What Are Earthquake Hazards?

NTU and JTC develop enhanced fire protection for steel

Credit: shutterstock/Anusorn Abthaisong

Scientists from Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore, and national industrial developer JTC have unveiled what they are calling a 3-in-1 coating for better fire and corrosion protection.

‘In a fire, our coating forms a compact charred layer that acts as a protective barrier against the heat,’ explained Aravind Dasari, a Principal Investigator at the NTU–JTC Industrial Infrastructure Innovation Centre.

Called FiroShield, the coating functions like regular paint and is easy to apply, according to the research team. It can be applied on bare steel without the need for sand blasting, and provides protection against fire for two hours. 

Dasari explained, ‘While typical fire coatings will also form a charred layer, those are thick and foam-like, which can fall off easily and leave the steel exposed to the fire. What we aimed at was an innovative coat that works differently from conventional intumescent coatings and can stick to the steel surface for as long as possible under high temperatures, and yet has durability and weather resistance under normal conditions without a need for a top coat of paint.’

To find out more see the January issue of Materials World or visit  bit.ly/2nft8Z3

If I could catch a rainbow

If i could catch a rainbow,

I would just do it for you

And share with you it’s beauty,

On the days you are feeling Blue.

Rainbows are nature’s optical illusion.

It’s not possible unfortunately to catch a rainbow. They are not objects and are not located at specific distance from the observer that one can physically approach.

Rainbows stems from an optical illusion caused by any water droplets viewed from a certain angle relative to a light source.

They are user-specific and everyone sees a different rainbow.

The monochrome rainbow

Not all rainbows that occur in nature are multicolored. Under specific atmospheric conditions, one can spot the Mono-chrome rainbow i.e It has only one color.

                                   PC : rodjonesphotography

Moonbows

A Moonbow / Lunar rainbow /White rainbow  is a rainbow produced by light reflected off the surface of the moon (as opposed to direct sunlight) refracting off of moisture-laden clouds in the atmosphere / from waterfalls.

                                            PC: GanMed64

Each of your eyes sees a different rainbow.

Just as no two people see exactly the same rainbow, even if they’re standing next to each other, the few inches between your eyes make a difference in what you are viewing. 

There is no color- indigo ( sort of )

One can distinguish almost all colors in a rainbow but Indigo.

Legend has it that Newton included indigo because he felt that there should be seven rather than six colors in a rainbow due to his strong religious beliefs.

Origins of ‘Iris’

The Greeks and Romans thought a rainbow was the path made by Iris, the goddess of the rainbow, between heaven and earth, linking gods with humans. “Rainbow” in Latin is arcus iris or arcus pluvius, a “rainy arch”.

The iris of the eye is named after her, because of its colour. 

The Greeks used the word “iris” to describe any coloured circle, such as the “eye” of a peacock’s tail. The flower called iris gets its name from the Greek, as does the chemical iridium (Ir), compounds of which are highly coloured. Iris is also the root of “iridescent”.

Pulsating Rainbows

Place a linear polarizer over the camera whilst capturing a rainbow and you get pulsating rainbows.

                                                   Source

Double Rainbows/ Multiple Rainbows

A double rainbow is a phenomenon in which two rainbows appear. They are caused by a double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops. Similarly multiple rainbows are a possibility as well.

Observe that the colors in the second rainbow are inverted because the light is reflected twice inside the water droplet

                                             PC: Janbazian

Viral Double Rainbow Video

This video of a man witnessing a double rainbow for the first time went viral,  featuring on numerous popular talk shows. Pure ecstasy!

The full rainbow

Whilst standing on earth, we see rainbows as magical arcs across the sky, but rainbows are full circles. The bottom part of the full circle is usually blocked by the horizon.

Pilots however do not face this difficulty. Under the right sky conditions, pilots are spectators to one of nature’s most beautiful spectacles - The full rainbow.

                                          PC : Steve Kaufman

Everything has beauty, but not everyone sees it.

Have a great day!

Due to the Mandela Effect, we remember things that didn’t happen or exist. Get the answer and why in our NEW VID: https://youtu.be/hvu4D1jngCY

Behold the awesomeness that is the heart of a blue whale. This colossal organ weighs 440 pounds and was retrieved from the carcass of a whale that had washed up on the shore of Newfoundland in 2014. Despite decomposition the heart was still in such great condition that it was a perfect candidate for preservation via plastination, which is precisely what was done by mammalogy technicians at the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto.

