UCR Science Lecture Series

Yesterday I went to a talk held at UCR as part of a science lecture series open to the public. Cheryl Hayashi, a biology professor at UCR, gave a talk on biomimetic technologies – innovations that imitate nature. Hayashi advocates that there is a lot to learn from nature. Shaped by natural selection over a super-human stretch of time, designs found in nature are often superior to manmade technologies.

Hayashi’s slight frame packs a bundle of energy and enthusiasm for her work. She wears comfortable shoes and slacks and sports hair slightly more fashionable than the average professor. “Do you see this here?” she asks as she walks from one side of the room to the other, making sure that everyone in the audience can see what she is pointing out. It is a picture of sand. “There are two eyes here,” she draws her hand over the picture, “and here are the legs coming out.” The audience “oooohs” in comprehension – now we see a spider camouflaging itself in the sand. Hayashi shoots a mischievous look at us and exclaims, “You guys will believe anything, huh!” She’s just kidding, though. She assures us there really is a spider there.

Hayashi's fascination with nature is infectious as she takes us through current technologies that imitate nature. She offers the example of a butterfly that does not use pigment to color its brilliant metallic blue wings. Instead the wings are made of tiny lens-like scales that nature has optically engineered to reflect blue wavelengths of light back to us. Sonar, often used by the military, has been used for much longer by bats and dolphins to detect their surroundings. Speedo recently developed swimsuits that mimic shark skin to create more efficiency for swimmers. And the inspiration for Velcro came to an inventor when he came back from a hike to find himself and his dog covered in fast-sticking seed burrs.

Hayashi herself works with spiders and researches spider silk. She urges us to imagine what it would be like to be a small spider interacting in a giant’s world. They need their silk to interact with their surroundings. Incredibly, spiders create 7 different kinds of silk. Hayashi’s lab measures the properties of the silk and researches how spiders produce it. Spider silk can stretch to twice its length without breaking and has superior strength, extensibility, and toughness compared to manmade materials. While a string of spider silk 1mm in diameter could lift a cat (11 pounds), a 20mm diameter string could lift a hippo (4400 pounds). That’s a tough string of silk.

Some promising applications for spider silk include tough, lightweight gear such as bullet-proof vests and medical products such as bandages and sutures. Spider silk also exhibits muscle-like properties: wetness and humidity cause the silk to contract. It could provide an alternative to artificial muscle tissue, which contracts through electrical impulses. Producing spider silk in mass quantities for commercial applications presents another challenge and opens a new topic of research.

After this talk I am left impressed by designs that occur in nature. I am also curious – what does Hayashi do with spiders she finds in her house? She wouldn’t squash them, would she? Perhaps she takes them with her to lab.

For more info on the Science Lecture Series, visit here!

Pirate puzzle added

In our continuing adventures with the unnamed pirate, he encounters tigers and treehouses in puzzle number 3. See if you can help the pirate solve the puzzle with your logic and wit here: Pirate Adventures with Math.

The Big One

In Japan they call it "Tokai", and here in California we call it the "Big One". It's that massive earthquake that you're waiting for if you live in an earthquake prone region, and in California it would occur on the San Andreas fault.


The LA Times has an interesting article about seismologists that are creating underground images near the San Andreas fault. It looks like pretty intense field work. The scientists set off explosions along the fault and record the speed of seismic waves as they travel through the Earth's crust. The recordings are used to generate underground images. "So far, they had put out more than 4000 seismomemters, and the night crew had set off more than 100 explosions."

The more we know about the structure of the San Andreas fault, the more we can determine the impact of shaking from an earthquake like the Big One. Previous studies project 2000 deaths, 50,000 injuries, and $200 billion in damage from a 7.8 quake near the fault. That's much less than the recent quake and tsunami in Japan, but still significant.

I like this Google map of the San Andreas fault. It’s easy to zoom in and pan around on the fault. It’s right up against the base of the mountain ranges in some areas.

Also a detailed site about the San Andreas here.

While this fault is above ground, I wonder how they are studying rifts that are under the ocean...

Quake devastation...and tracking what went wrong with Japan's nuclear reactors

At my house the TV is tuned to the Japanese channel for NHK’s coverage of the damage and devastation from Friday’s earthquake. It’s relentless coverage of the dead and missing, shots of people who have evacuated to shelters, bell chimes sounding new earthquake warnings, and the latest from the Fukushima power plant. 

Everyone is comparing the situation at Fukushima to past events: it’s worse than Three Mile Island but not as bad as Chernobyl. But will it become worse than Chernobyl? That’s unclear, but here are some sources to understand what is going on:

NPR has a visual guide to what went wrong inside the nuclear reactor. So far there have been explosions at 4 reactors. NPR is also tracking the latest news on the reactor.

A more detailed explanation of the fundamentals here.

Although people are concerned about the health effects of radiation exposure, this article from the Washington Post brings up the psychological damage that may have just as much significance.

And my summary from what I've gathered so far:

After the earthquake and tsunami the plant lost the necessary power to cool the fuel rods. The fuel rods contain fuel that generates heat through nuclear fission. The temperature of the fuel rods must remain stable to prevent a “nuclear meltdown” that could result in radiation leaks. With the cooling system failing, too much water boiled into steam and increased the pressure within the reactor. The power plant workers vented steam outside of the reactor to reduce the pressure, but they also added cooling water and caused hydrogen to build up inside the reactor. The steam and hydrogen gas were vented into the air and a hydrogen explosion occurred.

Also, I am following the updates on the situation at Fukushima because it's interesting and because there are health risks, but there is so much going on in Japan beyond what I can fathom. Ganbare Nippon!

Ars Technica science video contest winners

Last week Ars Technica chose the winners for their science video contest in December:
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/02/ars-announces-the-science-video-contest-winners.ars

These videos were fun to watch, and they ALL succeed in teaching you something about science while entertaining you.

Two videos explain the concept of a fourth dimension. One of them has an excellent soundtrack and the other one has a really good narration.

There was also a video about the Doppler effect!! That's one of the physics concepts that is the most fun to explain to others...and in that video it looks really good when you animate the Doppler effect.

To explain how antibiotics work, one video animates M&Ms and Twizzlers to great effect.

Last but not least the Large Hadron Collider is explained without any talking. That one was exciting to watch. When they show the "99.9991%"-ish number, are they talking about the speed at which the protons are accelerated?

Man, it would be so fun to pull off a video on this level...

Just for fun

My friend and I just submitted a video to the Ars Technica science video contest! Anyone can submit a video with a science topic related to biology, physics, or math.

This friend from work is into photography and we have fooled around with the video on her camera for some "internal marketing videos" at the office. So...we decided, why not, let's make a science video.

Here it is: How Making Music Works

It's nothing fancy so don't expect anything. But I like the drums, piano, and glasses of water that we demo.


And now I really respect anyone that makes videos! It's hard to plan out every shot and takes teamwork. But it's also fun and this contest makes me want to try some more!

More pirate puzzles

Finally I posted the next puzzle in the pirate's adventures on an exotic island. What will the pirate do when he meets the island natives? Find out and see if you can help the pirate avoid certain death with some logic skills!
Pirate Adventures with Math (Look for puzzle no.2)