The 15 Coolest Cases of BiomimicrySome cool stuff here showing past and future efforts to solve problems using solutions already found in nature, including such things as artificial photosynthesis and self-healing plastics. Go look.

Clearly envious of all the discoveries going on at the LHC, the Evolutionary Acceleration Research Institute has announced they are turning their focus to biology.

No quote, just click on the link.

Researchers Catch Motion Of A Single Electron On Video


From the article:

To observe the motion of an electron – an elementary particle with a mass that is one billionth of a billionth of a billionth of a gram – has been considered to be impossible. So when two Brown University physicists showed movies of electrons moving through liquid helium at the 2006 International Symposium on Quantum Fluids and Solids in Kyoto, they raised some eyebrows.

Captured on a home video camera, some electrons follow a straight path through superfluid helium (far left). Those entrained in a superfluid vortex follow a snakelike path. (Credit: Humphrey Maris and Wei Guo)

The images, which were published online on April 28, 2007, in the Journal of Low Temperature Physics, show scattered points of light moving down the screen – some in straight lines, some following a snakelike path. The Matrix it’s not. Still, the fact that they can be seen at all is astounding. “We were astonished when we first saw an electron moving across the screen,” said Humphrey Maris, a professor of physics at Brown University. “Once we had the idea, setting it up was surprisingly easy.”

Maris and Wei Guo, a doctoral student, took advantage of the bubbles that form around electrons in supercold liquid helium. Using sound waves to expand the bubbles and a coordinated strobe light to illuminate them, Guo was able to catch their movements on a home video camera.

This could really enhance our knowledge as to electron "movement".