Certain non-Newtonian fluids which are elastic display a large resistance to extensional flow. Such behaviour leads to fluid flow arrangements which are simply not possible using ordinary Newtonian fluids. These so-called Fano flows manifest themselves in a variety of ways...The more impressive part of the video begins at the 1:09 mark.
In the so-called ''open channel'' syphon, after initially commencing the flow of an elastic fluid from say a beaker, the fluid will continue to flow up the side and over the lip of the beaker for sometime despite the level of its free surface having fallen considerably below the top of the beaker. In this way the slightest spill will cause the beaker to partly empty in what is commonly refereed to as a ''self-syphoning'' effect.
22 May 2011
"Fano flow" illustrated
"Bowl two games, get one free"
On other days, with a different person at the counter, when I bowl six games, I'm only charged for three (because for every two games I bowl, one of them should be free).
The coupon can be interpreted both ways, because what it says is "bowl two, get one free." If it said "pay for two, get one free" then it would pretty clearly be every third game free. Curiously, it's the owner of the establishment who takes the more liberal interpretation of half the games free.
An excellent, clean, well-run bowling center, btw...
Cownose rays
Now comes a report from National Geographic that some residents in the Chesapeake Bay area are asking the public to consider eating the rays, claiming that the rays are disturbing the ecosystem of the Bay and consuming the shellfish there. One comment at the NGM post -
What are these “shellfish” that the rays are “gobbling?” Are they, by any chance commercially important species of mollusks and crustaceans that have been in severe decline for years due to over-harvesting and habitat destruction by humans? Any chance that humans have also been “gobbling” these species? And what about the grass beds that the rays are “roiling?” Would these, by any chance, be the same grassbeds that have been in decline since humans first settled around Chesapeake Bay, as a result of pollution, poor watershed management, mechanical destruction by dredging (for some of those unnamed “shellfish”) and boat propellers, etc.? Why is it that “predators like coastal sharks have declined?...”- suggests that the "Eat a Ray, Save the Bay" movement will not be without controversy.
Jeremy Berlin Photo: Henry Horenstein, Getty Images.
The cost of a stolen mobile phone
From a story at The Telegraph:
A newly-wed couple recently found an unexpected wedding gift when they returned from their Caribbean honeymoon: an £8,200 phone bill from Vodafone. Like many people, they had assumed that if their mobile phone was used fraudulently they would not be liable for the bill. But this is not the case.More at the link.
Consumer protection is far more lax than that for lost or stolen bank cards. Here, banks are obliged to cover costs incurred as a result of fraud; the maximum that consumers pay is capped at £50, although in reality few people pay even this...
As this case shows, these costs can quickly snowball, not least because far more of us now have "smartphones" that allow us to surf the internet and download video, songs and emails. Downloading abroad incurs "data-roaming" charges that can be far higher than the cost of an ordinary call or text. While downloading one gigabyte on a smartphone in Britain can cost as little as £7.50 a month, the equivalent use abroad could cost several thousand pounds.
Figures from Which? show that using the internet on your mobile overseas can be as much as 1,000 times more costly than at home.
Mathematical card trick
I started learning card tricks to cheer up kids back when I was doing volunteer work in hospitals in the 1960s. Mathematical tricks are the best, because no sleight-of-hand is required. This is not my video; I'm just posting it for future reference.
Explanations of the math are in the Reddit thread.
21 May 2011
Arctic ice trend (30 years' data)
Via The Dish.
Continuing questions about Trig Palin
But today I read an extensive commentary from a neonatologist who opined that the photo above is not consistent with Trig having been born 12 hours earlier.
This baby looks to be about 1-2 months old and doesn’t look premature. Premature babies don’t have a lot of subcutaneous fat. This baby is chubby. He has epicanthal folds, flat nasal bridge and a recessed chin, which are suggestive of Down syndrome. Down syndrome babies can be chubby, but if they’re premature, it’s not so prominent...Enough. Those interested in such things can go to the link, via The Dish.
... the baby does not look plethoric (ruddy) and may look just slightly jaundiced. Most babies are born with extra red blood cells and look ruddy at birth. This is especially true of preemies because their skin is thinner. As that extra blood is broken down, it releases bilirubin, a pigment that turns the skin yellow. At 24 hours of age, most babies will still be ruddy. Visible jaundice usually develops between 24 and 72 hours of age.
Another clue to me is the absence of milia. Milia are tiny white bumps that are usually seen on the nose, cheeks and chin. They are caused by dead skin clogging up the pores and are a normal finding in newborns that can persist for a few weeks. Most newly born babies will have some of this...
One more thing that may be missing from this picture is lanugo. This is hair that we see mostly on the arms and back, but also often on the cheeks of premature babies. It disappears after about 35 weeks so it doesn’t precisely age this baby, but does suggest an age greater than 35 weeks...
These pictures of Trig appear to show a full term size baby who was probably born a month or so ago. I base these conclusions on skin color and the imperfect ICD measurements. None of these findings are absolute, as babies can vary in size and color, but if I had to bet money, I’d say that Trig wasn’t born yesterday, so to speak, in these pictures.
Cat's paw letter opener
While looking for more information on this, I encountered a strange anecdote: "The kitten would snuff out Dicken's candle in order to gain his attention." I'll bet that was interesting.