Head over to Wired to learn how museum scientists went about preserving this titanic ticker.

[via Wired]

Bones are interesting because you can sometimes read the patterns of wear and growth like reading a book.

I got a couple of stray cat skulls, and this guy has a pretty interesting story to him.

INSTAGRAM / FACEBOOK / ETSY

Science Fact Friday: Bird lungs! Just like every other part of a bird, they’re weird.

This gif shows the path of a single breath, but the circuit holds 2 breaths at a time. So when the bird inhales, the just-inhaled breath goes through Inhalation 1 while the previous breath goes through Inhalation 2. Rinse, repeat. Thus, the lungs are constantly receiving oxygen - in mammals, our oxygen content dips slightly between inhalations because there’s no fresh air coming in. We also don’t empty 100% of our lung volume so some air is “stale” even during an inhalation.

Support Science Fact Friday on Patreon!

Transcript below the break.

Keep reading

5 things you didn’t know about... Concorde

Credit: British Airways

1. Operated by British Airways and Air France, Concorde went into operation in 1976, following 5,000 hours of flight testing. Seating 100 passengers, it catered to the privileged or business traveller. Concorde was withdrawn from service in 2003, after 27 years.

2. The most popular route for the British carrier was from London Heathrow to New York JFK in just three hours and 20 minutes. Cruising at Mach 2.02, passengers experienced heights of 60,000ft, a vantage point from which they could see the curvature of the Earth below and dark skies above at midday.

3. The four Olympus 593 engines that powered Concorde were twin spool turbojets.

4. The materials used for Concorde’s structure needed to withstand temperature extremes – subsonic speeds, the aircraft fuselage would experience lows of  -35°C, but at Mach 2 the temperature reached 127°C at the nose.

5. Concorde’s long, pointed nose cone played a key role in landing. Formed of resin-bonded glass fibre, as metals would interfere with the signals detecting storm clouds, the hydraulically powered nose cone could be moved independently to an angle of 12.5° on landing, allowing the pilot to see the approaching runway.

To find out more see page 60 of the June issue of Materials World or visit http://bit.ly/2qDPjJC. 

Coloring Book Celebrates Mathematical Beauty of Nature with Hand-Drawn Golden Ratio Illustrations

Researchers build first deployable, walking, soft robot

Researchers have built the first robot made of soft, deployable materials that is capable of moving itself without the use of motors or any additional mechanical components. The robot “walks” when an electric current is applied to shape-memory alloy wires embedded in its frame: the current heats the wires, causing the robot’s flexible segments to contract and bend. Sequentially controlling the current to various segments in different ways results in different walking gaits.

The researchers expect that the robot’s ability to be easily deployed, along with its low mass, low cost, load-bearing ability, compact size, and ability to be reconfigured into different forms may make it useful for applications such as space missions, seabed exploration, and household objects.

The scientists, Wei Wang et al., at Seoul National University and Sungkyunkwan University, have published a paper on the new robot and other types of deployable structures that can be built using the same method in a recent issue of Materials Horizons.

“The main advantage of this modular robot is robustness in various environments due to lack of mechanical systems such as motors and gears,” coauthor Sung-Hoon Ahn at Seoul National University told Phys.org. “Thus, problems facing motor-based robots, such as sealing and lubrication of mechanical systems in water or space environments, are not a problem for the smart actuator.”

Read more.

The great esGape

Unlike most elemental metals, gallium will melt in the palm of your hand, or at temperatures above about 30 °C. And that’s not the only unusual thing about this element: It also expands when it freezes. In this video series, warm liquid gallium is poured into a glass vial (top), followed by a little clean-up. As the gallium cools back down to room temperature, it starts to bubble up as its volume expands (third video down). Overall, it expands 3%, shattering the vial (bottom). Water is a substance commonly used to demonstrate this sort of expansion, growing about 8% in volume when frozen, but other elements exhibit this behavior as well, including silicon and plutonium. The final two clips have been accelerated 200 times and 10 times, respectively.

Credit: Periodictable.ru (watch the whole video here; GIFs created by rudescience)

More ChemPics and C&EN stories:

Liquid metals take shape

A melting liquid

Rolling out liquid-metal motors