Science is Cool!

Spent the morning having my mind blown by Oxford Scientists - first part was on Cosmology (basically as big as you can get) and second was on Nanotechnology (basically as small as you can get).

Citizen Science was birthed out the problem that has been arising as a result of the ability of data gathering not keeping up with data analyzing.  In astrophysics and Cosmology (study of the Universe), the amount of data from the big telescopes now it mind boggling.  We have apparently found 1 billion galaxies so far.  One of the ways to classify galaxies is by their shape (for instance, if they are spirals they are younger than elliptical).  Despite our enormous advancement in computer power, they have also found that the human brain is still the best way to do shape recognition.  They had a poor grad student start to do it, and got to 50,000 before it called it quits saying it was impossible for one to do this.  Plus it would have had a significant bias of only one human assessing the shapes.  So Oxford came up with this Citizen Science idea with Galaxy Zoo.  They posted all the millions of pictures of the galaxies for anyone to give their assessment as to shape by answering a few questions.  They got 50,000 hits in the first few hours - it has been an enormous success.  It has been so successful at bridging the gap between enormous amounts of data and limited assessment to other fields.  We did one this morning on identifying animals in the Seregeti - very very cool.   If you're interested - go on Zoouniverse - it has all sorts of projects they are getting the public to help with.  The psychology of this project alone that Dr Lintott talked about was very interesting - basically the motivation wasn't recognition or money, it was that people wanted to be involved in something that was meaningful - something I have believed for a long time - fascinating stuff!!

The technical aspect of nanotechnology had my brain working overtime to keep up, I think I have a rudimentary understanding (which of course could not be the case...LOL).  The coolest part though was the professor set up 4 experiments for us to experience nanotechnology first hand.  I'll try and give my best description of them....but it definitely won't be as good as seeing it first hand.

1. We put regular sand in a bowl of water to watch it drop to the bottom.  Then we put nano-sand (sand that has been altered with nanotechnology to make it hate water) in the bowl of water.  It stays on the surface, rather than sinking and eventually as you pile enough sand on the surface, it breaks the surface tension and falls to the bottom in a solid lump all bond together.  We did it again with oil in the water - the nano-sand and oil are attracted to each other, because they both don't like water and same thing, after critical amount of particles are attracted together, they break the surface tension, and fall to the bottom in a bound ball of solid.  Amazing applications for oil spills!

2. We were given a closed vial with water and a black fluid that had been altered with nanotechnology.  In the vial - it looked like a salad dressing type - oil and water separate, but both fluids.  We were then given a magnet and when you bring the magnet close to the fluid, the black fluid is not only all attracted to the magnet so that it is in one mass of black fluid, but then it changes it to a solid.  The nanotechnology reorganized the atoms in the presence of a magnetic field.  When the magnet is removed - it restores itself to its original liquid form.  WOW, it blows your mind to see it!!!

3.  We were given plates of glass - we were told to breathe on the glass to show the condensation that occurs when you do that - similar to what happens to your glasses when you walk from the cold to a warm building.  We then sprayed on a liquid that had been altered with nanotechnology which loves water.   When you breathed again on the glass - nothing happened.  The nanotechnology loves the water in your breathe so much that it basically instantly absorbs it into the thin film of liquid that remains on the glass.  This would be great for scuba masks!

4.  We were given a cloth treated with nanotechnology that makes water heavier.  When you spray it with water, it not only repels it, but it immediately drops down and off the fabric - this must be being used in outer gear I'm sure.

Man, did I have so much fun being a science geek this morning!!!