Via Wired and Neatorama.
"Bicycle repair station"
Details re the setup. Via Reddit.
I'm still here
To me the saddest part of this whole episode was a report I heard on NPR about two weeks ago. They interviewed a young couple who were so absolutely convince of what would happen this day that they disposed of all their belongings and calculated carefully so that they would run out of food - and money - on May 21. If I remember correctly, they had at least one small child.
I can't imagine the despair of those young people waking up this morning to find themselves totally destitute and possibly "left behind."
This on a lighter note a set of FAQ written by a professor to his students-
Q: If my mother/father/grandfather/grandmother/favorite aunt/etc. is chosen, will I be excused from the final so that I may mourn his/her loss?(More of the FAQ)
A: No. They have not died, but been granted eternal life, thus this does not count as a case of a death in the family.
20 May 2011
Happy Birthday, Cherilyn Sarkisian !
65 years old today, and eligible for Medicare and the AARP.
She apparently is the only person ever to have won a Grammy, and Emmy, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Cannes Film Festival Award. And is the only recording artist to have a number one song on Billboard charts in six different decades.
Relevant word for the day: Cher's father was an Armenian American, and her mother is of Melungeon, Cherokee, English, and French descent.
I'm old enough to remember watching the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour in the early 1970s. I've embedded the trailer for my favorite of Cher's movies (I also loved her performance in Mask.) Feel free to offer your opinions and memories in the comments.
She apparently is the only person ever to have won a Grammy, and Emmy, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, and a Cannes Film Festival Award. And is the only recording artist to have a number one song on Billboard charts in six different decades.
Relevant word for the day: Cher's father was an Armenian American, and her mother is of Melungeon, Cherokee, English, and French descent.
Melungeon is a term traditionally applied to one of a number of "tri-racial isolate" groups of the Southeastern United States... thought to be of mixed European, sub-Saharan African, and Native American ancestry... they do not exhibit characteristics that can be classified as of a single racial phenotype. Most modern-day descendants of Appalachian families traditionally regarded as Melungeon are generally European American in appearance, often, though not always, with dark hair and eyes, and a swarthy or olive complexion... the Irish surname Collins and English surname Gibson appear most frequently; genealogist Pat Elder calls them "core" surnames. Other researchers include Powell, LeBon ,Bowling, Bunch, Goins, Goodman, Heard, Minor, Mise, Mullins, and several others (although not all families with these surnames are Melungeon)...There's much more on this interesting subject at the Wikipedia link.
There are many hypotheses about the etymology of the term "Melungeon". One theory favored by linguists and many researchers on the topic, and found in several dictionaries, is that the name derives from the French mélange, or mixture. As there were French Huguenot immigrants in Virginia in the 18th century, their language could have contributed a term. Another theory traces the word to malungu (or malungo), a Luso-African word from Angola meaning "shipmate.", from the Kimbundu word ma'luno, meaning "companion"; "friend".
I'm old enough to remember watching the Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour in the early 1970s. I've embedded the trailer for my favorite of Cher's movies (I also loved her performance in Mask.) Feel free to offer your opinions and memories in the comments.
"Different from," "different than," and "different to"
Different from is by far the most widely used and accepted form, different to is common in British English, and different than is spoken regularly in different varieties of English, including US English and BrE. All have their uses...Much more at Sentence First.
The voluminous Merriam-Webster Dictionary of English Usage (MWDEU) offers a historical survey of both usage and commentary, and concludes that all three “have been in standard usage since the 16th and 17th centuries and all three continue to be in standard use”...
Browsing the internet for opinion on the matter, we meet a mass of peremptory protest, which I must now counter-protest. Different than is not grammatically incorrect, nor can it be dismissed as a common grammar error or an eyebrow-raising gaffe, let alone one of the 10 dumbest grammar mistakes. It is neither a nasty and glaring error nor a flagrant grammar mistake that makes you look stupid or dumb. You may call different than abominable, but this is a matter of taste. You may call it ignorant, but you would be wrong, and unaware of the unfortunate irony.
These judgements, whether rude or neutral, newly acquired or long indulged, are pet peeves. They have nothing to do with grammatical correctness. Any suggestion that different than/to is grammatically incorrect, end of story, would have dissolved in a few minutes’ research or by consulting a single reliable authority...
"Fracking" explained
Those not familiar with the problem might want to view or read about "Gasland." It's also illustrated vividly in this brief clip:
A Girl Scout Cookie controversy
This time it relates to the presence of palm oil and the risk palm oil poses to rain forests. Excerpts from the Wall Street Journal:
Girl Scouts have been selling cookies since 1917. Today, all 16 varieties contain palm oil. Last year, troops sold $714 million worth of cookies, most of which goes to the nonprofit councils under which troops are organized.More details at the link.
Cookie dough has come under heat before. Until 2006, the cookies contained partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, but the scouts switched to palm oil so the cookies would be free of trans fat.
Hoping to help orangutans, the Michigan teens want the Scouts to either remove palm oil entirely from cookies, or use sustainably grown palm oil.
But bakers say there isn't enough. "Only about 6% of today's global supply of palm oil is sustainably grown," says Kris Charles, a spokeswoman for Kellogg Co., whose Little Brownie Bakers division is one of two makers of Girl Scout cookies...
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