A Swell Way to Keep From Working

This past Tuesday, on my way to a microbiology conference, I spotted a man on the train wearing a t-shirt with the word “mentor” printed in large letters across the back. His pants had fallen down below his waist. The view was unpleasant, and I felt sad for his mentee.

Some takeaways from the conference: harmful bacteria can hang around on airplane tray tables, arm rests, and window shades for days; despite early evidence to the contrary, the microscopic bugs that can cause Legionnaire’s disease survive in windshield wiper fluid; we all need to open our windows more; there’s no difference in the fungal population of men’s vs. women’s public restrooms; never schedule phone interviews about quantum computing during microbiology meetings.

These past few weeks I’ve been interviewing experts on wearable medical technology, smart cars, snakes, and urban sensors, and mostly writing fiction. Here are a few recent articles:

An interview with Brett Doar, who builds Rube Goldberg machines for a living.

A story about a group of young engineers who built a more practical robotic arm.

This is an older one, about a Dalek builder, that I never got around to posting. My favorite anecdote, which did not fit in the final article: At meetings, Dalek builders sometimes sit inside their creations, drive around, and mingle with each other as alien robots. They even speak in Dalek screech.  

And a father and his giant Transformer costume.  

In between the writing and the talking, I helped my kids put together a pretty sick ninja turtle zip line in the backyard. Then we got to show it off to a friend of mine who was visiting Boston for the night on business. He was impressed, I think. My mental or intellectual relationship with this individual is kind of strange. When I lift my car keys to a subway turnstile or try to swipe a card to enter my house, I think of him. And when I write to him about one of these incidents, and the fact that he popped into my head after it happened, he agrees that he was the right person to tell.

He Appeared to be a Lunatic

A nest for hibernating bears. Courtesy Tim Laske

Often I dream about being able to breathe underwater. It always comes to me as a kind of revelation, as if it’s actually really simple, and our whole inability to breathe underwater as humans has been a matter of just not doing it right. The trick is to just sip the air out of the water through pursed lips. That’s all.

Anyway, this breathing vision is common, for me, along with the dreams about clean, surfing-worthy waves breaking on the street outside my house, or an office building, but a new one has popped up recently as well. In this new scenario, besides the breathing, I can also see very clearly underwater, as if I’m wearing goggles, and all I have to do is just open my eyelids very slightly at first, to form a kind of air bubble, and then gradually open them wider so that this bubble spreads, forming a kind of natural lens of air over my eyes.

The dream is so vivid that I’ve tried it a few times in the pool. And no, it does not work. But I’ll probably keep trying.

Last week, I was deep into a conversation about computer simulations with a very smart German scientist when he unexpectedly paused. “Greg!” he said after a moment.

“Yes?” I replied. I was worried he’d caught me zoning out.

“Don’t worry, Greg!  This is very difficult!  Even many of my colleagues have trouble understanding this research!”

I thanked him; apparently he sensed my confusion, and I was very grateful.  Scientists aren’t always that patient or understanding when explaining the intricacies of their work.  He does some fascinating research, too, so I’m glad he took the time to explain it, and I’ll point to the story in a future post, after it has been published. In the past few weeks I also spoke with a few toxicologists, a sports scientist in Norway, an odd pair of inventive gentleman who conspired to build a very unusual car, and a brilliantly offbeat artist who designs crazy Rube Goldberg machines. I can’t really discuss all the stories until they’re published, but here are a few other recent ones:

Tranquil Transformer

Teenager’s Submarine

Funky Alien River

Also, here’s an older one that I never linked to, and should have, since it does kind of pull together two of my passions, science and basketball. These scientists at Georgia Tech built a jumping robot and discovered that it’s more efficient for a robot to perform a short hop before a big jump. One of the engineers then noticed a video of the basketball star Kobe Bryant doing the same thing in a famous commercial. I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to reference the NBA in a science magazine before. So I was pretty excited.

This is even older, from earlier last year, but it was just so cool. The story is all about hibernation, but I was particularly excited about the bears. Apparently, they hibernate in giant nests. Yes, nests.

