Friday, July 9, 2009
Today we first learned about Victoria Vessia. She talked to us about her life, but what really attracted my attention was Blue Morph. This is truly art and science mixed together. What they did was use nanoscale images and sounds, yes sounds, of the metamorphosis of a butterfly. Pure creativity.
We also finalized our preparation of our midterm projects. At this stage, we only have a group of somewhat organized ideas. We are doing Superlung, which lets you breathe underwater and filters air. There are a lot of practical applications for Superlung, and can possibly save millions of lives every year. We still have much technical ideas to iron out, as we are still in the intermediate stage of our project, as is everyone else. Much research is going to be done on the physiology and function of the lungs, and blood stream. A lot of research must be done for nanobots too. We are doing good, however.
The most interesting project I have seen, is the protective weapons against an impending zombie attack. Very humurous, artistic, and scientific.
Another thing we have done is view DESMA presentations, which honestly, was quite boring. However, it is just my opinion, and I thought the projects were impressive, especially the art on the books. The games all looked the same, just with different backgrounds, heroes, enemies, and whatnot. But I imagine it must be hard to create a video game.
Something I found interesting that I have not talked about was quantum dots. They are semiconductors that have a wide variety of applications. They are very small and range from 2-10 nanometers. Changing the size by adding atoms can change the energy level, due to the quantum mechanical properties. They could be used for tracking things in the body. They could be used in computer chips as semiconductors, and also LED lights. They are very uselful.
http://dma.ucla.edu/index.php
http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/
http://www.evidenttech.com/quantum-dots-explained/how-quantum-dots-work.html
http://www.thoracic.org/sections/copd/for-patients/anatomy-and-function-of-the-normal-lung.html