Happy Winter Solstice!

On this, the shortest day of the year, what better way to celebrate the dark and cold by curling up with some good books? Well, to start you off we’ve got some cool science about books.

First, judging a book by its smell is not as crazy as it sounds, according to new research:

Scientists have developed a new test that can measure the condition of old books and precious historical documents on the basis of their aroma.

Perhaps you can’t judge a book by its cover, but there’s a wealth of information to be gleaned from its scent.

A new testing method can rapidly determine the condition of old books and documents by analyzing the bouquet of volatile organic compounds released by paper off-gassing. The technology promises to help conservators assess the condition of old works quickly, while not harming the documents.

“Paper emits more than 200 various compounds of which on the basis of our research we were able to pinpoint to 10 or 15 compounds that carry the most information about the composition of paper,” said Matija Strlie, lead researcher and senior lecturer at the Center for Sustainable Heritage at the University College London.

Strlie and his team surveyed the VOC emissions from 72 paper samples in different stages of decay. From those results, the researchers developed a series of scent markers for the structural stability of documents, books and other paper materials.

The familiar odors of old books, which Strlie’s study describes as “a combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla” varies depending on the chemical reactions and oxidation rates of paper ingredients, such as ash, cellulose, rosin and lignin.

The paper manufacturing era of each book can also reveals a lot about its condition.

“It’s really the technology revolution after 1850 that led to what we call ‘acid paper’ that degrades very rapidly,” Strlie told Discovery News. “Today, for books produced from 1890 to 1900, the pages are already very brittle.”

(Read the full article)

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For those who enjoy looking at the pictures more than the words, a collection of artwork from those old 1950s science textbooks (download the PDF):

The textbooks written by Roy A. Gallant taught a generation of students that science could also be art. But research progresses and artistic methods evolve. So Wired New gave these mid-century classics a 21st-century update.

Click for full feature

27:11:09 at 18:00
EVOLVAPHONE WORLD PREMIERE

Join the world premiere of the Evolvaphone – a new collaboration between composer George Higgs and evolutionary biologist Aoife McLysaght, voiced by Sinead Cusack. Supported by the Wellcome Trust and the Arts Council, Evolvaphone allows voices to be combined and to evolve according to Darwinian principles, and is being launched to coincide with the 150th anniversary of On the Origin of Species.

Limited tickets are available to Science Gallery members.

Http://www.sciencegallery.com/events

Another Reason, by Gyan Frakash

From the Science Blog The Primate Diaries:

As Jawaharlal Nehru wrote of his native land but as a stranger in the process of discovery, “India is a geographical and economic entity, a cultural unity amidst diversity, a bundle of contradictions held together by invisible threads.” These invisible threads were the spiritual beliefs of the people, the Vedas, the Bhagavad Gita and the Manu Smriti. The sacred Ganges was a symbol of India’s life blood, as much for the Indian people as for the British colonialists, that, as Rudyard Kipling described in his story “The Bridge Builders,” was a natural force that needed to be conquered if the British were to successfully impose their hegemony. In this way “Mother Gunga–in irons” became a metaphor for the use of Western science in conquered lands. Princeton historian Gyan Prakash, in his survey of science in colonial India, seeks to show that science was both a means of expanding British control over the region and was a conflict zone that the nationalist elite of India sought to reimagine as an indigenous concept in order to reclaim their land.

It used to be you weren’t an “author” until you’d had your name come out above a few paragraphs of text in some hard, durable format involving ink and parchment. With the Internet, that is changing entirely. SEED Magazine’s take on it:

Nearly everyone reads. Soon, nearly everyone will publish. Before 1455, books were handwritten, and it took a scribe a year to produce a Bible. Today, it takes only a minute to send a tweet or update a blog. Rates of authorship are increasing by historic orders of magnitude. Nearly universal authorship, like universal literacy before it, stands to reshape society by hastening the flow of information and making individuals more influential.

To quantify our changing reading and writing habits, we plotted the number of published authors per year, since 1400, for books and more recent social media (blogs, Facebook, and Twitter). This is the first published graph of the history of authorship. We found that the number of published authors per year increased nearly tenfold every century for six centuries. By 2000, there were 1 million book authors per year. One million authors is a lot, but they are only a tiny fraction, 0.01 percent, of the nearly 7 billion people on Earth. Since 1400, book authorship has grown nearly tenfold in each century. Currently, authorship, including books and new media, is growing nearly tenfold each year. That’s 100 times faster. Authors, once a select minority, will soon be a majority.

