Lifeboat Foundation

When placed in an acoustic field, small objects experience a net force that can be used to levitate the objects in air. In a new study, researchers have experimentally demonstrated the acoustic levitation of a 50-mm (2-inch) solid polystyrene sphere using ultrasound—acoustic waves that are above the frequency of human hearing.

The demonstration is one of the first times that an object larger than the wavelength of the acoustic wave has been acoustically levitated. Previously, this has been achieved only for a few specific cases, such as wire-like and planar objects. In the new study, the levitated sphere is 3.6 times larger than the 14-mm acoustic wavelength used here.

The researchers, Marco Andrade and Julio Adamowski at the University of São Paulo in Brazil, along with Anne Bernassau at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, UK, have published a paper on the acoustic levitation demonstration in a recent issue of Applied Physics Letters.

Marvin Minsky talks about his love of science fiction.

Temporary tattoos are getting the high tech treatment with a new product that transforms them into multifunctional on-skin user interfaces.

DuoSkin, created at the MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) Media Lab in partnership with Microsoft Research, allows people to control their mobile devices, display information, and store data all while looking stylish with a metallic like tattoo on their skin.

Os superátomos vêm virando a Tabela Periódica de cabeça para baixo há algum tempo — e prometendo muito mais.

Superátomos são aglomerados de átomos que conseguem imitar as propriedades de outros elementos — há até a ideia de criar uma Tabela Periódica de superátomos.

Have you ever seen the movie called “The Haunting” with Liam Neeson and Catherine Zeta-Jones? If you have; you will appreciate this article. A living building.

The US’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is attempting to build living, self-healing, programmable buildings.

DARPA’s Engineered Living Materials (ELM) program imagines that materials like bone, skin, bark and coral could form future building blocks as they provide advantages over non-living materials built with today, in that they can be grown where needed, self-repair when damaged and respond to changes in their surroundings.

Continue reading “Forget concrete and cement. DARPA thinks skin and bone make better building blocks” »

Researchers can turn ‘on’ or ‘off’ the mechanical anisotropy of black phosphorus.

Beyond the fights and the chases in Ramez Naam’s Nexus trilogy, it is an opportunity to consider how technology might move some humans beyond humanity, says astrophysicist Adam Frank.

How the origin of Earth’s greatest meteor shower might be the demise of life on Earth as we know it.

Lifeboat’s Jacque Fresco in a 2006 documentary about his work and The Venus Project