Meme-Free Zone

The Bank of England wants nominations for a scientist to be featured on the new £50 note. The rules are that the person has to be


I've gone with Rosalind Franklin, one of the pioneers of X-Ray crystallography and an important figure in the discovery of the structure of DNA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosalind_Franklin

You can nominate on this page:

https://app.keysurvey.co.uk/f/1348443/10fc/

The page doesn't ask for any personal details about the person making the nomination.

"All of the Kepler multi-planet systems (1705 planets in 685 systems as of 24 November 2015) on the same scale as the Solar System (the dashed lines). The size of the orbits are all to scale, but the size of the planets are not. For example, Jupiter is actually 11x larger than Earth, but that scale makes Earth-size planets almost invisible (or Jupiters annoyingly large). The orbits are all synchronized such that Kepler observed a planet transit every time it hits an angle of 0 degrees (the 3 o'clock position on a clock)."

There's now a UK vendor for the FLIRone range of thermal-imaging cameras for smartphones and tablets:

The original one for iPhone 5/5s - £116.65 + VAT
www.acutestdirect.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductCategoryID=19153

New versions that plug into other iPhones/iPads and Android phones

iPad/iPhone with lightning connector - £166.63 + VAT
www.acutestdirect.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductCategoryID=22562

Android (not available yet) £166.63 + VAT
www.acutestdirect.co.uk/product.aspx?ProductCategoryID=22563

I think all three incorporate two cameras, one for visible light and one for thermal imaging, so that the thermal colours are overlaid on a higher-resolution image. I'd love to have a play, but I'd need the more expensive model and it's a bit outside my "play with technology" budget.

Anyone else look at the Apod feed today (well actually yesterday but it takes a while to reach Livejournal) and immediately think "Sauron!"?

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap150510.html

Just been reminded that there's a solar eclipse coming up on 20th March - only partial in the UK, total in the Faroe Islands, which I suspect may already be fully booked out.

Timings for London will be
Start: 8.25am
Mid-eclipse: 9.31am
Eclipse ends: 10.41am
The rest of the UK should be similar.

Fingers crossed for clear skies!

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-solar-eclipse-2015-when-is-it-what-time-will-it-start-and-where-can-i-see-it-10076174.html

Things just got very interesting in the thermal imaging business.

The last time I saw a "cheap" thermal imaging camera it cost about 600 pounds. But there's now an FLIR camera available for IOS and Android devices; UK price I've seen is £185 + VAT, USA $350. Resolution is 160x120 interpolated to 640x480, which is fairly typical for cheaper thermal imaging cameras.

http://flir.com/FLIRONE/

UK vendor Rapid electronics, there may be cheaper alternatives

http://tinyurl.com/pobg7jw

I won't be buying one for myself, but I would have been all over it before I retired.

update - looking at this more carefully, it seems to be designed to fit onto the iPhone 5 and 5s rather than generic connectivity, which means that if you have an older iPhone or an iPad you're probably out of luck. I was originally told there was an android version but this appears to be untrue, sorry about that. The Seek Thermal mentioned in comments appears to be for iPads with lightning connectors as well as iPhones, and there really is an Android version, but it's not as versatile in other respects, e.g. it doesn't take a visible light picture as well as IR, also the cheapest I'm seeing it in the UK is on ebay at £269.

Just noticed this while looking for something else, and even though I'm retired I'm very tempted to get one just to play with it.

It's a tiny low power consumption multi-sensor bluetooth device that is supported by various apps including a free datalogger program for ipads and iphones - for £20.60 + VAT. Think it's $25 in the USA.

The sensors are accelerometer, magnetometer, gyroscope, barometer, hygrometer, and infra-red thermometer.

http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/displayProduct.jsp?sku=2334329&action=view&CMP=GRHS-1001023

The datalogger for ipads and iphones is called SensorTag and available through the app store.

This looks amazing, has anyone tried it yet?

later - forgot to say that this is supported by a lot of tools for writing your own apps etc.

much later - just noticed that this is for ipad 3 onwards and similar vintage iphones etc., earlier ones won't work. If in doubt check the documentation.

Also, it looks like power and transmission speed are low - you're looking at status checks, not a continuous stream of data, and not from really long range. Still interesting though.

I'm retired now but do like to keep up with what's going on in science education - someone just posted this link to one of the technician forums, a collection of virtual experiments designed for classroom use on e.g. a whiteboard but easily usable on a home PC, tablet, etc.

http://www.reading.ac.uk/virtualexperiments/experiments.html

Level seems to be from secondary up to to A-Level, should be good for home schooling etc.

Someone at another school has found this and is trying to identify it - I've checked a 1927 biology catalogue and a 1952 chemistry catalogue with no success, but maybe someone here has an idea what it is. It's made of earthenware, and the wide part (at the bottom, but for all I know it's intended to be at the top) is 10.5cm wide. The top bit that looks like a handle is solid, not hollow, so it isn't a funnel.

My guess is something like a cover for a drain or some sort of jar, but does anyone know for sure?

pauldormer mentioned the use of lead in cosmetics in the last century. Not by any means the worst chemical used, others included mercury, antimony, and of course our old friend

Maybe Botox isn't so bad after all...