Deep in the Amazon (.com that is)

I would just like to share a review of The Total Pillow that I found on Amazon.com. Based on this review, I can only suspect that unemployed Creative Writing majors spend their free time trying to write witty feedback to relive their glory days. I must say that I found it to be pretty funny. Thank you TriSaratoppps for making the Amazon just a little bit funnier.

"I walked in the store with my head held high, proud that I'd be buying a magnificent product such as one that I'd seen on the television. I was probably wearing a wolf shirt, because nothing is more majestic than a wolf, and I wanted to be worthy to carry this donut filled with tiny balls of Styrofoam.

As I drew near the packaging called out to me, "I can be twisted in any so many ways!" "Come to me!" "Come on, sucker!" I thought it was weird that a blue pillow was talking to me, but I figured that it was just because of the awesomeness.

I picked up the pillow and held it up in the air, shaking it gloriously. People around me stared in fright, I stared at them in contempt. They weren't touching this glorious bagel.
I looked at the pillow one more time, it looked at me like one of those cookies that were made by those old cookie press machines. After more than twenty minutes of uninterrupted eye contact, I walked to the check out, nonchalant. I wasn't there to make a scene at the Bed, Bath & Beyond.

I walked out and took my prize out of the package and slid it behind my neck, folded in half, the way of the kings and travelers. We had five minutes pure summer love, then something happened. My precious, magnificent friend turned away from me. My stuffed onion ring started ripping, its immortal beads spilling around my shoulders. "Too soon!" I cried as I pulled the traitor from behind my neck. I was rattled to the bone as I through the pillow out the door.

This isn't the way it was supposed to end. But it did."

Rayleigh Air Bearing

Air moving at high speeds can cause some neat effects. Jet engines, for example, basically just throw a lot of air really fast in one direction, which causes the plane to move in the opposite direction, because of Newton's second law of motion. Air can also be used as a cushion, like in a hovercraft. Air bearings put that air cushion to work to reduce the friction between two spinning shafts by inducing a levitation effect. The video below shows a demonstration of an old air bearing. Yay!

Wire Clothes Hanger Machine

So, clothes hangers are pretty boring, right? To most people yes, they are extremely boring. They haven't really changed much since they were invented and they are commonplace more useful for unclogging drains than for their intended purpose. I, however, have what some might call a fascination with them. There are well over 150 patents for clothes hangers (mostly of the collapsible type), but the vast majority of them have failed. And that is the mark of a good design, something that stands the test of time. To quote one of the most not-so-poetic bands of the 80's, "only time will tell if we stand the test of time". Oh, Van Halen, you should have just stuck with David Lee Roth, he may have been an alcoholic but at least he could write. But I digress, here's TWO machines that make wire coat hangers. Enjoy!

Gears Are Really Awesome and Complicated

You bet they are. Gears that are practical have to withstand pretty large forces, like the gears in a car transmission. Gears in power generation stations have to withstand even larger forces. In these applications simplicity is key, but what about applications that can benefit from some complicated gear shapes? Well, there aren't any (at least not yet), but there is always art. Check out the videos below of a cube gear and a heart gear.

Omnidirectional Printing of Vascular Networks

One of the biggest challenges of growing organs in a laboratory is keeping them alive. They need nutrients, and the way organs get nutrients in nature is through veins. Professor Jennifer Lewis' group at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign has developed a method of omnidirectional printing that allows microvascular networks to be brought to life. A needle deposits a polymer in a gel and the polymer is suspended in the gel. Then the gel can be hardened, and then the polymer can be heated to to its melting point (which is lower than that of the gel) and it can be vacuumed out. What remains is a 3D network of microchannels that mimic veins. This is the most advanced 3D microchannel fabrication that I've seen, but it requires many specialized materials and printers. Hopefully this process can be scaled up or a simpler process comes along.

Hot Stuff

Lava is molten rock that is expelled from volcanoes and as it flows it solidifies. It's temperature varies from 700 °C to 1,200 °C (1,300 °F to 2,200 °F). Lava flows occur in non-explosive effusive eruptions, whereas explosive eruptions tend to cause volcanic ash. That's all well and good, but there is so much more to lava than it's hotness, it's what's on the inside that counts. Lava is generally broken up into four different types based on its chemical  composition. Felsic lava has a high silica and aluminum content with small amounts of iron and magnesium. Intermediate lava has a higher iron and magnesium content. Mafic lava has an even higher iron and magnesium content, and ultramafic has the highest magnesium content, but the earth has cooled down too much to even produce this kind of lava anymore. Crazy. And now a sweet video.

Friction Welding

Friction can be your best friend or your worst enemy. If you're trying to make a efficient engine, plane, boat, car, or basically anything with moving parts, friction is not your friend. However, if you want that car to move, friction on the tires is what allows that to happen. Also, if you don't like to slip and fall, then friction is your friend. But if you do fall, friction is what gives you a cut. But if there weren't any friction you'd still get a bruise. Blah blah blah.

In the case of friction welding, friction is what gets the job done. It heats up two cylinders that are in contact and spinning very fast relative to each other. Pressure makes sure they stay in contact to form a good weld. It's most often used to weld pipes, but like it the video, it can also weld solid cylinders. I think it could do rods of a non-circular cross section, but the corners would probably get pretty funky.