 |
|
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) filkertom | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Too freakin' cool. Scientists have demonstrated a way to harness the motion of swimming bacteria to turn tiny gears. This bacteria-driven mechanism could someday power micro-machines that combine living organisms and man-made materials.
To build their rudimentary device, the research team first fashioned silicon gears measuring a mere 0.01 inches (380 micrometers) across and 0.002 inches (50 micrometers) thick. With their slanted teeth, the gears look rather like tiny ninja stars.
The microgears were then placed into a nutrient broth swarming with the microbe Bacillus subtilis, the workhorses in this setup. When supplied with nutrients and oxygen the bacteria scoot about randomly. Nicked from AmericaBlog. If you could have cyborg parts, would you get 'em? And, if so, what would they be? Assume Six Million Dollar Man rules, i.e., they feel real and work without stressing the rest of your weak, puny human physiology. I'd likely go for new legs, hips, and lower back at this point, maybe with a few USB jacks in convenient locations. Tags: science
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
filkertom | |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The real reason I love Dickens: There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say... Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it! I say again, because I must never forget it or let you think I might have forgotten it: Thank you for being in my life. You keep me grounded. You get all the jokes. You give so much of yourselves. And you make everything worth it. I love you all. Merry Christmas.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Previous
dirty