What Is Liquid Penetrant Testing?

10 “Spinoffs of Tomorrow” You Can License for Your Business

The job of the our Technology Transfer Program is pretty straight-forward – bring NASA technology down to Earth. But, what does that actually mean? We’re glad you asked! We transfer the cool inventions NASA scientists develop for missions and license them to American businesses and entrepreneurs. And that is where the magic happens: those business-savvy licensees then create goods and products using our NASA tech. Once it hits the market, it becomes a “NASA Spinoff.”

If you’re imagining that sounds like a nightmare of paperwork and bureaucracy, think again. Our new automated “ATLAS” system helps you license your tech in no time — online and without any confusing forms or jargon.

So, sit back and browse this list of NASA tech ripe for the picking (well, licensing.) When you find something you like, follow the links below to apply for a license today! You can also browse the rest of our patent portfolio - full of hundreds of available technologies – by visiting technology.nasa.gov.

1. Soil Remediation with Plant-Fungal Combinations

Ahh, fungus. It’s fun to say and fun to eat—if you are a mushroom fan. But, did you know it can play a crucial role in helping trees grow in contaminated soil? Scientists at our Ames Research Center discovered that a special type of the fungus among us called “Ectomycorrhizal” (or EM for short) can help enhance the growth of trees in areas that have been damaged, such as those from oil spills.

2. Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Lower Drag

When it comes to aircraft, drag can be, well…a drag. Luckily, innovators at our Armstrong Flight Research Center are experimenting with a new wing design that removes adverse yaw (or unwanted twisting) and dramatically increases aircraft efficiency by reducing drag. Known as the “Preliminary Research Aerodynamic Design to Lower Drag (PRANDTL-D)” wing, this design addresses integrated bending moments and lift to achieve drag reduction.

3. Advancements in Nanomaterials

What do aircraft, batteries, and furniture have in common? They can ALL be improved with our nanomaterials.  Nanomaterials are very tiny materials that often have unique optical, electrical and mechanical properties. Innovators at NASA’s Glenn Research Center have developed a suite of materials and methods to optimize the performance of nanomaterials by making them tougher and easier to process. This useful stuff can also help electronics, fuel cells and textiles.

4. Green Precision Cleaning

Industrial cleaning is hard work. It can also be expensive when you have to bring in chemicals to get things squeaky. Enter “Green Precision Cleaning,” which uses the nitrogen bubbles in water instead. The bubbles act as a scrubbing agent to clean equipment. Goddard Space Flight Center scientists developed this system for cleaning tubing and piping that significantly reduces cost and carbon consumption. Deionized water (or water that has been treated to remove most of its mineral ions) takes the place of costlier isopropyl alcohol (IPA) and also leaves no waste, which cuts out the pricey process of disposal. The cleaning system quickly and precisely removes all foreign matter from tubing and piping.

5. Self-Contained Device to Isolate Biological Samples

When it comes to working in space, smaller is always better. Innovators at our Johnson Space Center have developed a self-contained device for isolating microscopic materials like DNA, RNA, proteins, and cells without using pipettes or centrifuges. Think of this technology like a small briefcase full of what you need to isolate genetic material from organisms and microorganisms for analysis away from the lab. The device is also leak-proof, so users are protected from chemical hazards—which is good news for astronauts and Earth-bound scientists alike.

6. Portable, Rapid, Quiet Drill

When it comes to “bringing the boom,” NASA does it better than anyone. But sometimes, we know it’s better to keep the decibels low. That’s why innovators at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory have developed a new handheld drilling device, suitable for a variety of operations, that is portable, rapid and quiet. Noise from drilling operations often becomes problematic because of the location or time of operations. Nighttime drilling can be particularly bothersome and the use of hearing protection in the high-noise areas may be difficult in some instances due to space restrictions or local hazards. This drill also weighs less than five pounds – talk about portable power.  

7. Damage Detection System for Flat Surfaces

The ability to detect damage to surfaces can be crucial, especially on a sealed environment that sustains human life or critical equipment. Enter Kennedy Space Center’s damage detection system for flat composite surfaces. The system is made up of layered composite material, with some of those layers containing the detection system imbedded right in. Besides one day potentially keeping humans safe on Mars, this tech can also be used on aircrafts, military shelters, inflatable structures and more.

