Graphene Boosts Battery Performance

Have you ever wondered why are we not having batteries that could last much longer?

Charging the phone is easy—just plug it in and let it sit for a while—but when you have to do it often enough, it gets rather irritating.

Light's Journey From The Sun To The Earth

The sun is the main source of energy in our solar system. The light from the sun gives us warmth, light, rain, and enables photosynthesis, which enables life. It also powers our solar panels, gives us vitamin D, and bleaches your favorite blouse. 

And when the sun finally exhausts its fuel and dies—not so fast, probably in another several billion years—it will bring us all together with it.

飞机超越音速会发生什么事？

声音的速度是每秒 340 公尺，也就是大约每小时 1,236 公里。

如果一架飞机的时速超过每小时 1,236 公里，那就是所谓的超音速。

当然，音波的速度会因温度气压而改变，有时候 1,220 km/h， 有时候 1,240 km/h。

目前世界上能突破超音速的机械不多。大多数都是在空中飞行的，而且全部都是战斗机。
其实以前也有超音速的商业机— Concorde—而且是非常非常快的商业机，能以两倍的音速飞行 （Mach 2.04）。可是后来 Concorde 在飞行业低潮期的 2003 年时被撤掉了。所以大家再也没有机会体验超音速。

The Science of Interstellar Q&A

(Spoilers alert)

Firstly, a huge credit to Christopher Nolan for producing such a wonderful film.
I like the character of Mr Cooper and Professor Brand. Anne Hathaway's character—apart from her stunning look—doesn't really appeal to me; some of her lines are clearly misplaced, like the one when she starts murmuring about how love transcends gravity and shit-I-can't-even-recall-because-it's-so-cheesy-and-embarrassingly-bad-I-mean-wtf-you're-being-illogical-as-a-scientist.

Can You Really See The Great Wall Of China From Orbit?

Legend has it that the Great Wall of China is the only man-made structure that can be seen with the naked eyes from orbit. 

However, according to Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield, who had just returned from a five-month mission aboard the International Space Station, it is not possible to see the Great Wall of China from orbit.

So you're telling me that it is not possible to see a 8850km-long man-made structure from another man-made structure parked 330km above the surface of the Earth?

How Big Are The Craters In This Picture?

What is the size of the craters in this picture? And if we have a crater that size on Earth, how big would it be?

The moon has craters on its surface --lots of them-- and some are huge and some are small. These craters are the results of the collision between the moon and other smaller celestial bodies such as asteroids, comets or meteorites. Unlike the Earth which has a layer of atmosphere to burn incoming foreign objects, the moon has no atmosphere to help shielding it from even the smallest of meteorites.

The Disappearance of MH370 Has Brought Technology Down On Its Knees

For many people, the disappearance of MH370 is utterly incomprehensible, and you can hardly blame them for thinking that way. After all, we're living in an era of GPS and Google Maps, and basically everyone is being spied on by the NSA.
So how can a plane so huge vanish into thin air just like that?

Ever since the start of the industrial revolution, humans have been creating countless wonders: building bridges; cars; airplanes; trains; guns and firearms; and two centuries later we basically have had the entire world under our feet. We have looked beyond our planet, snapping photos of the Sun, Mercury, and celestial body as far as Jupiter and the 67 moons that surround it. We have transformed the Earth according to our needs, creating dams and canals, altering terrain and destroying nature at will while pushing other species towards extinction. We have also expanded our clout onto a neighboring planet via the Curiosity rover. Hence, with this constant influx of the glory of our technology it's easy to think that everything is within our control, and that everything can be achieved by our technology.

How Does Cloud Seeding Work?

Hot weather is horrible. Prolonged drought is even worse. 

Last month was the driest February in Malaysia for the past ten years. Water level at the Klang Gates Dam has dropped to a 10-year low, forcing the authority to begin rationing water supply.

如果暴龙还活着，它一天要吃多少人？

人类真的很幸运，活在没有恐龙的世界上。
因为大家都知道恐龙们老早在几千万年前就绝种了。
如果如今恐龙们还在的话，相信我们就会常常看到报章写人们到野外被恐龙吃掉，旅行社会准备恐龙观赏配套，而残暴的独裁者的宠物就不会是狮子老虎了。

Image: community.us.playstation.com

可是如果恐龙还活着，那么一天它要吃掉多少人呢？

How Do Tornadoes Form?

via Scientific American:

Tornadoes occur on every continent except Antarctica, but more form over the central US than anywhere else in a zone called Tornado Alley. That's because conditions in the alley are ideal for creating tornadoes.

Warm humid air low on the ground moves north from the Gulf of Mexico and collides with cool dry air high above the ground  rolling in from the Rocky mountains. The collision of air masses creates a supercell, a massive thunderstorm that has a strong rotating updrafted air.

The difference in speed between the faster high winds and the slower low winds causes the air in between to rotate around the horizontal axis. If one end of the rolling air gets caught in the updraft, it's being upwarded into the funnel cloud. Its spin gets tighter and faster and the cloud becomes longer. Rain or hail from the thunderstorm can then push down on the tail of the funnel cloud until it reaches the ground, forming a tornado.

The top wind speed of most tornadoes is usually under 110 miles an hour and most are on the ground for less than 10 minutes. However, extreme tornadoes are truly extreme. The longest tornado path was cut by the tri-state tornado on March 18th 1925. It tore up property for 219 miles and was on the ground for well over 3 hours and killed 747 people.

