io9: science is awesome

OMFG: They've Made Real Lightsabers (Kinda)

Graeme McMillan — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 08:00:15 PST

An upcoming television show explains why real life lightsabers are a physical impossibility, before building the next best thing. It's like Mythbusters but, surprisingly, made with even more awesome.

According to Variety, the show, Sci-Fi Science: Physics of the Impossible, will feature Dr. Michio Kaku looking at the reality behind Star Wars' favored weapon of choice. After explaining that light can't be formed into a solid blade, Jedi-style, he then goes to work looking for alternatives, including plasma swords and carbon nano-tubes, with the help of experts in the field. As you can see from the pic, he apparently succeeds. My mind is almost so blown that I forgot to say that I really, really want to see lightsaber battles as part of the Olympics now.

Sci-Fi Science premieres on the Science Channel on December 1st.

Geek Alert: Science Channel Builds a Light-Saber! [BLTV/Variety]

2008 Science Visualization Challenge Reveals the Teeth in a Squid's Suckers

Ed Grabianowski — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 07:00:00 PDT

What you see above are actually the suckers on the arm of a squid, captured with an electron microscope. The color was added for the obvious effect. The National Science Foundation and the journal Science have announced the winners of the 6th annual International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. Incredibly talented scientist/artists wielding electron microscopes and more esoteric methods created a bunch of exceptionally cool images, such as this shot of Yog-Sothoth gibbering madly as he tries to force his way into our dimension.

If you head over to the Science website, you can see a slideshow with a bunch of the winning images, plus a podcast about the competition, and more info about the methods used to get the images.

There's an amazing 3D illustration of the human circulatory system and some innovative infographics, but my favorite is probably a cancer cell imaged with an electron microscope surface scan. After each scan, an ion blast shaved 20 nanometers off the cell, then another scan was taken. You can see a reduced scale version of the resulting 3D masterpiece at left, but be sure to check out the full-size version over at Science. Images by: Science/NSF.

Winners of Science Visualization Challenge announced. [Nobel Intent]

"Earth's Twin" Discovered In Distant Solar System?

grae — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 06:33:18 PST

If life on Earth isn't doing it for you, then there's good news - an alternative may be around the corner. As German scientists announce that theoretical "Super-Earths" - planets 10 times the size of Earth with similar atmospheres - could support life for 35 per cent longer than our home planet, NASA scientists have discovered 55 Cancri f - a planet 45 times the size of Earth in a distant solar system that

spend[s] its entire orbit within what astronomers call the "habitable zone". The zone marks a "Goldilocks" band of space where the heat from a star leaves a planet neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water, which is believed to be crucial for life.

Is this the next holiday destination, or the home of our future alien overlords? Only time will tell.

Could this be Earth's near twin? [Guardian Science]