An incredible demonstration of the power of water, as this high pressure cutter slices cleanly through metal like a hot knife through butter. The 5-axis Kimla Streamcut can slice smooth and precise parts from a wide variety of materials, from foams to ceramics and stone.
via The Awesomer
Waterjet Cutting
We Still Don’t Know What Causes That Knuckle Cracking Sound
Snap, crackle, pop: the sound of cracking knuckles is familiar to everyone, but scientists are having a hell of a time figuring out what causes it. A new ultrasound imaging study offers additional clues, but no definitive answers.
The GIF above was created from ultrasound footage collected in a first-of-its-kind knuckle cracking study led by radiology professor Robert Boutin of the University of California, Davis. Boutin’s team imaged the hands of 40 subjects as they pulled their knuckles a total of 400 times (62 of those pulls resulted in cracks). Turns out, the sound of a person cracking his or her knuckles is often accompanied by a bright flash at the knuckle base, a region doctors refer to as the metacarpophalangeal joint (try saying that one five times fast).
At a meeting of the Radiological Society of North America in Chicago this week, Boutin and his team argued that these metacarpal “fireworks” are related to the formation of gas bubbles—but whether and how those bubbles are connected to the crackles we hear is not yet clear.
Believe it or not, scientists have been trying to figure out what happens when joints crack since the 1940s. Two leading explanations for the pops we hear: one, that they’re caused by the formation of gas bubbles due to decreased pressure around the joints, and two, that cracking your knuckles actually causes tiny gas bubbles to burst. Over the years, scientific studies have accumulated evidence in support of both theories—bubble forming and bubble bursting—and to this day, the debate continues to rage.
The latest imaging results seem to lend evidence to the bubble forming theory. “We’re confident that the cracking sound and bright flash on ultrasound are related to the dynamic changes in pressure associated with a gas bubble [forming] in the joint,” Boutin said in a statement. However: based on the timing of the flash and cracking sound, it isn’t clear whether one causes the other. More work is needed to assess the relationship between bubble formation and audible knuckle pops, Boutin says.
In the meanwhile, next time you crack your knuckles, take an extra moment to appreciate the tiny fireworks you’ve just set off, and the fact that many brilliant minds are attempting to figure out what in the heck is causing that popping noise.
Follow the author @themadstone
via Gizmodo
We Still Don’t Know What Causes That Knuckle Cracking Sound
NRA’s Chris Cox Punches Back at Obama’s Anti-Gun Opportunism
You have to give it to USA Today. In their editorial stance, the McPaper may be just one more predictably anti-gun mainstream media rag, but at least they devote some column inches to prominent voices on the other side. … Read More
The post NRA’s Chris Cox Punches Back at Obama’s Anti-Gun Opportunism appeared first on The Truth About Guns.
via The Truth About Guns
NRA’s Chris Cox Punches Back at Obama’s Anti-Gun Opportunism
Flash of a knuckle crack caught on video
Mystery of popping noises lingers, but so far no evidence that it’s harmful.
via Ars Technica
Flash of a knuckle crack caught on video
Carrie Fisher Has The Best Response To The Slave Leia Merchandise Controversy
Recently, the Star Wars fanbase took time off from freaking out about The Force Awakens to freak out over a rumored ban on merchandise depicting Princess Leia’s “Slave” outfit from Return of the Jedi. Many words about the matter have been said since—a lot of them pretty good!—but leave it to Leia herself to put it best.
During the big marketing push for The Force Awakens, the debate over whether or not it’s right to sell toys of the scantily clad Leia has been put forth to the actor—and naturally, someone as wonderfully outspoken as Carrie Fisher does not hold back.
Here’s a tame, but still pretty damn fantastic, response she gave to the Wall Street Journal:
There’s been some debate recently about whether there should be no more merchandise with you in the “Return of the Jedi” bikini.
I think that’s stupid.
To stop making the merchandise?
The father who flipped out about it, “What am I going to tell my kid about why she’s in that outfit?” Tell them that a giant slug captured me and forced me to wear that stupid outfit, and then I killed him because I didn’t like it. And then I took it off. Backstage.
Yeah, empowered Hutt-slaying Leia! But Fisher had a far testier response when it came to a similar question over at the L.A. Times:
How about telling his daughter that the character is wearing that outfit not because she’s chosen to wear it. She’s been forced to wear it. She’s a prisoner of a giant testicle who has a lot of saliva going on and she does not want to wear that thing and it’s ultimately that chain, which you’re now indicating is some sort of accessory to S&M, that is used to kill the giant saliva testicle…. That’s asinine.
Thanks, Carrie Fisher. From now on I can no longer think of Jabba the Hutt’s name as anything other than “Giant Saliva Testicle”. Seems like after 30+ years of dealing with stuck-up, half-witted, scruffy-lookin’ Nerf herders, Carrie Fisher still doesn’t tolerate your nonsense, either way!
