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physics teacher, aikido student (retired)

Science Sunday 08-13-2017

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

A Brief History of Flight, Part 1 The Wright Brothers I am in the process of developing a new physics course for students interesting in the field of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV), commonly known as drones.  It occurred to me to put together a brief history of human flight. Most of us are familiar with the immense and courageous achievements of Orville and Wilbur Wright, brothers who owned a bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, and who shared an inextinguishable passion for manned flight. While there were many pioneers in manned flight, no one now doubts that the Wright brothers achieved … Continue reading →

Science Sunday 08-06-17

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Clingy Drones Vice News’ Motherboard reports that a new type of drone has successfully been designed by researchers at the Createk Design Lab at the University of Sherbrooke in Quebec that can autonomously alight on, and cling to, vertical surfaces, both hard and soft. Besides obvious spy applications that the drone was not specifically designed for, the researchers suggest that the UAV can be used to survey areas damaged by earthquakes, or to inspect tall structures that are difficult to get to.   Zealandia Recently, a team of eleven geologists strongly recommended that the sunken land mass between Australia and … Continue reading →

Science Sunday 07-30-17

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Tesla Model 3 Well, it’s finally “almost” here, the Tesla Model 3 all electric sedan and sportscar, that promises to be affordable to the masses, and be practical to use. Over a half million blokes have put down a deposit of $1000 to purchase what has to be the iPhone of cars.  Although 30 cars have been produced thus far, they were released only to Tesla employees to try out and report bugs. Although Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla (and Space X) asserts that you will be able to buy one of these pups for “only” 35 grand, the … Continue reading →

Science Sunday 07-23-17

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Quoth The Raven “No Problem!” A study in the July issue of Science once again demonstrates the stunningly high intelligence of ravens, and other members of the crow family. Ravens are part of a larger species called corvids, which include crows, jays and magpies.  Tests conclusively prove that these birds can solve problems better than four year old humans and some adult great apes. Ravens have shown the ability to fashion tools to obtain food, to exchange token for food on a delayed basis, to hold grudges against fellow birds, etc. [If it’s been a while since you read Edgar … Continue reading →

Science Sunday 07-15-17

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Deep Space Testing On July 10th, NASA sealed the James Webb Telescope into a chamber designed to see how well the telescope will work in the environment of outer space. The telescope is a successor to the famed Hubble Space Telescope, and is expected to pick up the much fainter infrared light of galaxies shining from near the edge of the visible universe, some 13.4 billion light years away. Testing is expected to last 100 days, with the first 40 days devoted to conditioning the spacecraft to the extremely cold conditions needed for it to operate properly. Named after NASA’s … Continue reading →

Science Sunday 07-08-17

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

You Go Frogs A recent article in National Academy of Sciences Journal asserts that frogs were a primary beneficiary of the asteroid strike some 66 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs. Known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event, the asteroid impact was so devastating that nearly 75% of all life on Earth was wiped out. Frogs, which have been around for at least 200 million years, were able to survive and flourish after this extinction event, asserts the authors, because of the frogs’ relatively small sizes, their post extinction adaptive behaviors, and abandoned ecosystems. The article’s authors, David Blackburn … Continue reading →

Science Sunday #54

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Colony Collapse Disorder The ongoing concern about declines in honey bee populations worldwide recently made the news again, with a report that neonicotinoid insecticides may play a significant role in colony collapse disorder, a process wherein a healthy bee colony simply disappears (dies off) within a very short time. Using 33 test sites in Germany, Hungary and England, the researchers determined that neonicotinoids can have a devastating effect on a honey bee colony, depending on how exclusively the bees fed on crops sprayed with these chemicals. The above Kurzgesagt video well summarizes all the causes of colony collapse disorder, and … Continue reading →

Science Sunday #53

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Paris Air Show This year’s International Paris Air Show at Le Bourget Airport finishes today, after one week of spectacular surprises. Perhaps the standout of many competitors is Aeromobil’s Flying Car.  The Aeromobil has foldable wings when used as a car, and retractable wheels when used as a plane. With a maximum takeoff mass of 960 kg (about 4300 lbs.), and a wingspan of 8.8 m  (about 29 ft), the Aeromobil has a maximum ground speed of about 100 mph, and a maximum air speed of 224 mph.  Orders are being taken now, for delivery in 2020.  The anticipated price … Continue reading →

Science Sunday #52

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

How We All Got Here In roughly the time it takes for light to get from the Sun to the Earth, astrophysicist Neil de Grasse Tyson explains how the Universe evolved from the Big Bang to us safely ensconced here on Earth.  Courtesy of Minute Physics.   Chocolate and A Fib Chocolate not only tastes good, but you may need to indulge in its pleasures to avoid or reduce the effects of atrial fibrillation.   Tis The Season The Summer Solstice moment, the beginning of Summer, is nearly upon us, coming early in the morning of June 21st in sunny … Continue reading →

Science Sunday #51

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Empathy Author Dan Goleman speaks with eloquence about the three kinds of empathy, and how these human qualities, in various admixtures, inform today’s leaders.  As I watched this video, it was hard not to think of the current resident of the White House and the current Speaker of the House, and how they specifically lack emotional empathy.   The Machines Are Taking Over Call me a Neanderthal, but I refuse to use the self-service checkout lines at big box multibillion dollar chain stores like Home Depot, because these checkout lines want you to do the work normally reserved for human … Continue reading →

Science Sunday #50

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Popular Science Cassini Retrospective Popular Science has put together an amazing retrospective collection of images from NASA’s Cassini spacecraft.  It’s just one web page, so it will probably blow out your browser’s temporary memory, but check it out anyway.  There are quite a few worthy wallpaper images you can use.  Click on the link above to see the collection. The white dot next to the arrow is Earth.   Icarus Redux NASA just announced that it will be sending a probe to the Sun to study the Sun’s corona and its solar wind, among other things. The probe is named … Continue reading →

Science Sunday #49

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Juno Polar View NASA has just released images from Juno, its current Jupiter mission, as it passed from pole to pole over the gas giant.  The above image, which looks like a spectacular modern art painting, is a view of Jupiter’s south pole, from a distance of 7800 mi. Business Insider has put together a wonderful montage of these images as the spacecraft passes between Jupiter’s north and south poles. If you would prefer to fly along with Juno on this latest “perijove” pass by the planet, here is a video released by NASA in the last few days:   … Continue reading →

Science Sunday #48

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Ovarian Bioprosthetics Many young girls, some prepubescent, undergo cancer treatments that lead to sterility.  The tragedy is that while their lives are saved, they cannot themselves have children later in life. Some of these cancer victims have their eggs harvested before the onset of the inevitable chemo, but that doesn’t help them to carry offspring to term, a devastating consequence of their necessary medical interventions. Now it seems that scientists at Northwestern University, in conjunction with Lurie Children’s Hospital, are working to reverse this outcome. Dr. Monica Laronda — working with Drs. Teresa Woodruff and Ramille Shah, and using “3-D printing of … Continue reading →

Science Sunday #47

The Progressive Wing Posted on by

Baby Big Bird After 25 years of cloak and dagger intrigue regarding the whereabouts and nature of a fossilized “baby dinosaur in the egg” known colloquially as “Baby Louie”, the dino has been identified as a new species of oviraptorosaur called beibeilongsinensis. While small in its sarcophagal shell, feather-covered Louie would have grown up to be a metric ton, 1000 kg in mass or 2000 lbs in weight, a prehistoric version of our beloved Big Bird.   You Smell! A recent study by John McGann of Rutgers University asserts that the human sense of smell is on a par with … Continue reading →