centrifuge
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You might want a centrifuge to make this cocktail
After a long morning of sweating through the first glimpse of New York City's 90-degree summer, I found myself inside a West Village bar called Existing Conditions. Its shiny leather banquettes, expensive art and mood lighting proved that the area now belonged not to the writerly bohemians of old but the Instagram influencers of new. Fortunately, as a microinfluencer, I fit right in. But I hadn't arrived two and a half hours before the bar opened out of mere enthusiasm. After following a trend of bartenders (excuse me, mixologists) using centrifuges to craft cocktails, I wanted to taste one for myself. As well as -- let's be honest -- steal the recipe to make at home.
ICYMI: A medical breakthrough inspired by a kids toy
try{document.getElementById("aol-cms-player-1").style.display="none";}catch(e){}Today on In Case You Missed It: Stanford bioengineers created a centrifuge to separate blood and detect disease, all based on whirligigs from childhood. They estimate the blood cell device would cost only 20 cents a piece to make, and since it's human-powered, could be used all over off-the-grid locations to help diagnose diseases like tuberculosis. The National Science Foundation helped fund research into walking efficiency and the artist who imagined a sad robot dystopia is here. As always, please share any interesting tech or science videos you find by using the #ICYMI hashtag on Twitter for @mskerryd.
Paper centrifuge can help detect diseases in developing nations
A piece of paper, some twine and plastic could make testing for certain diseases more accessible even in the poorest areas of developing nations. Manu Prakash, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University, used those materials to create a simple centrifuge alternative that he calls the "paperfuge." Centrifuges are rapidly rotating machines in the lab that scientists use to separate the different components of a liquid by density. If you want to test for diseases like African sleeping sickness, malaria, tuberculosis or even HIV, that liquid is blood. Heavy red blood cells settle at the bottom, plasma floats to the top, while parasites and pathogens occupy the middle part. The machine is effective, but it's also expensive and needs electricity to work.
Inhabitat's Week in Green: salad spinners, diapers, and solutions to the Deepwater catastrophe
The Week in Green is a new item from our friends at Inhabitat, recapping the week's most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us. This week renewable energy received a giant jolt forward as Google unveiled plans to invest $40 million in North Dakota wind farms. Solar power is also having a moment in the sun as MIT unveiled the world's first solar cells printed on paper - we can't wait to see a post-it version that we can stick to our walls! Meanwhile a team of Swiss researchers are harnessing rays of light for an entirely different purpose -- they've figured out a way to create rain clouds by shooting laser beams into the sky. With the Deepwater Horizon oil spill still saturating the sea weeks after the leak sprung, we also looked at an array of innovative solutions for cleaning up the catastrophe. The first step to stemming the spill's damage is predicting its spread, which is why scientists are harnessing advanced virtual reality models to aid in cleanup efforts. We also took a look at the BP's first massive oil containment dome, which the company plans to lower 5,000 feet below the sea to plug up the leak. This week we also looked at several ingenious inventions that find incredible new uses for everyday items. Two students at Rice University have transformed a simple salad spinner into a centrifuge that can save lives by diagnosing diseases, and a Japanese company called Super Faith has invented a machine that can transform used adult diapers into an energy source. Finally, we were dazzled by two high-tech garments that harness LEDs to light up the night. Katy Perry recently took to the red carpet wearing a shimmering gown studded with thousands of blinking rainbow lights, and we were impressed by this LED-laden coat that keeps bicyclists safe when they hit the streets at night.
A lava lamp and a Nexus One tested under 3 Gs of force (video)
Neil Fraser, a true pioneer of science, wasn't satisfied with just wondering whether a lava lamp will work on Jupiter. He opted instead to build a freaking centrifuge in the middle of his living room, strap an innocent lava lamp and a Nexus One to one end with counterbalancing weights on the other, and spin that monster up to find out for himself. His instrument was able to generate 3 Gs of lateral force (despite the Nexus One's G-Force reporting 2.0 Gs due to a bug, now reported to Google), which is comfortably above the 2.5 G gravitational pull that one might experience on the solar system's biggest planet. So, did the goo keep its mojo under pressure? Did the Nexus One survive the ordeal intact? Click past the break to find out.
