Collaborate Disseminate
The hole in the Earth’s ozone layer may be on the mend, but that doesn’t mean its environmental impacts are over. A new review study has examined in detail the effects that the extra UV radiation is having on the environment, such as shifting… Continue reading How the hole in the ozone layer is affecting climate change
If we’re ever going to get on top of the whole plastic waste problem, a partial solution may lie in substances that fix themselves when broken, instead of having to be discarded. With that in mind, many groups have been developing self-healin… Continue reading Self-healing material has resin in its "veins"
It all started when I bought a late-1990s synthesizer that needed a firmware upgrade. One could simply pull the ROM chip, ship it off to Yamaha for a free replacement, and swap in the new one — in 2003. Lacking a time machine, a sensible option is to buy a pre-programmed aftermarket EPROM on eBay for $10, and if you just want a single pre-flashed EPROM that’s probably the right way to go. But I wanted an adventure.
Spoiler alert: I did manage to flash a few EPROMs and the RM1X is happily running OS 1.13 and pumping out the …read more
Continue reading Fail of the Week: EPROMs, Rats’ Nests, Tanning Lamps, and Cardboard on Fire
The Montreal Protocol of 1987 continues to be a success story about international environmental cooperation. Continue reading Ozone Recovery Continues, But Suspected Emissions From China Slows Progress
New Horizons is the first spacecraft in nearly three decades to observe what appears to be evidence of a hydrogen wall at the edge of the heliosphere. Continue reading We May Have Identified What Lies at the Outermost Edge of Our Solar System
If you ever needed evidence that gamers are some of the most dedicated individuals in all of fandom, then look no further than this fantastic 3D printed recreation of the “Pulse Pistol” as featured in the immensely popular “Overwatch”. Built by the guys at [Danger Doc], this replica doesn’t just look the part, it’s also a fully functional Airsoft gun. In the detailed build video after the break, the year-long design and construction of the gun is broken down for your viewing pleasure.
Because the end goal was to make something that looked as though it came from the …read more
Continue reading Incredible 3D Printed Overwatch Airsoft Pistol
Back in the old days, when we were still twiddling bits with magnetized needles, changing the data on an EPROM wasn’t as simple as shoving it in a programmer. These memory chips were erased with UV light shining through a quartz window onto a silicon die. At the time, there were neat little blacklights in a box sold to erase these chips. There’s little need for these chip erasers now, so how do you erase and program a chip these days? Build your own chip eraser using components that would have blown minds back in the 70s.
[Charles] got his …read more
Some of the hacks we feature are modifications of existing devices, others are ground-up builds of entirely new ones. And then there are the experiments, things that have to be worth trying because they just might work. In this final category we have [Matt]’s work with UV sensitive plastic to form the basis of a simple persistent display, which has created something best described as a proof-of-concept that shows promise, and definitely proves that he had an idea very much worth trying.
The idea makes use of a plastic that changes colour from white to purple when exposed to UV …read more
Continue reading UV Sensitive Filament As A Persistent Display
The image shown is the mineral Hackmanite, which fluoresces under ultraviolet lighting. However, not all UV is created equal, and that makes a difference if you’re into UV imaging. The image for this article is from [David Prutchi] and shows the striking results of using different wavelengths of UV. [David] goes into detail on how to make your own DIY Long, Medium, and Short-wave UV Illuminator complete with part numbers and wiring diagram. The device isn’t particularly complicated; the real work was determining the exact part numbers and models of lamp, filters, and ballasts required to get the correct results. …read more
Continue reading DIY Illuminator for UV Fluorescence Photography
We’ve all seen how to peel IR filters off digital cameras so they can see a little better in the dark, but there’s so much more to this next project than that. How about being able to see things normally completely outside the visual spectrum, like hydrogen combustion or electrical discharges?
[David Prutchi] has just shared his incredible work on making his own shortwave ultraviolet viewers for imaging entirely outside of the normal visible spectrum – in other words, seeing the truly invisible. The project has not only fascinating application examples, but provides detailed information about how to build two …read more
Continue reading Seeing the Truly Invisible with DIY Shortwave UV Imaging