But does increasing authorship matter? And is this increase a blip or a signpost? Authorship has risen steeply before. The period of the first steep rise, near 1500, coincides with the discovery of the New World and Protestantism, which saw the publication of the first vernacular Bible, translated by Martin Luther. The second, near 1800, includes the Industrial Revolution and its backlash, Romanticism. The current rise is much steeper.

Read on…

What elusive gem of inspiration causes a scientist to choose his or her vocation? And more importantly, is there a way to draw inspiration from these stories, in order to motivate the next generation? That’s the mission of The Elements of Humanity, a new series of inspirational interviews published online by MAKE magazine.

These interviews of working scientists and technologists were recorded at SciFoo, an unstructured conference on Science and Technology organized this past summer by O’Reilly Media along with Nature Magazine and Google. In an ongoing effort to get more students interested in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), Dale Dougherty, founding editor and publisher of MAKE, sought to uncover each person’s own fascination with science and how that has shaped their life’s work. “It is important to see that scientists are human and they have lots of passion for what they do. They connect their own personal interests to work they enjoy doing and which benefits others,” says Dougherty. The interviews are informal and offer a view of scientists that is not often seen in traditional media. “I wanted to know what fascinated them most about science when they were young and how they were fascinated with the work they are doing today,” said Dougherty.

The site currently features interviews with over a dozen scientists, including Drexel University mathematician Andrew Hicks, who creates unusual custom mirrors using mathematics, Fiorenzo Omenetto, a Professor of Biomedical Engineering & Physics at Tufts who is experimenting with silk as a high-tech material, and Heather Lang, who earned a PhD in “the gray area between biochemistry and physics” and who runs an after-school program teaching chess to students. While topically each scientist’s specialty differs radically from the next, what they share is a passion for science. What spark of inspiration can be harnessed to encourage more kids to become scientists? Hopefully the project finds out.

Visit ElementsOfHumanity.com to learn more.

Stolen from Wired

Albany, NY – The unique intersection of the worlds of art and science – including the impact of ever-evolving technologies on the emerging definition of humanity – will take center stage during the first-ever Biotech Performance Festival presented jointly by the University at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering (“CNSE”) and UAlbany’s Department of Theatre.

The performances, to be held October 30 through November 7 at UAlbany’s Performing Arts Center, will transform the theatrical stage into a laboratory and the role of a playwright into that of a researcher, courtesy of a 90-minute evening of plays that explore how technology is redrawing what constitutes the living and the mechanical, the generated and the engineered, the synthetic and the natural.

The theatrical stage offers a unique opportunity to raise a community’s awareness and understanding of the issues that surround the cutting-edge research that defines the 21^st century technological revolution. Five plays to be offered at each performance provide an outlet for a theatrical response to a world in which our perceptions of nature and culture have been greatly affected by new technologies – and provide a platform to investigate the technological revolution in our classrooms and communities.

Featured playwrights at the festival include Pulitzer Prize-winning author William Kennedy, executive director of the New York State Writers Institute at UAlbany, and Jackie Roberts, assistant professor of theatre at UAlbany and curator of the Biotech Performance Festival.

University at Albany President George M. Philip said, “This cross-campus, interdisciplinary collaboration combines the groundbreaking education and research of the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering with the distinctive artistic expression of the Department of Theatre.  I applaud this exciting partnership and look forward to a performance that will be equal parts enlightening, educational and entertaining.”

CNSE Senior Vice President and Chief Executive Officer Dr. Alain E. Kaloyeros said, “The UAlbany NanoCollege is delighted to partner with the Department of Theatre to present the first-ever Biotech Performance Festival, which offers an exciting opportunity to explore the educational, cultural and societal impacts of the scientific revolution being driven by nanotechnology. As the 21^st century is increasingly shaped by the emergence of new and transformative technologies, this pioneering effort will promote further understanding of the growing connection between modern-day innovation and our humanity.”

Roberts said, “We are thrilled to present the Biotech Performance Festival in partnership with the College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering, which truly exemplifies the exciting world of modern-day scientific discovery and exploration. The collision of science with the performing arts gives us a chance to raise issues, promote dialogue and offer a bold perspective on our world as it is shaped by the emergence of new technologies. It should prove to be a unique and wonderful experience.”