8. Sucrose-Treated Carbon Nanotube and Graphene Yarns and Sheets

We all know what a spoonful of sugar is capable of. But, who knew it could help make some materials stronger? Innovators at NASA’s Langley Research Center did! They use dehydrated sucrose to create yarns and woven sheets of carbon nanotubes and graphene.

The resulting materials are lightweight and strong. Sucrose is inexpensive and readily available, making the process cost-effective. Makes you look at the sweet substance a little differently, doesn’t it?

9. Ultrasonic Stir Welding

NASA scientists needed to find a way to friction weld that would be gentler on their welding equipment. Meet our next tech, ultrasonic stir welding.

NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center engineers developed ultrasonic stir welding to join large pieces of very high-strength, high-melting-temperature metals such as titanium and Inconel. The addition of ultrasonic energy reduces damaging forces to the stir rod (or the piece of the unit that vibrates so fast, it joins the welding material together), extending its life. The technology also leaves behind a smoother, higher-quality weld.

10. A Field Deployable PiezoElectric Gravimeter (PEG)

It’s important to know that the fuel pumping into rockets has remained fully liquid or if a harmful chemical is leaking out of its container. But each of those things, and the many other places sensors are routinely used, tends to require a specially designed, one-use device.

That can result in time-consuming and costly cycles of design, test and build, since there is no real standardized sensor that can be adapted and used more widely.

To meet this need, the PiezoElectric Gravimeter (PEG) was developed to provide a sensing system and method that can serve as the foundation for a wide variety of sensing applications.

See anything your business could use? Did anything inspire you to start your own company? If so, head to our website at technology.nasa.gov to check them out.

When you’ve found what you need, click, “Apply Now!” Our licensing system, ATLAS, will guide you through the rest.

If the items on this round-up didn’t grab you, that’s ok, too. We have hundreds of other technologies available and ready to license on our website.

And if you want to learn more about the technologies already being used all around you, visit spinoff.nasa.gov.

Make sure to follow us on Tumblr for your regular dose of space: http://nasa.tumblr.com

Students fortify concrete by adding recycled plastic

Adding bits of irradiated plastic water bottles could cut cement industry’s carbon emissions

Discarded plastic bottles could one day be used to build stronger, more flexible concrete structures, from sidewalks and street barriers, to buildings and bridges, according to a new study.

MIT undergraduate students have found that, by exposing plastic flakes to small, harmless doses of gamma radiation, then pulverizing the flakes into a fine powder, they can mix the plastic with cement paste to produce concrete that is up to 20 percent stronger than conventional concrete.

Concrete is, after water, the second most widely used material on the planet. The manufacturing of concrete generates about 4.5 percent of the world’s human-induced carbon dioxide emissions. Replacing even a small portion of concrete with irradiated plastic could thus help reduce the cement industry’s global carbon footprint.

Reusing plastics as concrete additives could also redirect old water and soda bottles, the bulk of which would otherwise end up in a landfill.

Read more.

But that’s not all it can do. Microsoft and NASA teamed up to “bring” you, yes you, to Mars.

Follow @the-future-now

Plastics made fireproof thanks to mother-of-pearl mimic

A method for quickly coating objects in a thin, environmentally safe mother-of-pearl-like film could protect food or electronics from the elements

It’s a technicolour dreamcoat for your crisp packet – a strong, flame-retardant and airtight new material that mimics mother of pearl.

The natural version, also called nacre, is found on the inner shell of some molluscs, where it is built up of layers of the mineral aragonite separated by organic polymers such as chitin. It is remarkably strong, without being brittle or dense.

We would like to use nacre and similar materials as a protective coating in many situations. However, making them is a slow and delicate process that is difficult to recreate at any useful scale. Artificial nacre-like materials are usually painstakingly built up layer by layer, but Luyi Sun at the University of Connecticut in Storrs and his colleagues found a way to do it all in one go.

Continue Reading.

A portal to another universe ?

That my dear friends is a CT scan machine. Stripped off all the body parts, you can see clearly see what goes on inside.

A computerized tomography (CT) or computerized axial tomography (CAT) scan combines data from several X-rays to produce a detailed image of structures inside the body.

                                            CT scan of Brain

Pretty cool, don’t you think ?

