Category Archives: Technology

Engineering, History, Materials, Physics, Science, Technology

Ramjets: Making Mock of Mach

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1946 ramjet test. Image courtesy NASA.

The faster you go, the less inclined the air becomes to get out of your way. This simple fact, which stood for years as an impediment to breaking the sound barrier, can also be ingeniously harnessed to create an engine capable of zipping along at supersonic speeds without the fuel weight required by rockets.

In this article, I trace the history, science and engineering behind this revolutionary “flying stovepipe,” from its theoretical birth during the biplane era to its modern military and commercial offshoots. By the time we’re done, you’ll understand…

How Ramjets Work

Astronomy, Electromagnetism, Engineering, Imaging, Materials, Physics, Science, Space, Technology

The James Webb Space Telescope Prepares to Peer Past Hubble

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Artist's rendering of JWST
Artist’s rendering. Image courtesy NASA.

For two decades, the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope helped pierce the veil of time, image stellar nurseries and prove that galaxies collide. Now, the James Webb Space Telescope stands poised to take those observations to the next level, making the delicate observations possible only in the cold, dark spaces beyond the moon.

Slated for a 2018 launch date and team-built by 14 countries, 27 states and the District of Columbia, Webb will take astronomers closer to the beginning of time than ever before, granting glimpses of sights long hypothesized but never seen, from the birth of galaxies to light from the very first stars. Join us as we explore…

How the James Webb Space Telescope Will Work

Biochemistry, Consumer, Culture, Engineering, Gadgets, Genetics, Health, How To, Materials, Medicine, Neuroscience, Science, Technology, Weird

Biohackers Take DIY Approach to Biological Future

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Image of Neil Harbisson
Neil Harbisson, cyborg. Photo by Moon Ribas.

Not terribly long ago, do-it-yourself projects were the province of shade-tree mechanics and people who kept wood lathes in their garages. They dealt with grease and iron, wood and wiring, and left anything biological to the experts.

But today, body-modifying grinders implant jury-rigged biotech via the kitchen cutting board. Elsewhere, basement biohackers collaborate to build a better biological mousetrap, while volunteers teach basic genomics in community biotech spaces. Little by little, small pockets of enterprising people are working to make the long-promised post-human, cyborg, genomic future a reality.

How Biohacking Works

Astronomy, Chemistry, Computing, Electromagnetism, Engineering, History, Mathematics, Physics, Science, Technology, Top 5

Top 5 Large Hadron Collider Findings

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Photo of man examining accelerator
Photo courtesy CERN

When physicists at CERN cranked up the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider on Sept. 10, 2008, they had high (if contradictory) hopes. Like a child at Christmas, they wanted to get exactly what was on their wish list – the Higgs boson, some proof of supersymmetry – but also yearned for some wonderful surprise; because, if everything they predicted was right on the money, then particle physicists might well weep, for they would have no new worlds to conquer.

Years later, the LHC still hasn’t destroyed the planet or crushed physicists’ hopes. In fact, it’s made some amazing and somewhat perplexing discoveries. In this article, I take a (relatively) nontechnical look back at five the five most major findings so far.

5 Discoveries Made By the Large Hadron Collider (So Far)

Biochemistry, Consumer, Electromagnetism, Health, History, Imaging, Medicine, Neuroscience, Psychology, Science

How Painkillers Take the Edge Off

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If only it were that simple.

Pain is essential to life, and not just in a Nietzschean, what-does-not-destroy-me-makes-me-stronger sense. It alerts us to injuries and prods us to stop poking at our wounds. It’s God’s megaphone, nature’s cone of shame. Pain is so essential, in fact, that losing our capacity for it can have life-threatening consequences.

Yet we’ve really only begun to understand how pain works in the past 40 years or so, thanks in large part to technological advances. Granted, most painkillers sport a list of side effects that reads like a Tomás de Torquemada’s own torture manual, but at least we understand something of the nervous mechanisms that underpin our owies. That said, just what on Earth is a COX inhibitor? Or an NSAID? And most important of all…

How do painkillers know where you hurt?