Kennedy said, “The technology that is abroad in the land these days, and which is shaping a new reality for everybody, is indeed a wonder to many.  But it is also a grand mystification for just as many.  The Biotech Performance Festival opens up windows on how a few of these disparities might collide, how some people cope with them (or don’t) and what we might learn from the collision.”

In his play In the System, Kennedy tells the story of two small-time gamblers who embrace technology to make a killing at the racetrack. Roberts’ A Tale for Children is a modern-day mermaid story with a genetic twist. Other featured plays include It’s a Small, Small World by Alice Kauffman, in which a 15-year-old boy teaches his mother about nanotechnology; Stained Glass by Lindsay Price, which recounts the first human trial of a breakthrough cancer treatment; and the apocalyptic tale spawned by a mad scientist in The Second Coming by Rosanna Yamagiwa Alfaro.

Performances are scheduled for Friday and Saturday, October 30 and 31 at 8 pm; Sunday, November 1 at 2 pm; Wednesday-Friday, November 4-6 at 8 pm; and Saturday, November 7 at 2 pm. For more information, please visit http://www.albany.edu/theatre/biotechfestival.html.

An object printed from powdered glass, using the Solheim Lab’s new Vitraglyphic process

U. WASHINGTON-SEATTLE—

A team of engineers and artists has developed a way to create glass objects using a conventional 3-D printer. The technique allows a new type of material to be used in such devices.

Named the Vitraglyphic process, the method is a follow-up to the Solheim Rapid Manufacturing Laboratory’s success last spring printing with ceramics.

“It became clear that if we could get a material into powder form at about 20 microns we could print just about anything,” says Mark Ganter, a University of Washington professor of mechanical engineering and codirector of the Solheim Lab. (Twenty microns is less than one thousandth of an inch.)

Three-dimensional printers are used as a cheap, fast way to build prototype parts. In a typical powder-based 3-D printing system, a thin layer of powder is spread over a platform and software directs an inkjet printer to deposit droplets of binder solution only where needed. The binder reacts with the powder to bind the particles together and create a 3-D object.

Glass powder doesn’t readily absorb liquid, however, so the approach used with ceramic printing had to be radically altered.

“Using our normal process to print objects produced gelatin-like parts when we used glass powders,” says mechanical engineering graduate student Grant Marchelli, who led the experimentation. “We had to reformulate our approach for both powder and binder.”

By adjusting the ratio of powder to liquid the team found a way to build solid parts out of powdered glass. Their successful formulation held together and fused when heated to the required temperature.

Read full article

I occasionally report on events happening at the Science Gallery housed in Dublin. Here’s a cool event which spans two continents, in a way:

15 Oct 09 at 18:30
UPDATE FROM SILICON VALLEY, by Joel Slayton
Paccar Theatre, Science Gallery

Joel Slayton, Executive Director of ZER01 (the art and technology network responsible for the ultra-hip art, technology and digital culture event- 01SJ Biennial), will discuss upcoming plans for the 3rd 01SJ Biennial in 2010 and tell the tale of his work with C5 Corporation – a 10 year collaborative initiative focused on blurring the boundaries of art, research and business practice.  http://www.c5corp.com/.  

Students free (must show student ID) €5 for non-students (10% off original price for members) | Pre-book on http://www.sciencegallery.com/events

In association with TRIARC (Trinity Irish Art Research Centre) and Department of Electronic and Electrical Engineering, TCD.

Between the Fold

I just came across a pretty awesome documentary explaining the math behind the art of paper folding, more commonly called Origami.

The blurb for the film:” ‘Between the Folds‘ filmmaker Vanessa Gould explores the expression of mathematics through origami. The film chronicles 10 fine artists and eccentric scientists who have devoted their lives to the unlikely medium of modern origami”…

Director’s statement:

“When I first learned about the curious phenomenon of fine artists, scientists and mathematicians from all over the world working in the very same medium of origami, I knew there had to be something special about it—that in the simplicity of a paper square must be hiding some untold potential for new connections and ideas.”

Check out the official webpage of “Between the Folds” to see the trailer.

The DVD became available online this week.

*Edit*: Just as an interesting side note, a team at IBM is working to create faster computers using the principles of…origami!

There are so many dancing robot competitions these days, from LEGO to Soccerbots, it’s almost not even worth mentioning anymore…but I can’t help myself:

Robo-One Competition write-up from Gadget Lab:

This year’s event showed some interesting new robots such as a thought-controlled robot, a robot that can flip its head back so you can ride it, and a mini-Gundam robot.

Check out the videos at GadgetLab