Imagine walking through the woods in the winter and stumbling across a massive pile of fur surrounded by a huge pile of brush and sticks? I’d probably start worrying that I’d stepped into an alternate universe and that some giant predatory bird was going to blame me for knocking its nest over and then come and pick me up and take me away. Of course, there’s always the chance that this bird would turn out to be friendly, and offer to give me rides to different places in exchanges for jokes or funny poems or beef jerky, in which case I would always try to keep one or a few of each on me at all times, so that if I was ever stuck, or just wanted to go somewhere nicer, or warmer, I could call my giant bird friends and get a ride.

Sorry...I thought I was writing about science. Now I’ve wandered into fiction again. So, while we’re here, or there, I’ve got a few great quotes from recent readings:

Everyday We Know a Little More

When I spotted this sculpture on a lawn down in Providence, I desperately wanted it to get up and walk. For this strange desire I blame Matt Denton. He's the ingenious fellow behind the Mantis, a massive, six-legged ride-able robot. I wrote about his work in Popular Science; the article is here.

While we're on journalism, here’s a quote from a scientist I interviewed recently: “There is no way human beings can comprehend the deepest secrets of the universe, but everyday we know a little more. We accumulate more knowledge so we can appreciate our life in the universe a little more.”

To a young reader named Devin: I'm sorry, but I lost your address. Thanks for the notes. That's so cool that you have a fort down the road from your house and that you discover something new every time you go there. As for the changes to Fish, I like your suggestion. Thimble definitely could have been Thread. But there's something about the name Thimble that works a little better for me, and connects more with the other, not-very-pirate-like side of him.

Some kind of illness knocked me out last week, and I took advantage of the time off to read both versions of Kerouac’s On the Road. I’m speaking of the original draft, which he wrote in three weeks on a single piece of paper taped together at numerous points, known as the scroll, and the finished, published version that came out several years later. Comparing the two, and reading them back to back, made me want to yell at his editor. The finished one feels and looks like a novel, but the original is a madman’s soul spilled out on the page. It is real. I did not feel like I was reading the work of a writer. I felt like I had a seat inside someone's brain. And I love that the narrator does not refer to himself as a writer in the original scroll. He’s just telling this insane story that he absolutely, desperately has to tell. The final, published version is more polished, and has many of the same lines and scenes, but it lacks that frantic energy.

A few lines great lines, which do turn up in both, I believe:

“I had nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.”

“It was like the arrival of Gargantua; preparations had to be made to widen the gutters of Denver and foreshorten certain laws to fit his suffering bulk and bursting ecstasies.”

That last one reminded me of the great Sappho fragment, via Salinger: "Raise high the roof beams, carpenters. Like Ares comes the bridegroom, taller far than a tall man."

This scene also stood out:

“When Pauline saw me with Neal and Louanne her face darkened...she sensed the madness they put in me. ‘I don’t like you when you’re with them.’ ‘Ah it’s allright, it’s just kicks. We only live once. We’re having a good time.’ ‘No, it’s sad and I don’t like it.’”

You’re mostly seeing this story unfold from the narrator’s perspective, and he’s generally thrilled and excited about all that’s happening. Now, though, he lets Pauline speak, and as a reader you’re left with a better sense of what it might have been like to be around them. There had to be a powerful undercurrent of sadness or desperation.

This is a common writer’s trick – the narrator suddenly noticing someone reacting differently to a scene or sequence. As the reader you’re exposed to the narrator’s perspective, and he or she is convincing you that everything is one way, and then they point out that someone’s crying, and you recall that you’re only seeing this story from one particular vantage point, and that it might be a wholly different story to the others on the scene. Look for it. Unexpected tears are everywhere in fiction.

And speaking of roads…I could not throw away an old plastic shower curtain last week. Just couldn’t bring myself to do it. Why? Because of The Road. The insane, post-apocalyptic Cormac McCarthy novel. I have the audio version and listen to it often and when I was trying to throw out the old curtain I kept thinking how the man and the boy really could have used that plastic sheet while they were wandering around, to use as a roof or cover from the rain. So it’s in my garage. Stuffed in a corner. In case there’s an apocalypse.

