BuzzSkyline - Slashdot User

Submission + - US Police use James Bond style GPS Bullet 2

Submitted by mrspoonsi on Tuesday October 29, 2013 @05:01PM

mrspoonsi writes: Designed to make police high speed chases safer, the pursuing police car presses a button, a lid pops open and fires a GPS bullet which attaches to the car in front. After which the car can be tracked from a distance in real-time without the need for a high speed pursuit.

Submission + - Imprisoned Physicist Honored for Refusing to Work on Iran's Nuclear Program (physicscentral.com)

Submitted by I3MOUNTAINS on Monday September 23, 2013 @03:53PM

I3MOUNTAINS writes: Omid Kokabee, a University of Texas graduate student who has been imprisoned in Iran for more than two years, received APS's Andrei Sakharov human rights prize for refusing to collaborate on the country's nuclear program. In May, an Iranian court sentenced him to ten years in prison for "communicating with a hostile government" and receiving "illegal earnings." The so-called "illegal earnings" were the student loans he received while in Texas.

Submission + - Crowd funding for crank physics (physicscentral.com)

Submitted by BuzzSkyline on Friday January 11, 2013 @03:57PM

BuzzSkyline writes: A new design for bicycle cranks violates basic principles of physics, but that's not stopping the inventor of Z-Torque cranks from trying to raise thousands in start-up capital through crowd funding.

Comment Re:Why the excitement? (Score 1) 3

by BuzzSkyline on Saturday July 07, 2012 @10:51AM (#40575519) Attached to: Higgs, Schmiggs - the LHC may have Found Physics Beyond the Standard Model

The truth is a good thing. If they are out there, we should look for them, and rejoice in every discovery. Do you think we should stop doing research because we know more than you care to know?

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Best mobile phone solution without data plan 2

Submitted by clorkster on Thursday February 23, 2012 @05:23PM

clorkster writes: I am looking to upgrade my mobile phone. I have always bought the cheapest possible phone with the least features since I only use it to make calls and text. Further, I am opposed to paying for internet access twice and my home access is certainly more important and necessary. I am now running into the issue that my phone is too archaic to receive text messages from newer smart phones (they somehow become picture messages). Any thoughts on a good smart phone without data plan or an almost smart phone solution?

Submission + - Microgravity Coffee Cup (physicscentral.com)

Submitted by

BuzzSkyline

on Thursday February 23, 2012 @05:09PM

BuzzSkyline writes: "Despite the fact that astronauts have been eating and drinking out of tubes for decades, it's actually possible to drink from an open-top cup in space. Astronaut Don Pettit recently downlinked a video that shows him slurping coffee from a cup he kludged out of plastic sheet. It appears to work pretty much like a cup on Earth, even in freefall aboard the International Space Station, thanks to capillary action."

Submission + - Climate Change-Induced Drought Caused the Mayan Collapse (vice.com)

Submitted by

pigrabbitbear

on Thursday February 23, 2012 @03:23PM

pigrabbitbear writes: "The collapse of the Mayan empire has already caused plenty of consternation for scientists and average Joes alike, and we haven’t even made it a quarter of the way through 2012 yet. But here’s something to add a little more fuel to the fire: A new study suggests that climate change killed off the Mayans."

Submission + - Nigerian Scam Artists Taken for $33,000 (couriermail.com.au)

Submitted by smitty777 on Thursday February 23, 2012 @02:57PM

smitty777 writes: An Australian woman who was being used by a group of Nigerian scam artists stole over $33,000 from the group who employed her. Her bank account was being used to funnel the cash from a dodgy internet car sales website. Irony aside, it makes one wonder how these folks ever got the nerve to go to the police with this matter. Those of you wondering, this article offers some answers to the question of why so many of these scams originate from this area.

Comment Re:explanation incorrect? (diploe + 1/r vs 1/r^2) (Score 1) 159

by BuzzSkyline on Wednesday February 08, 2012 @05:46PM (#38972859) Attached to: Water Droplets In Orbit On the International Space Station

I believe you're thinking specifically of closed orbits (if my hazy recollection of Newtonian dynamics is correct). Any attractive potential can lead to orbits, but most types of potentials produce orbits that do not necessarily close on themselves. Orbits in the gravitational potential around spheres and points lead to elliptical orbits that close on themselves (instead of precessing around like a spirograph sketch).

Submission + - Water droplets in orbit on the International Space Station (physicscentral.com)

Submitted by

BuzzSkyline

on Monday February 06, 2012 @04:41PM

BuzzSkyline writes: "Astronaut Don Pettit, who is aboard the International Space Station (ISS) right now, put charged water droplets into wild orbits around a knitting needle in the microgravity environment of the ISS. A video he made of the droplets is the first in a serious of freefall physics experiments that he will be posting in coming months."

Submission + - Fine structure constant may not be so constant (physicscentral.com)

Submitted by

BuzzSkyline

on Wednesday November 02, 2011 @10:20PM

BuzzSkyline writes: "Physics Buzz is reporting, "Just weeks after speeding neutrinos seem to have broken the speed of light, another universal law, the fine structure constant might be about to crumble." Astronomical observations seem to indicate that the constant, which controls the strength of electromagnetic interactions, is different in distant parts of the universe. Among other things, the paper may explain why the laws of physics in our corner of the universe seem to be finely tuned to support life. The research is so controversial that it took over a year to go from submission to publication in Physical Review Letters, rather than the weeks typical of most other papers appearing in the peer-reviewed journal."

Submission + - Light barrier repels mosquitoes (forbes.com)

Submitted by kodiaktau on Wednesday November 02, 2011 @09:06PM

kodiaktau writes: Dr. Szabolcs Marka has received one of five $1M grants from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, to continue his experiments with using light beams to create mosquito barriers. This is the second grant he has received from the foundation and proves to be a deviation from the previous and more dangerous use of lasers to control mosquitoes. A video can be seen here

Submission + - The Physics of Jump Rope (sciencemag.org)

Submitted by sciencehabit on Wednesday November 02, 2011 @11:44AM

sciencehabit writes: Last year, Jeffrey Aristoff and Howard Stone, mechanical engineers at Princeton University, were at the gym waiting for a pickup game of basketball. To warm up, Stone started jumping rope. As the rope whizzed over the head of his colleague, Aristoff wondered, "Is it known how jump ropes bend in the wind?" A few literature searches later, he concluded that the answer was, "not really." Now, the two have solved the problem themselves.

Submission + - Gecko-Inspired Robot Rolls Up Walls (discovery.com)

Submitted by

RedEaredSlider

on Wednesday November 02, 2011 @11:05AM

RedEaredSlider writes: "We all love climbing robots. A group of researchers in Canada has decided to combine the mechanism geckos use to stick to walls with the simplicity of a tank tread. The result is a 'bot that can roll up smooth (and some not so smooth) surfaces. Such robots are easier to control than those that try to simulate walking directly."

Submission + - Powerful magnets could prevent heart attacks (physicscentral.com)

Submitted by

BuzzSkyline

on Thursday June 02, 2011 @01:38PM

BuzzSkyline writes: "A few minutes in a high magnetic field (1.3 Tesla) is enough to thin blood by 30%, potentially leading to a new drug-free therapy to prevent heart attacks. The powerful field causes blood cells to line up in chains that flow much more easily than randomly-scattered individual cells, according to research scheduled to appear this month in the journal Physical Review E."

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