Looking every bit like the mythical Silver Power Ranger, the guy in this video is bestowed with similarly impressive powers - the ability to shoot lightning from his hands!
So what's really happening here? The lightning is actually being generated by the huge Tesla coil in the background, and flowing through the figure into a ground point near the camera. The chain mail suit protects the guy as the electricity flows around him rather than through him.
The video was shot in Austin, Texas, as part of a documentary for German television. Producer Johannes Wiebus says:
A guy in a chain mail Faraday suite is getting hit with 500.000 volts, generated by a home made Tesla Coil. Lightning sparks are shooting out of his hands, right over our camera's lens. We had mounted the camera in its own Faraday cage to protect it.
The video was made with Arc Attack, a Texan band that uses singing Tesla coils.
Some time back I wrote to my MP, Lib Dem Richard Younger-Ross, to ask why he hadn't signed up to Early Day Motion 423 for libel law reform. I'm please to say I've received a reply in a bundle of forwarded mail. The news in a nutshell: Richard Younger-Ross wholeheartedly supports the campaign for libel reform!
"As a nation we have found ourselves in the position where doctors who criticise heart implants and journalists who expose corporate cynicism are being sued in our courts for libel, rather than being congratulated for trying to save lives. This has to change. While individuals need a right to redress if their reputation is damaged, our laws need to give more protection to the right to free expression.
English libel laws barely recognise the invention of the printing press, let alone the internet, and our outdated laws have become a scourge not only here, but abroad too. We see it as an embarrassment that foreigners can be sued in our courts on the flimsiest of pretexts, and that this has led the United Nations Human Rights Committee to take the view that our laws discourage "critical media reporting on matters of serious public intewrest, adversely affecting the ability of scholars and journalists to publish their work", and that 'libel tourism' could "affect freedom of expression world-wide on matters of valid public interest
[...] I am pleased to inform you I have signed EDM 423, and that the Liberal Democrats will continue to support calls for a Libel Law Reform in Parliament, and will urge the other parties to follow our lead"
Thanks to Greg Foot for leading me to this delightful gallery of couture space fashion circa 1959 - present. I'd love to know more about the team behind each of these - did they employ seamstresses and tailors as well as materials scientists and flight suit technicians?
One of NASA's seven original astronauts, Gordon Cooper modelling the Mercury flight suit developed by B. F. Goodrich in 1959. I love how Cooper looks every inch the dashing hero - the pose, the athletic figure, the rich Kodachrome(?) colours. He lived out that image too - after a power failure onboard one spaceflight disabled the navigation instruments, Cooper used his knowledge of star patterns and chalk markings he made onto the capsule window to correctly gauge the timing and angle for his re-entry.
Famed lunar golfer Alan Shepard wearing the suit designed for the 1971 Apollo 14 mission, which he commanded. Contrasting the bravado seen in Cooper's picture, Shepard looks smaller and fragile. Instead of a man wearing a suit, we see an elaborate piece of equipment built to protect a precious cargo. An element of the biomechanical also creeps in, with numerous ports and tubes ferrying life-saving fluids to the demanding creature inside - hence the term "umbilical cables".
Finally, here are NASA's prototype suits, seen during a testing session in Moses Lake, Washington. The astronaut is no longer recognisable as human - the faceless hunched figures with cameras hanging from their necks look like strange alien tourists. Hidden inside, wrapped in a small piece of Earth's atmosphere taken with them, the spacemen are no longer visible as such at all. It's almost as if to get to alien worlds we need to give up a little bit of our humanity in the process. Let's hope we don't trade off too much.
Today I got a tip off from science comms lecturer Alice Bell about a growing revolt amongst biology students in response to what they believe is an unfair exam paper.
BBC News reports on a Facebook 'campaign' launched against yesterday's A level biology exam. Students are apparently unhappy about the question posed by the AQA paper, citing that few had any relevance to the material they'd studied. Something to do with shrews, apparently.
These complaints have predictably found little support amongst those of us who've been there and soldiered though years of science education. Specialisation is a luxury that is afforded you incrementally in science - you start by learning a huge range of ideas and gradually delve deeper into particular areas. One student was aggreived that the exam "gave questions which were not akin to the specimen papers provided". Well, heck, if you only bothered to learn what you thought would be in the exam, I'd say that you've probably missed the point of an education. Or perhaps like director of the JCQ, Dr Sinclair, you believe that science exams should be easy because everyone "deserves a positive experience of science".
Now, we could argue all day about the different aspects of the examination system, what it was supposed to measure, the purpose of education and future generations of scientists, but that would be BORING. Instead, I'd like to embrace the self-righteous outrage of these students and ask: what did school teach you to hate? Did Eco's Name of the Rose embue you withg a long-standing hatred for meandering Italian prose? Did Patrick Fullick's textbook compel you to call forth the hordes of Cthulhu to smite the world's physicists? Did truding after a plastic football in the freezing rain turn you off exercise for life? Tell me your stories!
Inspired by this post, I thought I'd see what else Google knows about our collective psyche, based on its suggested searches. Result? Google knows you're scared of Chinese people.
At first I thought it was a one-off, but then I found this, dating back to February 2009.
The UK is currently in the grip of the longest period of sub-zero weather in thirty years, and it looks set to stay cold for another week. Rather than get hysterical about the lack of grit on our roads, I thought about all the fun science opportunities the arctic weather has on offer!
Supercooling
Everyone knows that water freezes at zero degrees celsius, but not many people know that ice crystals need a small imperfection or "seed" to grow from. This can be impurities in the water or microscopic imperfections in the container holding them. Without these, water will stay liquid well below freezing temperatures, in a supercool state. The tiniest disturbance will then cause all the liquid to freeze instantly! You can replicate this with a bottle of purified water (e.g. Dasani) left outside overnight.
Frozen Bubbles
Everyone loves blowing soap bubbles, but even more fun is blowing them in sub-zero conditions, where the bubbles will freeze as fast as you can blow them and then roll along the ground!
Weather Modification
Take a cup of hot water. Throw hot water at the sky. Instant snow! Feel like China.
Which freezes faster?
Finally answer that long standing question: which freezes faster, hot water or cold water? A fun way to demonstrate the Mpemba Effect.
Add your suggestions of science fun to have in the big freeze below!
Over the last decades, groundbreaking new research has provided vivid insights into the molecular makeup of life. These discoveries have helped explain the evolution of life on earth in unprecedented detail.
Lane uses this new knowledge to describe the ten greatest inventions of life, based on their historical impact, their importance in living organisms today, and their iconic power. In ten chapters, he explains the origin of life itself, the formation of DNA, the marvel of photosynthesis, the evolution of complex cells, the power of sex, the secret of movement, the perfection of the eye, the reasons for hot blood, the emergence of consciousness, and the evitability of death.
I'm still devouring Atul Gawande's The Checklist Manifesto and a stack of others, but if the opening is anything to go by, this is a corker of a book. That behemoth of biological blogging, Pharyngula, posted a review of the hardcover some time back which you can read here. Mostly I'm looking forward to the chapter on sight, if only so I can completely demolish those stupid Intelligent Design freaks who insist the eye is irreducibly complex. Though with chapters on the invention of sex, DNA and life itself, this book is a wonderful whistlestop tour of evolution's greatest moments. If the science punk in your life has a birthday coming up, this might just be the perfect gift.
Frank Swain is a science writer and blogger. He is based in the UK.
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