Light makes a comeback. “New technologies — more sophisticated imaging techniques, fluorescent molecules that act as beacons of light in the cell, and the computing power to gather and stitch together multiple images and create videos from high-powered microscopes — make it possible to harness one of light’s key advantages: gentleness. Unlike higher-resolution techniques, light microscopes can image biological structures without killing them or chemically fixing them. At Harvard, the resurgence of light microscopy is making it possible to see structures and events that have never before been seen in the context of living cells and organisms.” Also don't miss the video samples of “in vivo” imagining.
posted on Apr 19, 2008 - View this thread

The Art of Edgar Lissel " Lissel works with bacteria, using their photo-tactical characteristics for his images."
posted on Nov 15, 2006 - View this thread

Auroras have had many explanations throughout history. Now, science has answered many questions, thanks to spending a lot of time in Antarctica taking time-lapse films.
posted on Aug 15, 2006 - View this thread

"The trick to education is to teach people in such a way that they don't realize they're learning until it's too late."
Fluorescein-dyed water appears suspended in midair, only to "flow" upwards moments later. The careful dance of a splashing drop is frozen and taken for granted, painstakingly analyzed in a brilliant defiance of how water should behave. Such is the wonder of what modder Nate True calls his Time Fountain (YouTube embedded & worth it)—a well-documented, DIY version of classic science center favorite, the Water Piddler. MIT's own Strobe Alley is lined with photos created using the same technology, pioneered by Harold Eugene Edgerton, a professor whose work you're almost certainly familiar with. Naturally, some beautiful pieces have followed under the same ideal, courtesy Martin Waugh.
posted on Aug 8, 2006 - View this thread

Polarization.com - polarized light in nature & technology. [via MoFi]
posted on Dec 8, 2004 - View this thread

you know, you're right... it really does look like my morning coffee. but wait just a minute, didn't we say it was more of a blue-green Tidy-Bowl kind of hue? now i am all confused. good thing i didn't go through with that "paint my house the color of space" idea...
posted on Jun 24, 2002 - View this thread

Future of computing - Light or Molecules?
posted on Jun 23, 2001 - View this thread

Researchers say they have slowed light to a dead stop, stored it and then released it as if it were an ordinary material particle. Cool, huh?
posted on Jan 19, 2001 - View this thread

Speed of light broken. But it may be awhile before we can harness it for anything useful. Fascinating, nonetheless.
posted on Jul 20, 2000 - View this thread

Can the speed of light be broken? It's not 1 April, so this actually might be true. It'll be interesting to see the paper in Nature, if and when.
posted on Jun 5, 2000 - View this thread

THAT'S a speeding ticket... Scientists push light up to 300 times the SPEED OF LIGHT. I just got a floaty-glowy feeling. Some interesting interesting stuff is happening in our world. My favorite quote from the article: "That is so fast that, under these peculiar circumstances, the main part of the pulse exits the far side of the chamber even before it enters at the near side. " [Note: link is for NYT, free registration req'd]
posted on May 30, 2000 - View this thread