Videos

Video of the week – Prince Rupert’s Drops

By / December 18, 2008

Again, we  present another beloved classroom demonstration in materials science. This one is a non-intuitive display of surface tension, residual stress, interior tension, potential energy and tempered glass. To create…

Read More

Chu, scientist and Nobel laureate, tapped for DOE head

By / December 11, 2008

There’s a ripple of excitement in the science and technical community. Imagine – an experienced scientist and successful administrator with a breadth of knowledge at the helm of the Department…

Read More

Bay Area Plans to become US’ Electric Car Capital

By Ed Herderick / December 10, 2008

(Hello to Ed Herderick, one of our new bloggers. Ed is working on his PhD in material sciences at The Ohio State University. His focus is on nanowire synthesis, characterization,…

Read More

Video of the week – Solid oxide fuel cells

By / December 10, 2008

The scientist featured in this video is M. Saiful Islam from the Department of Chemistry, University of Bath (U.K.), who provides a overview on the operations of a solid oxide…

Read More

Shucks, making man-made ‘nacre’ isn’t so hard

By / December 7, 2008

Two different approaches to the creation of materials that could be described as artificial nacre – nacre being that super strong substance produced in nature by some mollusks and something…

Read More

Video of the week – Oodles of Oobleck

By / December 3, 2008

Today we feature a classic experiment/weird experience in materials science, rheology, shear stress, strain rate, non-Newtonian fluid mechanics – and gooey fun: the Oobleck Run, AKA (with a great deal…

Read More

Video of the week – Nanotube speakers

By / November 19, 2008

We posted about this novel use of carbon nanotubes as audio speakers on Monday, but today we have a video of the real deal, courtesy of the American Chemical Society.…

Read More

Video of the week – aerogels

By / November 12, 2008

This week’s video is actually a three-in-one aerogel feature. Aerogel is wispy, translucent, highly insulating material often described as “solid smoke.” It’s worth noting that aerogel is not a new…

Read More

Video of the week – Physics 101: What our next president needs to know

By / November 5, 2008

Apropos of this week’s event in the U.S., this week’s video is based on what’s been called “the best class at Berkeley.” It is taught by Richard Muller, and the…

Read More

Video of the week: Cracking up over mugs

By / October 22, 2008

One tradition of The American Ceramic Society’s annual meetings and the coinciding MS&T conferences is the student mug drop competition. The purpose of the Ceramic Mug Drop contest is to…

Read More