Although there are a few hobbies that have low-cost entry points, amateur astronomy is not generally among them. A tabletop Dobsonian might cost a few hundred dollars, and that is just the entry point for an ever-increasing set of telescopes, mounts, trackers, lasers, and other pieces of equipment that it’s possible to build or buy. […]
If there is one thing we took from [azwankhairul345’s] environmental monitor project, it is this: sensors and computing power for such a project are a solved problem. What’s left is how to package it. The solution, in this case, was using recycled plastic containers, and it looks surprisingly effective. A Raspberry Pi Pico W has […]
Researchers at Stanford University recently came up with an interesting way (Phys.org summary) to create patterns and colors that emerge when a polymer is exposed to water. Although the paper itself is sadly paywalled with no preprint available, it’s fairly easily summarized and illustrated with details from the Supplementary Data section. The polymer used is […]
Silicone bakeware has become a staple in many kitchens due to its flexible, yet temperature-tolerant nature. New research from Canada shows it could be causing trouble for your liver and lungs, however. The siloxanes that make up silicone bakeware can target “the liver through oral exposure, as well as the liver and lungs through inhalation […]
How do you go about making a mirror with 128 segments, each of which can be independently angled? That was the question that a certain bloke over at [Time Sink Studio] found himself pondering on, to ultimately settle on a whole batch of mini-actuators bought through AliExpress. These stepper-based actuators appear to be akin to […]
There’s an adage coined by [Ian Betteridge] that any headline ending in a question mark can be answered by the word “No”. However, Lorentz invariance – the theory that the same rules of physics apply in the same way in all frames of reference, and an essential component of special relativity – has been questioned […]
Getting a significant energy return from tokamak-based nuclear fusion reactors depends for a large part on plasma density, but increasing said density is tricky, as beyond a certain point the plasma transitions back from the much more stable high-confinement mode (H-mode) into L-mode. Recently Chinese researchers have reported that they managed to increase the plasma […]
Everyone knows that the path of least resistance is the path that will always be taken, be it by water, electricity or the feet of humans. This is where the PCB presented by [ElectrArc240] on YouTube is rather confusing, as it demonstrates two similarly sized traces, one of which is much shorter than the other, […]
It turns out, that mold is everywhere. The problem is when it becomes too much, as mold infestations can have serious health effects on both humans and animals. Remediation is extremely expensive, too. So there are plenty of benefits to finding mold early. Now, German researchers are proposing an electronic “nose” that uses UV-activated tin […]
We suspect there are three kinds of people in the world. People who have access to a Michelson Interferometer and are glad, those who don’t have one and don’t know what one is, and a very small number of people who want one but don’t have one. But since [Longest Path Search] built one using 3D […]