several sites about thermoacoustic cooling. Seems Ben and Jerry's is planning to use this technology to cool ice cream in an environmentally friendly way and, along with Unilever, are sponsoring the project. Very neat!

The BBC also have an article about this.

Scientists accomplish "Virgin" birth in labs - Men Obsolete!

http://www.wired.com/news/medtech/0,1286,63203,00.html

Last week, Japanese researchers created a fatherless mouse using only female eggs, and turned the reproduction world on its head. The word on the street was men's role in baby making might one day be obsolete.

Okay I seriously doubt we'll vanish into a single sex race (we're too useful for the non-reproductive parts of the process...), but its pretty cool that they've managed to reproduce mice through parthenogenesis.

Army Scientists and Engineers Develop Liquid Body Armor

Army scientists and engineers have developed a liquid body armor.

The key component of liquid armor is a shear thickening fluid. STF is composed of hard particles suspended in a liquid. The liquid, polyethylene glycol, is non-toxic, and can withstand a wide range of temperatures. Hard, nano-particles of silica are the other components of STF. This combination of flowable and hard components results in a material with unusual properties.

"During normal handling, the STF is very deformable and flows like a liquid. However, once a bullet or frag hits the vest, it transitions to a rigid material, which prevents the projectile from penetrating the Soldier's body," said Dr. Eric Wetzel, a mechanical engineer from the Weapons and Materials Research Directorate who heads the project team.

Reminds me of when I was a little kid playing with water and corn starch. The paste poured and your finger sank into it if you did it slowly. But fast movement made the stuff pretty rigid. Looks like the same concept here, but much more advanced.

Some links to scientific articles about this:

• Advanced Body Armor Utilizing Shear Thickening Fluids
• The ballistic impact characteristics of Kevlar woven fabrics impregnated with colliodal sheer thickening fluid

Big Quake in So. Cal Predicted

This article is a news item about a scientist who is predicting a large earthquake in southern California sometime before September 5th.

A US geophysicist has set the scientific world ablaze by claiming to have cracked a holy grail: accurate earthquake prediction, and warning that a big one will soon hit southern California.

Its both scary and good news rolled into one. A big quake in a heavily populated are will not be a good thing, but if the science behind it is valid, then we have a new method of predicting earthquakes months ahead of time. That will save a lot of lives if used properly.

Soccer Robots!

Okay, this is one of the coolest things I've seen in a while. Robots that can play soccer. No just the basic game, but they can do things like hand stands, get up from the ground, hang their heads in shame. Take a look at the little movies that are on the site. Sweet stuff!

Here is a sample: one of the robots doing a handstand.

Polyphasic Sleep

A while back, several friends and I started blogging about an experiment we did regarding our sleep. We attempted something called polyphasic sleep, or "Uberman Sleep" as its known on the net. You can read my blog about it from the link labeled "Polyphasic Sleep".

Its been a while since I updated that blog, so I'll use this one to post any new developments. One question that I get frequently is if I am still on it. The short answer is "not really."

Why? Read on.

After about 100 days of living a polyphasic lifestyle, I decided to quit. While I did find that it was a useful tool to get extra waking hours in the day, it was too much of an effort. Being polyphasic in a predominantly monophasic world is hard. Not physically hard, as your body adjusts after a while. It was psychologically hard, in the sense that I do not live in a social vacuum and fitting in with other people's lives takes a certain amount of compromise. Slipping off to take my naps was novel at first, but towards the end, it was too much of a chore to maintain and make excuses at the same time every day. And for polyphasic sleep to work, you have to stick to a rigid schedule. For some people, it might work great, but for me, it was just too hard to stick to as my life is not completely predictable.

But you can see, I did not answer with a stright, "No." That is because I do go back to polyphasic patterns now and then when my life is overdemanding of my time. For instance, right now I am back in school 8 hours a week with 3 hours of lab and about 10 hours of homework. Add to that a full time programming job and I've got very little time to pursue other things.

So right now I average about 5-6 hours of sleep a night, and I supplement that with a nap in the afternoons. Its what I would call the very lightest of polyphasic sleep schedules. If my sleep drops to less than that, I will start a regular nap schedule to compensate. But right now, a single nap around 3pm when I am the most tired seems to do the trick. Since its a single nap, I can sneak it in at random times sometime during the afternoon. There is no rigid schedule to stick to and its not so akward.

But if there is no pressing need to be polyphasic, I will switch back to a monophasic sleep schedule just because its easier and fits in better with the schedules most other people have.

For stories and examples of a more extreme polyphasic schedule, see my other blog.