ScienceLivesatVJ: Day Fifteen Summer 2010 - Which one is the washing machine?

Notice the gray UV beads under flourescent light now colorized by the UVA and UVB from the sun (around my neck).

And now for wrapping up Nano today. Yesterday was a process of collumation as Bruce, the Rhode Island Physics teacher, Clive Kissler reader and to the point guy said.

A physics guy who knows his stuff.

We worked through a jigsaw where four different topic groups gathered to discuss readings and then went back to their original group with representatives from each to share and then back to the full group to share led by Jonathan. A lot of collimation.

Two or three interesting things. One - the fluorescence of tide from the nano particles when exposed to UV light as Buzz suggested and his offer to give anyone a deal on science supplies from his cut out the middle guy company – http://thescienceoutlet.com/. Another was vitamins as encapsulated nano particles that would be released on demand from your body and maybe even tastes nano particles that would be released as you create your own crave satisfaction (http://www.understandingnano.com/food.html)

There was concern about health risks of nanoparticles with only two drops could destroy all microbes – both beneficial and not beneficial ones in an Olympic size swimming pool and how nano particles can attach themselves to cell and break down water. Something to thing about and consider as regulations for material production are considered.

And Robert, educated in a small liberal arts school with an excellent physics degree and in a class six – (and Cooper car driver) gave as good an illustration or metaphor for the evolution of industry as I have heard. In the horse and buggy days the horse would know the way even if the driver dozed at the reins. Then cars were developed and crowns were put in roads for water drainage and the driver had to be more involved to keep from running off the road. As new and more sophisticated technologies have been developed the crown of the road gets steeper and steeper and more and more sophisticated drivers need to navigate the car. And a whole array of technicians and employees help the directing engineer keeps the car running and producing goods, etc. Thanks, Robert.

And our group - particularly Rich (me not at first which made me step back and reflect again about how different teachers light up different students and how important diversity of all kinds is in the profession) dazzled by a very entertaining PhD in biophysics, Jenny - http://www.people.umass.edu/rossj/Ross_Lab.html - who has developed and built a highly sophisticated microscope to look at motor proteins “walking” along microfilaments in cells. The coolest idea from that was about melanin exposed to sun in melanocytes below the epidermal layer and the motor proteins carrying them to epidermal cells and then moving them to form a “parosol” to protect the nucleus of surface epidermal cells. How they know to do this and other hows are really amazing self-assembly questions. As Buzz and I reflected in one of the small groups with questions of self-assembly of life from original pools of amino acid.

To top the day Rich and I took a bike ride to Northampton – 19.96. It was a beautiful day and trail. The coolest part was only a few miles in and seeing Sofia’s. I just had to stop for a bathroom break and to our surprise it was a Polish shop that Kristina the proprietor named after her mother and is trying to preserve Polish heritage by serving excellent pierogis and offering great hospitality. Rich saw the pictures of festivals on the wall and recalled a happy childhood of participation in them. It was so refreshing to see this totally serendipitous connection.

Another amazing thing was the very kind driver who had about ten cars behind her including a lady in sunglasses and talking on his cell phone and making anger finger gestures as she abruptly stopped her car anyway to let us go by. In that brief moment she helped settle some of the chaos in this world and usher in wonder and well being across the landscape. Rich is that kind of person too.

On the way back he said he was jealous because I got all the attention as we went by (because of Red the recumbent).I told him it was my legs.

Don't you know it is the legs.

Another night with my new friends at ABC where I sampled locally made sausage that was excellent and got to ride home college style with four people in a small backseat.

Another good day at Amherst and Dr. Judy Young (http://www.astronomyandspirituality.com/contact.html), the Circle of Sun (like Stonehenge) designer at Amherst that I had heard on the 365 Days of Astronomy pod casts (http://365daysofastronomy.org/category/podcast/) last year responded to my email with a call and she is going to give me a tour after the nano workshop concludes today.

All of this is a very good day after a rough start where I put my laundry in the dryer and started up the washer (which reminded me of the early days of marriage when I was asked to put something in the washer out in the laundry room and came back asking my wife which one it was –which I should have known since I hooked it up – I guess a friend is right when she says I need to be more aware) and could not open it to cancel my stupidity – six quarters wasted but a very clean washing machine. I had everyone scrambling for two more quarters that I needed after the snack machine reset nickels and dimes instead of quarters – I am warming up to this place.

Thanks to the MIT graduate who generously gave me some calibrated plastic shims for the AFM experiment so I would not have to pay 30 dollars for sheets and sheets of them that I would never use.

Thanks to the lady who stopped for us and overcame immense social pressure and did a reset on kindness in the world.

Thanks to Penney who sat beside me and forced me to rise to at least the minimum standard on my lesson plan poster.

Thanks to Holly who greets us each day with a smile and News of the Day.