Maybe we could just like, I dunno, treat her like Han and Luke and have BAZILLIONS of different Leia toys, instead of just slave Leia ones? No? Too sensible? Just give me my Hoth Leia action figure, goddamit.
via Gizmodo
Carrie Fisher Has The Best Response To The Slave Leia Merchandise Controversy
Gorgeous video shows just how incredible the Apollo missions were
The Project Apollo Archive on Flickr is truly one of the great treasures available on the Internet. You can easily get lost in the stunning imagery and wonder about what exists beyond our world. It’s also an incredible resource for artists to turn those static pictures into gorgeous videos with 3D effects. My jaw is in total awe of this video, Apollo, which shows the magnificence of space travel. We have to go back.
Chris Coupland, the photographer who put this incredible video together, writes:
Between the years of 1969 and 1972 the human race accomplished arguably the single greatest technological achievement of all time, when humans first set foot on another celestial body.
This short film is a tribute to the NASA Apollo Program space missions which successfully landed 12 men on the Moon. It was created entirely from still images from the Project Apollo Archive, which has bought together scans of all the original unprocessed images taken by the crews of the Apollo 10 to 17 space missions.
SPLOID is delicious brain candy. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, andYouTube.
via Gizmodo
Gorgeous video shows just how incredible the Apollo missions were
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds’ Four-Point Plan to Protect Gun Rights
So here I am at Rough Creek Lodge, toking on a six-year barrel-aged Camacho, depending on a cup of coffee and an Italian space heater to keep the Texas chill away. Constitutional scholar Glenn Reynolds and his wife are … Read More
The post Instapundit Glenn Reynolds’ Four-Point Plan to Protect Gun Rights appeared first on The Truth About Guns.
via The Truth About Guns
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds’ Four-Point Plan to Protect Gun Rights
One of Your Favorite Multitools is Cheaper Than Ever
Leatherman’s widely-praised Skeletool Multitool doesn’t have nearly as many tools as some of its brethren, but the upshot is a smaller, lighter frame that you can carry anywhere (except, like, airports). Even if you don’t need one for yourself, this would be a great gift idea for $30. [Leatherman Skeletool, $30]
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Send deal submissions to Deals@Gawker and all other inquiries to Shane@Gawker.
via Lifehacker
One of Your Favorite Multitools is Cheaper Than Ever
These Are the Best Pluto Images New Horizons Captured
NASA has just received the first batch of the sharpest images of Pluto captured during the July flyby—and they’re incredible. Are you ready to go cross-country skiing and ice climbing three billion miles from home? Because Pluto’s terrain is a frozen wonderland.
The images below are part of a sequence captured by New Horizons’ Long Range Reconnaissance Imager about 15 minutes from its closest approach to Pluto on July 14th, from a distance of just 10,000 miles (17,000 kilometers) above the dwarf planet’s surface. Together, these images form a 50 mile-wide strip that begins northwest of Pluto’s “heart” region, traversing the icy al-Idrisi mountains, and finally taking us on a tour of Sputnik Planum’s patterned plains.
Instead of the usual “point and shoot mode,” LORRI snapped the pictures every three seconds while the Ralph/Multispectral Visual Imaging Camera scanned Pluto’s surface. At 250-280 feet (77-85 meters) per pixel, they’re six times higher resolution than the global Pluto map the New Horizons team put together earlier this year. As such, they offer planetary scientists an unprecedented glimpse into the geomorphology of a world far more complex than we could have imagined.
“These new images give us a breathtaking, super-high resolution window into Pluto’s geology,” said New Horizons Principal Investigator Alan Stern. “Nothing of this quality was available for Venus or Mars until decades after their first flybys; yet [for] Pluto we’re there already – down among the craters, mountains and ice fields – less than five months after flyby. The science we can do with these images is simply unbelievable.”
More of these super hi-res images are expected to trickle down from outer space over the next few days, so stay tuned. Me, I’ve already packed my space-grade snowshoes—just waiting for the next flight out.
The “shoreline” of Sputnik Planum, the informal name for Pluto’s icy, block-shaped plains. The boundary between Sputnik and the al-Idrisi mountains is incredibly dramatic in this image, underscoring the complex geologic forces that brought these features together.
Pluto’s icy plains are pockmarked with craters from ancient impacts. In this image, we see distinct geologic layers—similar to those found in rock outcroppings or drill cores on Earth—within the interior walls of several craters. These features are a huge asset to scientists hoping to piece together Pluto’s geologic past.
The “Badlands”: A complex mess of topography sculpted by erosion and faulting. The cliff tracking from the left to the upper right near the top of the image is part of a canyon system that runs hundreds of miles around Pluto’s northern hemisphere. The mountains in the center are built mainly from water ice, but the New Horizons science team suspects they’ve been shaped over time by other exotic ices, including nitrogen and methane.
[NASA]
Follow the author @themadstone
via Gizmodo
These Are the Best Pluto Images New Horizons Captured