A Human Catapult and Super Mario Kart

Earlier today, at a great school here in Massachusetts, I spoke with a few hundred kids about reading, writing, science, and everything in between. At the start I was telling them how I love writing stories about smart, slightly weird people building weird, fantastic things. We discussed fast furniture and homemade Iron Man suits, but here are two other recent examples, both from Popular Science. 

In one case, a group of young engineers converted an actual go-kart park into a live, realistic rendition of the video game Super Mario Kart. The technology, based around the FIRST Robotics Competition Kit, is amazing, but my favorite part of the story is how they walked into the go-kart park in their white lab coats, introduced themselves to the manager, explained their goals, and asked if they could use one of his carts. Amazingly, the guy agreed. For more, read the story here:

http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2013-04/real-super-mario-go-karts

And here's another wonderfully odd one. An engineer named Jason Bell - who also built an automated tow rope for his kids so they don't have to trudge through the snow up their backyard hill while sledding - designed and constructed a human catapult to launch BASE jumpers off a bridge. I know. It sounds insane. But Bell was incredibly careful and paid a great deal of attention to safety. That story is here:

http://www.popsci.com/diy/article/2013-05/you-built-what-human-catapult

Spacecraft Everlasting

A short but interesting story in Discover magazine about whether the Voyager 1 spacecraft has reached the edge of the solar system, plus some news about the nearly ancient Pioneer probes. I couldn't fit this into the piece itself, but a few of the scientists noted that the real news here might be that these spacecraft are still working. They were launched in the 1970s and designed even earlier. That's pretty amazing engineering.

What did I forget? Ah, right, the story. Read it here.

The Mystery of Santa's Data Centers

In The Truth About Santa, my 2009 book on the scientific side of Christmas, I explained that one of the reasons St. Nick bases his operations up at the North Pole may relate to his reliance on a massive data center. To sum up: Santa uses flying robots to spy on kids; the volume of video data captured by these flying cameras is massive; only an enormous data storage and supercomputing facility would be capable of holding and processing all of that video and flagging naughty behavior. 

As I understood it at the time, the problem with giant computing facilities is that they tend to overheat, so companies need to crank up the air conditioning to keep them cool and running properly. This, in turn, implied that Santa chose the North Pole in part to reduce his energy costs. Instead of operating expensive air conditioners he could simply open the windows and let the cool Arctic air flow in.

I was wrong. While reporting one of my recent stories, an in-depth look at energy efficient data centers, I learned that the best companies don't rely on AC at all. Instead, they allow their data centers - like the Facebook facility pictured here - to run as hot as 80 degrees. Even with the hot temperatures, the computer hardware inside performs just fine.

Since Santa only uses the best technology, it is safe to assume that his facilities don't require air conditioning either. Which makes me wonder if his data centers are based at the North Pole at all. If he doesn't need to cool them so drastically, they could be anywhere. Perhaps they are secretly staggered around the world, even in our own urban backyards.

And over the next few weeks, of course, they will be humming....

Swimming on a Jovian Moon

A long in the works article of mine on Jupiter's moon Europa has just been published in Discover Magazine, and it's available online here. The main subject of the piece, planetary scientist Britney Schmidt, was one of the more fascinating people I've ever met. She listens to heavy metal, feels incomplete if she misses SportsCenter, and absolutely will not stop until she finds the answers to scientific questions that are bothering her. I couldn't find room for this in the piece, but she's also a synthesete. I think Feynman saw numbers, or at least equations, in different colors, and maybe Nabokov as well. Schmidt says her brain mixes sound and smell. She says that certain people's voices have a taste. So, to her, the voice of one scientist - she wouldn't name him, for obvious reasons - tastes like vanilla butter cream.

Faster Than a Speeding Chicken

Sadly I did not get to witness the video masterpiece below in person, but learning about this test was certainly fun. As part of an article in this month's Popular Science, I researched some of the leading destructive-testing labs in the country. The engineers at these places basically devise really wild ways to break stuff in order to test the limits of materials, structures, vehicles, etc. 

