Sci-Tech & Engineering Round-Up
FIRST PERSON TO BE CRYONICALLY SUSPENDED
Following his death from kidney and lung cancer, psychology
professor Dr James Hiram Bedford (USA, 1893–1967) was
cryopreserved by the Cryonics Society of California, USA.
He was placed in a dewar (a vacuum-insulated vessel)
containing liquid nitrogen at -196°C (-320°F) and taken to
the Cryo-Care Equipment Corporation in Phoenix, Arizona,
USA. The picture above shows the capsule being prepared.
On 25 May 1991, after several relocations, his body was moved
from its original dewar to a higher-tech chamber (inset).According to NASA, the energy released by the Sun is equivalent to
100 billion tons (90.7 billion tonnes) of dynamite exploding every second.Roundest natural object
On 16 Nov 2016, an
international team of
astronomers announced
their discovery of the
most spherical natural
object yet measured in the
universe. Kepler 11145123
is an A-type star around
5,000 light years away. Over
a period of 51 months, the
team observed the star’s
natural oscillations and
used asteroseismology
to measure its size. They
discovered that the star,
which has a mean radius of
1.5 million km (900,000 mi),
has polar and
equatorial radii
that differ by only
3 km (1.8 mi).First use of facial-
recognition glasses
at a sports event
In 2011, police in
Brazil began testing
facial-recognition
glasses as part of their
preparations for the
2014 FIFA World Cup.
Almost undetectable
to the casual observer,
the glasses were fitted
with a small camera that
captured 400 facial images
per sec and compared them
with a database of 13 million
faces. In the event that
the data matched up to a
criminal, a red signal would
appear on a small screen
connected to the glasses,
prompting the oĆcer to
take action.Least dense
3D-printed structure
In Feb 2016, researchers
from Kansas State
University, State
University of New
York (both USA) and
Harbin Institute of
Technology (CHN)
3D-printed an aerogel
made of graphene with
a density of just 0.5 mg/
cm³. Aerogels are light and
porous structures in which
solid materials are mixed
with a liquid to form a gel.
The liquid is then removed
and replaced with a gas.
The aerogel was 3D-printed
at -25°C (-13°F), enabling
the production of a more
complex 3D structure.Oldest feathers in amber
On 8 Dec 2016, an
international team of
scientists led by the China
University of Geosciences
published their analysis of a
sample of amber containing
preserved feathers. Some
99 million years old, it
housed part of a tail covered
in small brown feathers
with a white-ish underside.
It had probably belonged
to a juvenile coelurosaur.MOST VERTICALLY
AGILE ROBOT
Salto (“saltatorial
locomotion on terrain
obstacles”) has a vertical
jumping agility – the height
of one jump, multiplied
by the frequency with
which that jump can be
made – of 1.75 m (5 ft
8 in) per sec. (“Saltatorial”
refers to anatomy adapted
for leaping.) Salto is
26 cm (10.23 in) tall when
extended and can jump
1 m (3 ft 3 in) high. It was
created by a team from the
University of California
in Berkeley,
USA.LONGEST ELECTRICAL DISCHARGE
TO STRIKE A SWALLOWED SWORD
A 1.16-m (3-ft 9.6-in) discharge made contact with a sword
swallowed by “The Space Cowboy”, aka Chayne Hultgren
(AUS), in Perth, Western Australia, on 20 Apr 2013. The
electric generator that was used in this attempt was a large
Tesla coil capable of producing 500,000 volts. Dr Peter
Terren operated the apparatus during the attempt.HIGHEST PLASMA PRESSURE IN A FUSION REACTOR
Nuclear fusion reactions can produce very high quantities
of energy. Inside a nuclear fusion reactor, scientists try
to reproduce the reactions taking place within stars.
To do so, gaseous molecules have to be in “plasma”
state, i.e., superheated, stable under high pressure and
confined in a fiûed volume. In ]ep 201ƭ, scientists from
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) created
a pressure of 2.05 atmospheres inside the Alcator C-Mod
tokamak nuclear fusion reactor of the Plasma Science and
Fusion Center at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.SCI-TECH & ENGINEERING
SOFTEST ROBOT
“Octobot” was made by researchers from Harvard University
in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Weill Cornell Medicine in
New York City (both USA) and unveiled in Aug 2016. It is the
first robot made only with soft components Ȗ i.e., no hard
parts such as batteries. Octobot does not need to connect to
a power source as it runs on hydrogen peroxide, which breaks
down in the presence of a platinum catalyst and generates
the gas that powers it. The robot’s parts were 3D-printed.100%
In MIT’s plasma
experiment (left), the
heat inside the reactor
exceeded 35,000,000°C
(63,000,032°F).