Mar 27
Antineutrinos are fascinating things, and they’re spat out in uncommon quantities by the nuclear power plants around the world. This map shows just how many are churned out each year.
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Mar 04
In this week’s landscape reads, we rediscover the future of steampunk energy, we walk the radioactiv
Posted in: Today's Chili
In this week’s landscape reads, we rediscover the future of steampunk energy, we walk the radioactive shores of a manmade island in San Francisco, we climb to the top of California’s surreal palm tree economy, and we look back with both amusement and horror at pest control in communist China.
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Jan 28
The tumbleweed, which seems so at home rolling down an American highway, is actually an invasive plant from the Russian steppes. In the relatively short time it’s been invading the plains—just over a century—the tumbleweed has managed to establish itself as an indelible symbol of the western landscape. It is the ultimate sleeper cell, we might say, an enemy plant, if we were to resort to Cold War metaphors.
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Dec 04
The UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency has some bad news. It just announced that thieves in Mexico have stolen a truck carrying dangerous radioactive materials. In fact, they got their hands on all the ingredients they’d need to produce a radioactive dirty bomb.
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Nov 05
Radioactive Orchestra 2.0 takes the music live, makes sweet photonic melodies (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Sweden’s Kollektivet Livet took a step towards demystifying the invisible energy around us last year through its Radioactive Orchestra, which turned isotopes into beats and beeps. To our relief, the Orchestra isn’t content to record in the studio. Version 2.0 of the music project is all about going on tour, so to speak, through live instruments: in a first prototype, a photon detector translates every radiation hit from nearby materials into its own audio pulse. The invention results in an imprecise art based on distance, but aspiring cesium rock stars can tweak the sensitivity or transpose the notes to generate their own distinct tunes. Orchestra manager Georg Herlitz tells us that the initial setup you see here, played at TEDx Gotëborg, is just a “sneak peek” of both a finished instrument and more work to come. We might just line up for the eventual concerts if the performance video after the break (at the 10:30 mark) is any indication.
Radioactive Orchestra 2.0 takes the music live, makes sweet photonic melodies (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:17:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
Aug 23
Most watches with glow-in-the dark parts achieve the effect using special paint that absorbs light and reflects it back for an extended period. But the faint glow from the Nuclear Watch comes from decaying radioactive hydrogen atoms. They died for you!
According to its product page, each watch contains about 100 quadrillion radioactive hydrogen atoms, divided among the dials and hands of the watch. The atoms are stored in a glass tube that is lined with phosphorescent material. As the hydrogen atoms decay, the electrons they emit hit the lining. This causes the glow. The page also claims that about 250 million of the hydrogen atoms decay every second, but their sheer number means that the watch will keep glowing 24/7 for 25 years.
If you’re not creeped out at the thought of carrying an atomic genocide on your wrist, order the Nuclear Watch from Gadgets & Gear for $175 (USD).
Aug 11
Alt-week peels back the covers on some of the more curious sci-tech stories from the last seven days.
It’s not like we’re trying to out-weird ourselves, it just, somehow, keeps happening. At least one of this week’s offerings (we’ll leave it to you to figure out which) will possibly be the creepiest thing we post all year. As for the rest, well it’s slightly more palatable. We’ll get uncharacteristically pumped about cycling, meet some extra-terrestrial quasicrystals and enjoy some art with X-men credentials. This is alt-week.
Continue reading Alt-week 8.11.12: Robo-billies, quasicrystals and radioactive art
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets, Science
Alt-week 8.11.12: Robo-billies, quasicrystals and radioactive art originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 11 Aug 2012 15:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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