Change in name

Hello everyone,

We are going through some changes, one of them being change in name.  We will continue to blog under the new name 4scifun.blogspot.com   All the old ones are already imported into it and a new blog post today by Manu.  Hope to see you all there.

http://4scifun.blogspot.com/2014/07/restarting-blog-here.html

Electric slime?

We have been having a slimy week... we made normal slime, glow in the dark slime and slime with lego imprints on it.  Then thought we should try to shock the slime and so we did.

This slime is made out of Corn starch and vegetable oil.  Then created static by rubbing a balloon on the head and when you bring the balloon close to the flowing slime, it stops flowing and as soon as you remove the balloon, it starts flowing again....Magic indeed

Air bazooka + fog machine = cool cloud rings

Its fun to play with Airbazookas for sure....Blow air with speed that can move hair or even drop a small target from certain distance. Now imagine filling the Airbazooka with fog from a fog machine and you see cool cloud rings (smoke rings) coming out at quite a speed.

What's happening?  How do these smoke rings form?

A smoke ring forms when a puff of smoke is suddenly blown through a narrow opening.  It works best if the outer air is still (i.e. not windy).  In the still air, the outer part of the puff of smoke gets slowed down compared to the core of the puff which makes it look like a ring.  If the air around is quite still, these rings can travel quite a distance maintaining their shape.  

These rings will form even with just blowing puffs of air but the rings are not visible.  With smoke or fog (from the fog machine), these rings are visible quite well.

Are engineers super heroes?

Today is apparently Introduce a girl to engineering day.  I came across this USC Viterbi School of Engineering for girls but it can apply to anyone really...thought i will share here with all the kids..

Introduce A Girl To Engineering Day from USC Viterbi on Vimeo.

Fordite - rock or ?

Hello everyone!!!!

My name is Fordite . I am also called “Motor Agate”, "Detroit Agate" and possibly many more names.  I look like a rock but I am not a rock … atleast not in the normal definition anyway.  I have an interesting story behind my existence and would love to share that with you.

You see, I don’t have any minerals or metals - precious or otherwise in me.  I don’t have anything that a stone or rock is expected to have except for beautiful colors and patterns.  Who am I? Where do I come from?

Do you remember the cool cars from 1950s or 1960s or even before?  Those beautiful cars made by Ford?  If you don’t know what I am talking about, ask your parents.  I am sure they have a favorite from those years.  When they built cars in those days, they used to spray paint the cars by hand!  Every frame of every car

Spray painting is messy.  Some of the paint used to drip down on to the painting bays and tracks where the frames were painted on.  Over a period of time, more and more layers of paint kept dripping one top of another and getting hardened.  Some of them even got baked in the oven along with the car and got cured.

After a while, this hardened paint becomes an obstruction and had to be scraped out.  They figured out that the easiest way to get it out is by using a chisel.  And seems like some of the chiselers had very artistic views about this hardened coats of paint.  What the auto manufacturers considered being trash, these folks saw it as treasure.  Since it was cured so well, it was easy to cut and each piece looks like a psycadelic Agate.   And that Agate is ME!. 

One of the stories is that when other artists heard about my beautiful patterns, they started coming to the auto plant and offer to cut off the hardened rock and take.  Can you think of a better “RECYCLED ART”? 

It is thought that the paints in those days are mostly enamel so no need to worry about Lead but if someone is working with a rough slab of me, I would still recommend wearing a mask just to make sure.

I am a perfect example of how science of painting lead to beautiful art. 

Auto manufacturers don’t paint the cars in the same method anymore so no more Fordite or any other “ite” possible.  So, if you have one of us with you, enjoy the beautiful colors and patterns.

Story of a Mantis shrimp

What do rainbows, Northern Lights, and my fish, Streaky, have in common? 

Well, for starters, they are all awesome. But actually, I can see all of them because they reflect light into my eye. My eye and yours too, contains millions of light sensitive cells called rods and cones. Rods enable us to see light and motion and cones allow us to see color. Humans have three types of cones: red, green, and blue. The mixture of red, green, and blue allows us to see all of the beautiful colors in the world. Remember my goldfish? He has four cones: red, green, blue, and ultraviolet. The butterfly can see five colors: red, green, blue, and two others that we don’t even have names for. Imagine all of the possible color variations with 5 cones! But, the butterfly isn’t the king of the colors. 

A small animal, a bit bigger than your hand, holds that title. You can find this brightly colored sea creature hiding in rock tunnels or burrowing intricate passageways in the sea bed. Its name is the mantis shrimp.  The mantis shrimp can see not one, not two, but sixteen different colors! Imagine a color that you can’t even imagine. Now do that thirteen more times. That is the world the mantis shrimp lives in. Hold on, all this imagining has made me quite hungry; I’m going to get something to eat.

Ok. I’m back now. When I get hungry, I go to the refrigerator to get something to eat. If I’m feeling adventurous, I make a sandwich. The mantis shrimp doesn’t have that luxury. Like most animals, it has to hunt for its food. But the mantis shrimp doesn’t hunt like most animals. It has two raptor-like arms that are fitted with a club on the end, much like a boxer’s gloves. This shrimp definitely packs a punch. 

When a mantis shrimp strikes, it can hit its prey with 1,500Newtons of force. That is as powerful as the impact from a grand piano dropping from a second story building. The surrounding water bubbles up from the pressure difference. This is calledsupercavitation. These bubbles implode and send out a undersea shockwave that can kill prey even if the shrimp misses with the punch. The water heats up to a higher temperature than theinside of a blast furnace. The force from the imploding bubbles is so strong that it emits little flashes of light in an effect known as sonoluminescence. A punch from a mantis shrimp is powerful enough to break glass. 

If you were to move your hand that fast to punch something, all the bones inside would most definitely crack. But, the mantis shrimp’s arms are so resilient that scientists are studying them for applications in advanced body armor.

The mantis shrimp is an animal of contradictions. It can see the world much more vividly than we can, yet it embraces the darkness. The mantis shrimp is my favorite animal, but I would never dream of putting it in my aquarium.

--- Akhil Surapaneni

Introducing our guest blogger

Hope everyone had a great summer.  As the school is starting, we are getting back into the groove.  apart from writing experiments and sharing science news, we will start having some guest bloggers writing mainly for kids.  I would like to introduce our first guest blogger, Akhil Surapaneni.

I know Akhil since he was 4 yrs old.  He has always been a very advanced and avid reader (he is the youngest kid I know who read Harry Potter).  He is versatile and multi-talented.  He is very self driven and most hardworking student. He is a senior in high school this year and will be contributing articles to this blog.  I love his writing style.  It's like telling a story and perfect to capture kids attention.

Here's what he said when asked about his interests etc.:

 Interests: science, running, basketball, speech and debate. 

 Hobbies: pretty much my school activities. 

 Aspirations: I want to be a doctor. I want to do lab research in college. I want to run a marathon someday.

Welcome to the blog Akhil.  Proud to have you as a guest blogger.