I created this as a place to discuss new scientific ideas, inventions, and other scientific/tech news. There are already places for artistic explorations. I have already talked about a few of my inventions/ideas elsewhere in the forum and would love to hear some of yours. I believe in dreaming big. Have an idea about how to make the first Star Trek replicator, let’s hear it. Have an idea how to make a non laserable material, laserable? Have a new conjecture about how some aspect of science works, this is the place. Got a subject that fascinates you? To prime the pump, I’ll list some subject areas I find fascinating.
Interstellar travel, warping spacetime
Making polymers as conductive as copper
Finding root causes of disease
Using NRAM to create hyper efficient solar cells
Direct conversion of gamma and x-rays into electricity
Reversing biological ageing, stem cell regeneration
New ways to make glowsticks
Creating new materials
A periodic table of properties of atom clusters
Artificial nose sensor technology
Mushroom cultivating and uses
Predictive software
Unexplained phenomenon
Archeological mysteries
Treasure hunting
Many more…
Who boy where to start.
Biomimetic robotics
Organic Robotics
Machine vision and learning
Haptic feedback (I have a thing I want to make that would take VR to the next level. Full immersion. You push, the game pushes back. Sadly I am not as competent in programming or well funded as I’d like to be to kick this project off)
Artificial Intelligence
High density energy storage
Harnessing micro energy
I like your glow stick mention!
Fully analog EDM(electronic dance music). I know that doesn’t really make sense:-)
I have studied every aspect of glowsticks extensively, including new dyes, new energy sources, stabilizers, performance enhancers, failure modes and reasons, etc.
I have mostly just thought about it:-). But have made a few prototypes of ones with with a small shake type generator in them, different road but I see they could merge. Too bad radioactivity is so bad:-(
I have been fascinated by the enormous runaway currents generated in the earliest Geiger counters. They had to deliberately add impurity gases to stop this cascade and keep the electrodes from melting so they could actually count the high energy photons. This relates to two other concepts I’m exploring, the gamma pumped free electron laser, and the handheld phaser.
As a mechanical engineer I can’t believe I’m saying this, but what about a biological solution?
If you breed a bioluminescent version of brine shrimp (or something similar), then have them in a glass vial suspended in a liquid similar to a normal glow stick. When you break the vial, they will wake-up when exposed to the liquid, they should glow…right?
Some advanced concepts I’ve explored includes one that flashes and some that change color over their lifetime. In the first experiments with flashing, the energy was consumed even during the dark part of the cycle. Now, only a small trickle is lost. The relative stability of dyes is responsible for a changing blue, white, red stick.
Reduced volume of hippocampus can lead to greater chance of PTSD (works the other way too - trauma reduces volume of hippocampus). (some studies show smaller hippocampus is a risk factor for ptsd in vets, “Smaller hippocampal volume predicts pathologic psychological trauma” Mark W. Gilbertson, et. al. Nat Neurosci. 2002 November ; 5(11): 1242–1247. doi:10.1038/nn958.)
Multiple Sclerosis patients, as a population, take corticosteroids at a higher rate than other folks, and usually, there’s an MRI before the steroids are taken (to verify a lesion), then the steroids, then a followup MRI.
So, there’s a boatload of data out there - MRI’s from MS patients before and after steroids - just waiting to be mined to answer these questions: Do MS patients have hippocampus volume decrease over time? If so, does this make them more likely than other populations to experience PTSD or other not-fun things resulting from smaller hippocampus?
not that I’ve given it any thought before now
but, maybe there’s someone on the forum who knows a grad student looking for a good project…
How bright would they be? I remember reading about a squid researcher that discovered that they found their prey by the glow they put off. He then built a detector and discovered most of the fish were emitting light that could be detected.
It is a thought experiment concerning how one could generate something like what Star Trek proposed. How could such a beam be produced? What could provide the obvious power needs? Space constraints, etc, etc. For example, a FEL (free electron laser) utilizes fast moving electrons in an alternating magnetic field to create a resonant beam. A high energy photon source provides a burst of photons, through an appropriate iris, to a laminate of metal sheets that emit a cascade of fast moving electrons.
