Picture of the day

Magnetic Rock

The image shows the magnetic microstructure in a natural, finely exsolved intergrowth of magnetite blocks in an ulvospinel matrix, which is influenced both by the shapes of the individual magnetite blocks and by magnetostatic interactions between them. Different colours correspond to different directions of magnetic induction in the sample. (click to see full sized version)

Acknowledgments: Richard Harrison, Andrew Putnis, Rafal Dunin-Borkowski

Visit the University of Cambridge Department of Materials Science & Metallurgy Gallery.

I will post the others in this series over time. To see it all now, visit the Nanotechnology Now Gallery.

Quote of the day

"What if someone said, 'Here's a new technology that's going to change the world, but it will kill 50,000 people a year.' Would we allow it? But that's exactly what the car has done for us. It's too simplistic to say it's going to be a worse world or a better world. It's going to be a different world."

~Davis Baird, Dean of the South Carolina Honors College.

2057

Last night I watched 2057 – The World. 2057 is a Discovery Channel production, featuring Michio Kaku as "guide."

The theme for the 2057 programs is technologies that will most change the world in the next 50 years. Included among those technologies are those that we talk a lot about on this blog: nanoscale materials, solar energy, nanotubes for space applications, and others.

In The World, the primary theme is the development of super efficient solar cells (being done in a lab 250 miles above the Earth’s surface, tethered like a space elevator), and a growing conflict between the US and China over oil. Not wanting to spoil the plot for you, I’ll stop there, and say that this is a great production, with excellent CGI, descriptive narration, and real world examples of today’s technologies.

I highly recommend that you add this one to your list to watch.

In a future blog note I’ll review the other two programs in the series: The City, and The Body.

To learn more about this program, visit:
http://dsc.discovery.com/convergence/2057/about/about.html