Physics (and Maths) stuff from the week 21-27/5/12

[video] Thunderf00t - Putting Your Hand In The Large Hadron Collider
What would really happen?
Watch out for the spelling mistakes :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oj6v8MtuVdU

Ah - metamaterials - materials deliberately engineered to have wacky properties. These have been designed to be auxetic - that means they get chunkier the more you stretch them. Sound unintuitive? Take a look
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428664.300-impossible-material-would-stretch-when-compressed.html
Diagram: http://www.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2866/28664301.jpg

A solar-powered plane? That'll never get built!
What's that, you say? It has, and it's already flown?
[faints]
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-solar-impulse-intercontinental-flight.html

[video] How big is a billion? Bigger than you think, if you speak English as a first language
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-52AI_ojyQ

A french team has demonstrated the paramagnetic properties of droplets of liquid oxygen. Paramagnetism occurs in many materials, when they respond to a magnetic field by replicating one inside themselves. This causes them to behave in a similar way to real magnets, but only while they're inside a real magnet's field. Unlike with ferromagnetic materials, their magnetic properties disappear when the other magnet does. To demonstrate their paramagnetism, they have suspended droplets above a glass surface, much like beads of oil do in a frying pan - the heat causes a thin layer of gas to separate the droplet from the hot surface, with very little friction, freeing it to race around the pan at high speed. I've seen it - it's great fun. It's the same process that causes lumps of potassium to float, as demonstrated in this vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHjLPF5ruds
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-french-team-paramagnetic-properties-liquid.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paramagnetism


Think Earth's a wet planet? It's nothing, in comparison to Europa!
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120524.html

[video] The Naked Scientists explain - What Is An Alloy?
http://www.thenakedscientists.com/HTML/podcasts/scrapbook/show/20120518/

Interesting formations seen in Mercury's magnetosphere. Watch the video, in the hyperlink, too - it's a really fascinating video. Meteorology FTW, LOL
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn21832-magnetic-space-whirlpools-give-mercury-a-plasma-shower.html


8.6% efficient solar cells? That's a bit shit, isn't it? The best have already breached 15%!
Whoa - these are made of graphene - which means they could make solar cells cheap and abundant - something we desperately need in the renewables industry
http://phys.org/news/2012-05-dopant-graphene-solar-cells-highest.html


Another partial solar eclipse :)
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap120522.html

Geez - it' a wonder we're still here! But seriously - improved imaging techniques have counted twice as many dangerous asteroids as before. 4700 of them are at least 100m across, meaning they'd leave craters at least 2km across!
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21428663.200-number-of-asteroids-that-pose-risk-to-earth-is-doubled.html

Llewblog - FAQ on electric cars - it's pretty concise
http://llewblog.squarespace.com/electric-cars/2012/5/24/ev-faq.html