Malcolm

Research Is A Dangerous Business

When people talk about risk at work, they normally mean the risk of getting fired, losing a business deal, and probably encountering some minor accidents like electrocution while charging their electronics. 

Unlike these risks, the risks you encounter during research are far more unpredictable because you work with unpredictable subjects; the weather (climate scientists), wild animals (zoologists), chemicals (chemists), and sometimes, the product of your own research (physicists). Even in social sciences, the research is often far more dangerous than your average nine-to-five job.

Image: www.specialtyexecutives.com

One particular technique in psychology, called participant observation, involves taking part in the activities of those you want to study. For example, if you wish to study the drug cartel, you would need to actually get your hands dirty. Sociologist Mick Bloor, a professor at the Cardiff School of Social Sciences once ended up in a bar fight while studying male prostitution in Glasgow. Lorraine Dowler from the Pennsylvania State University was forced to flee when her interviewee became the target of a street-level assassination attempt. Social scientist Frank Burton woke up one morning to find a submachine gun pointed at him. The body of Ken Pryce was found washed up on a Caribbean beach after investigating criminology in Jamaica.

Of Superman Flying Posture

Have you ever wondered why Superman has to keep his hand in front of him when flying?

Wouldn't it be easier for him to just align his arms alongside his body and fly like Ironman?

How Fast Can Thor Fly?

Early February, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson tweeted that Thor's hammer weighs as much as a herd of 300 billion elephants.

That's one heavy hammer. In fact it would sink all the way to the core of the Earth if Thor accidentally dropped it.

What Time Is It In Antarctica?

The continent of Antarctica sits on every line of longitude. So what time zone should you follow if you're in Antarctica?

There are no permanent residents on the continent. But anywhere from 1000 to 5000 people, most of whom are scientists, reside in various research stations scattered across the continent throughout the year. So keeping watch of the time is very important.

Time zone is determined by the line of longitude. India for instance, is located several time-zones west of Malaysia, and hence the time in Malaysia is several hours ahead of India. The difference in time is determined by the difference in the longitude line, with each degree divided into 60 minutes.

Antarctica sits in all time zones, so adhering to the rule above means that... erm...

For practical purposes time zones are usually based on territorial claims, however many stations use the time of the country they are owned by or the time zone of their supply base (e.g. McMurdo Station and Amundsen–Scott South Pole Station use New Zealand time due to their main supply base being Christchurch, New Zealand).--wikipedia

Image: http://www.worldtimezone.com/time-antarctica24.php

Right. So the time in Antarctica now, according to this website, follows New Zealand time, which is 5 hours ahead of Malaysia time.

Malcolm

Tail Wind And Phosphorescence Strips

As a Sarawakian studying in Peninsular Malaysia, I've flown a lot over the past six years. But on the flight en route to Kota Kinabalu last week, I heard for the first time something I've previously only heard on films and documentaries--tailwind. 

We were about to land at the Kota Kinabalu airport at that time--in fact we were already so close to the ground I could see the bodies of individuals walking on the road--when the pilot suddenly pulled the aircraft upwards again. He then announced that we couldn't perform the landing because of the strong tailwind.

The Physics of Batman's Cape

Bruce Wayne needs to consult his engineers before he make his next leap. Otherwise he would soon become a messy afterthought for the street-cleaners of Gotham.

The Flame Challenge

Brevity is the soul of wit~Carl Zimmer.

The Flame Challenge is aimed at explaining what a flame is to a bunch of 11-year-olds.

 For some of you who think that it's easy, you're dead wrong. 
Just because you've seen flames all your life doesn't mean you can explain what it is to a fellow economist or accountant--it has to be simple enough for them to understand, and at the same time include all the complex scientific concepts.

This is a challenge faced by science writers everyday-how to use everyday language to convey insights that scientists describe to each other. Words like atoms, electrons, and nucleus are usually enough to repel the most avid of non experts. And most 11-year-olds nowadays have cell phones, X-Box, and Facebook to distract them. Hooking up their interest in science is getting harder by the day.
 
The winner of this competition is Ben Ames, a 31-year-old American doing graduate work in quantum optics. For those of you who wish to learn what a flame actually is, you can watch the youtube video here.


Malcolm

Sunset of Mars

Women love sunsets (so do mosquitoes), because sunsets are gorgeous. 

There are a menagerie of colors appearing in the sky during sunset--orange, red, maroon, yellow--that reminds women of their own temperament; hot, suffocating, just like the planet that bears their namesake. 

Image: skitzone.com

On Earth, we see orange, red and yellow merging together around the sun, and when we look away from the sun the sky is blue. But a Martian sunset is different. It's blue surrounding the sun, and the color fades into faint pink as your eyes trail away from the sun. It's blue where the red should be, and red where the blue should be.

What’s in the sausages we eat?

We love sausages, don’t we?
Billions of people chomping on billions of sausages every year resulting in billions of retail sales, so sausages are essentially a part of our life.
But what is it in those meat sticks that make it so irresistible?

How Would You Sound Like On Venus?

In conjunction with the Transit of Venus this week, I think I should write something about Venus.

Image: sites.wff.nasa.gov

Venus is the second planet from the Sun, and it's the hottest planet in our solar system. The surface temperature on Venus can reach 482 degree Celsius, high enough to melt lead and even zinc.