Element Inc., the guys who put together the video below, was easily one of my favorites, and their bird strike cannon is the work of true mad geniuses. They stuff frozen chickens into a massive air cannon and then fire them at windshields at several hundred miles an hour. Seriously. More details here. 

 

Robotic Ping Pong, a Kid Genius, and a Flying Dragon

A few of my recent articles in Popular Science:

1. Designers out in California build a robotic ping pong table...

2. A teen genius designs and constructs his own portable X-ray machine. This kid isn't just a brilliant geek. He's a great writer. We started communicating via email, and after a few exchanges I wondered if the notes were coming from an adult masquerading as a high school kid. Here's a snippet from his take-down of the education system:


"I was always told that colleges look for people who think outside of the box rather than the ones whose main accomplishment is solely ‘getting good grades’. To me this has always made logical sense; high scores on tests never seemed to be good measure of true smarts, but only the ability to remember certain facts for a short quantity of time. Some of my friends would always get straight As, but the minute you asked them how electricity or combustion engines worked they were dumbfounded.

"Rather than studying I focused my efforts on learning things that I could actually use, or things that I found interesting. Instead of  writing that English paper I researched gravitational time dilation and a black hole’s Schwarzschild radius, then cranked out a rather poor paper at 12 am. Over the following weeks I spent time learning all I could about string theory and quantum mechanics while others played video games. This continued throughout most of middle school."


Eventually we connected a few times on the phone, and I spoke with one of his teachers as well, to verify it all. He's really an incredible story. My little piece hardly does him justice. But check it out anyway...

3. An RC enthusiast crafts his own flying, fire-breathing dragon after watching How to Train Your Dragon with his grandkids.

There are more stories out there somewhere in print and Web land - alien life forms and laser guns and data centers - but that's it for now.

Wisdom from a DIY Master

A few months back I had the privilege of interviewing Lance Greathouse, a dental laser repair technician who builds some seriously inventive machines in his spare time. Frightening robots, souped-up wheelchairs, and more. I wrote about his latest creation, a drive-able, fire-spewing tailgating rig, in this piece for Popular Science, but I was also struck by what we'll call his philosophy, or at least the parts of it we discussed. None of this made it into the story, which covered what he did and why he did it, so I figured I'd share some here.

On the creative impulse:

"I get an idea in my head and I've got to build it or I go nuts. It's a sickness. Once I see something I've got to build it or I just go crazy."

The benefits of building:

"When I'm working on something my mind is clear. That's how I relax. People think I'm nuts because I'm out here hammering on something until one in the morning, but that's how I relax. Some people fish, some people watch TV, some people build."

On putting down the phone:

When people ask him how he creates so many cool machines in his spare time, Greathouse asks them to hand him their phone. Then he turns it off and puts it away. "How can you focus on anything when you're always looking at your phone all the time?" he asks.

And on raising kids:

"If I could go back and do it over I would totally eliminate the video games. I hate that stuff with a passion. The kids waste so much time on that and they have absolutely nothing to show for that time. I'd rather my kids go out and collect rocks or sticks."

You Built What?!

Popular Science has a great recurring series called You Built What?! - I've been contributing for years, meeting some incredibly ingenious, creative people. Mostly over the phone, unfortunately.

A few recent highlights include the world's fastest dining room table, a hot rod powered by saws, and a radio flyer wagon that seats two, and is highway-legal. Check them out here.

Beneath the Oil Slick

Since the oil spill began three weeks ago, most eyes and cameras have been focused on the widening, orange slick. But now, as experts argue that the flow rate could far exceed the government's estimate of 210,000 gallons a day, a team of independent scientists studying the water in and around the disaster zone have found another problem: stores of leaked oil lingering beneath the surface in long, stringy filaments and snowflake-like collections.

"It doesn't float right up on top as you would think," Raymond Highsmith of NIUST tells AOL News. "Some of it floats right under the surface, and some of it now looks like it's quite a ways down."

This is the start of a piece I just wrote for AOL News. What these scientists are doing is amazing, and important. Read the rest here.