Extras

Difference between MRI and CT scan

Why dont you spin the patient instead ? - Awesome reddit thread

Better quality gifs : here

Source Video: Micheal Jonnson

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]

The fifth conic section - Straight line

Although many textbooks regard the straight line to be a specific case of the hyperbola and proclaim only four conic sections, it is something worth noting that the straight line is also a conic section.

I have always been fascinated by Pokemon.

Tiding through the waves of time, now that I think about it : Pokemon did teach me a lot about physics, especially electricity. 

What is Electricity ?

Electricity stems from a potential difference between two areas, which allows for electromotive force to ensue in mobile electrons.

Bio-electricity

In biological cells, a voltage imbalance or a cell potential difference exists between the inside and outside of a a cell.

The cell achieves this by removing 3 sodium ions for every 2 potassium ions allows into the system. The removing process consumes energy ( ATP ).

                               The sodium ions leaving the cell 

                            The Potassium ions entering the cell

Source Video

Pikachu and Bioelectrogenesis

Where does pikachu gets it’s electrical powers ? 

Its by a process known as bioelectrogenesis.

Bioelectrogenesis is the generation of electricity by living organisms

How it works is rather blunt. Remember I told you that the cells are maintained in a potential difference.

There are passageways /electrolytes that are present that allows a flow of ions through them.

                                            Ion Passageways

When required, the brain of the pikachu sends a signal through the nervous system to these electrolytes, opening ions channels and reversing charge polarity, causing an abrupt difference in electric potential.

The final effect is the generation of electric current, capable of going up to 100,000 Volts during its thunderbolt move.

Result : Opponent stupefied.

Water is better conductor than air

Most of animals that bioelectrogenic in nature are aquatic creatures ( electric eels, rays, cattlefish, etc ) . This is because water is a much better electrical conductor than air, therefore electrical signals signals can be transmitted through water.

This betters the chance for the organism to protect itself against predators. Pikachu is not aquatic because probably the writes didn’t want it be so - Poetic License ;P

More:

Some other pokemons that were also bioelectrogenic  were: Eelektrik and the Eelektross

The voice of Pikachu - must watch

Electrogenic Humans

The one that ash has is a male pikachu. There is a female to the species as well. ( Look at the tail )

That’s pokemon physics for you folks.

Hope you enjoyed reading this post as much i did drafting it. Oh boy! There is physics just in about everything !

Curves of constant width

                                                    Source

The width of a circle is constant: its diameter.

But the circle is not the only shape that holds this pristine title. For instance let’s look at the Reuleaux triangle

Reuleaux triangle

A Reuleaux triangle is a shape formed from the intersection of three circular disks, each having its center on the boundary of the other two.

The Reuleaux triangle is the first of a sequence of Reuleaux polygons, curves of constant width formed from regular polygons with an odd number of sides.

Some of these curves have been used as the shapes of coins

To drill square holes.

They are not entirely square, their edges are fillets i.e the edges are rounded and not sharp.

This animation offers a good insight as to why that is so.

And in china, apparently on bicycles.

The man Guan Baihua shows his self-made multi-angle-wheel bicycle on May 6, 2009 in Qingdao of Shandong Province, China. Guan Baihua spent 18 months to complete this strange bicycle.

Other shapes of constant width

There are other shapes of constant width beside the Reuleaux triangle ( that has been discussed in this post ), a whole bunch of them really. Do take a look at them. ( links below )

I will leave you guys with my favorite one.

More:

If this post fascinated you, i strongly suggest you check these out. They go in-depth with the mathematics that underlies these curves and talk about other cool stuff:

An animation of non-circular rollers

Shapes and Solids of Constant Width - Numberphile  

Shapes of constant width

Reuleaux Polygons,           

Edit:

For those who are wondering if these are something that one would stumble upon on a regular basis. You may not find perfect ones but similiar ones definitely.

I found mine on a really old BMI calculator thingy. ( not sure what you would call it )

Have fun exploring !

10 Secret Trig Functions Your Math Teachers Never Taught You

On Monday, the Onion reported that the “Nation’s math teachers introduce 27 new trig functions”. It’s a funny read. The gamsin, negtan, and cosvnx from the Onion article are fictional, but the piece has a kernel of truth: there are 10 secret trig functions you’ve never heard of, and they have delightful names like ‘haversine’ and ‘exsecant’.