Nov 17
With Minute Physics videos we pretty much expect to have the universe explained to us in . . . a minute. Or maybe a few minutes. But this rundown of temperature and how to achieve "negative temperature" only takes 10 seconds. Impressive.
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Oct 28
A team of scientists has created a material that’s enough to confuse fellow researchers and the Predator alike: a substance which looks cold when viewed using infrared light even when it’s getting hotter.
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Sep 30
News alert! The world is going to get hotter. NASA combined dozens of climate models from around the world to estimate temperature and precipitation patterns for the next 87 years. That’ll get us right to the year 2100.
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Sep 29
On Friday the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change put its collective foot down
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Sep 23
This glowing purple cloud may look stunning, but you wouldn’t want to get too close—because it’s actually a multi-million degree celsius gas cluster.
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Aug 02
Turns out diamonds have powers beyond bringing bling-happy jewelry enthusiasts and hopeful lovers to their knees. Harvard researchers have figured out how to make the shiny little pebbles into the world’s tiniest thermometers. How tiny? Small enough to take the temperature of an individual cell.
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Jul 02
It’s summer. It’s stinking hot. And for any silly person who leaves their pets (or any imbecile who leaves their kids) inside a parked car, watch this video where a doctor traps himself inside a parked car to see how how it gets. Even with all four windows cracked down a bit, the car temperature reaches 117 degrees in only 30 minutes.
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Apr 26
A new series of measurements have revealed that the Earth’s core is actually 1,000°C hotter than we previously thought—meaning the center of our planet is actually as hot as the surface of the Sun. More »
Apr 10
Honeywell Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat learns habits, matches your neon decor (video)
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Honeywell has had WiFi-capable thermostats on the market for some time, but few of them would be a great match for home interiors that have escaped 1980s beige chic. The company’s new Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat is going a long way toward bringing that design fully into the present century. Owners can color match the touchscreen interface with the paint on their walls, down to very exact shades. Of course, the thermostat wouldn’t be much of a competitor in the Nest era if it didn’t have some of that namesake intelligence underneath. As with its main rival, the Honeywell system has (already existing) Android and iOS apps, and can tell how long it takes to change the temperature; it’s also aware of when filters need a change based on furnace behavior. If you’re on the cusp of a home renovation and don’t want anything so gauche as a differently-colored screen, home improvement shops should have the Wi-Fi Smart Thermostat this May for $249.
Filed under: Household
Source: Honeywell
Mar 18
At first, you might think what you’re looking at is just a cool illuminated wall sculpture. Well it is that, but it’s actually more. It’s actually a weather forecaster with a tangible user interface.
This interactive LED art was assembled by Instructables contributor and Parsons design student Adiel Fernandez. He built the wall unit using a set of three sconces found at CB2, rigged with a digitally-addressable LED scrip, cut into pieces that he placed into the sconces. His original concept was to simply rig the sconce with flickering LEDs to make them look like candles without the inconvenience of actual candles and flame, but ultimately ended up with a much more interactive pieces.
The wall sculpture is controlled by a small acrylic cube with icons on each side. Inside the cube is a gyroscope, accelerometer, XBee radio and lithium-polymer battery. Rotating the cube to face an icon upwards will switch the LEDs between 6 modes, described in the words of its creator as follows:
- Power: “The cube is normally off to save power and will not recognize any commands or orientation. By having the power icon facing up and shaking the cube, the cube is now awake, will pulse the inner light that shines through the icons, and will recognize which side is facing up to allow other modes to be accessed. By spinning the cube while its on and the power side is up, a fun rainbow display is turned on and off.”
- Flame: “When the cube is on and the flame side is facing up, the lights in the sconces will glow and flicker like real candle flames (a little difficult to see in the video). By rotating the cube clockwise, the number of candles lit are incremented and likewise, rotating it counter clockwise decreases the number of lights lit.”
- High Temperature: “Having this side face up while the cube is on will display the high temperature of the day in red light. The lights will display the first digit of the temperature on the left side by lighting up the number of lights equivalent to that digit. The lights then pause then display the second digit of the temperature on the right side. For example, if the temp. is 47 degrees (like in the video), the lights will show 4 lights on the left, pause, then display 7 lights on the right.”
- Low Temperature: “Similar to the low temp side, this side will show the low temperature of the day in a cool cyan hue.”
- Precipitation (snow/rain): “This will display the percent chance of precipitation similar to how the other temperatures are displayed in blue. Its a little difficult to tell the difference between the cyan and blue in the video but easier in person.”
- Travel (plane around the world): “For a bit of whimsy, I decided to make the bottom of the cube display the temperature of some fantasy destination set by the user in green light. In this case it’s set to Honolulu, Hawaii, hopefully making it easier to bare the cold winter with hopes of a future vacation.”
Here’s a look at the controller cube in action:
And here’s a brief demo of the wall as it lights up:
At this point, the temperature data is hard-coded into the system, but Adiel plans to get it wired up to an internet data source soon. There aren’t too many more details on the build available, but you can see what there is over on Instructables.
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