Free Republic

5:30 A.M., Monday July 16th, 1945: The day dawned brighter than ever before over the New Mexico desert. But it was not the Sun's soothing rays that set the landscape alight; it was the radiant flash of the very first atomic bomb. Trinity, the nuclear offspring of the Manhattan Project, detonated with the force of 21,000 tons of TNT. The accompanying fireball reached temperatures of 8,430 degrees Kelvin, hotter than the surface of the sun, and sent a mushroom cloud of smoke and debris soaring more than seven miles into the sky. That day, every human on the planet was...

An archaeological excavation in northern Israel has unearthed glass-making kilns that date back 1,600 years, proving that ancient Israel was one of the most important centers of glass making in the world during the late Roman period. Yael Gorin-Rosen, head curator of the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Glass Department, said. “This is a very important discovery with implications regarding the history of the glass industry both in Israel and in the entire ancient world. We know from historical sources dating to the Roman period that the Valley of Acre was renowned for the excellent quality sand located there, which was highly...

In 1996 in the Egyptian Museum in Cairo, Italian mineralogist Vincenzo de Michele spotted an unusual yellow-green gem in the middle of one of Tutankhamun's necklaces. The jewel was tested and found to be glass, but intriguingly it is older than the earliest Egyptian civilisation. Working with Egyptian geologist Aly Barakat, they traced its origins to unexplained chunks of glass found scattered in the sand in a remote region of the Sahara Desert. But the glass is itself a scientific enigma. How did it get to be there and who or what made it? Thursday's BBC Horizon programme reports an...

Transmittance spectrum of the 54Al2O3-46Ta2O5 glass in the UV/vis region. The inset picture shows the glass sample used for the transmittance experiment. Credit: (c) 2015 Scientific Reports (2015). DOI: 10.1038/srep15233 $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ (Phys.org)—A team of researchers with The University of Tokyo and Japan Synchrotron Radiation Research Institute has created a type of glass that is stronger than many metals. In their paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, the researchers describe how they overcame one of the major hurdles in creating glass imbued with extra amounts of an oxide of aluminum, by using what they call aerodynamic levitation. Glass that does...

The experimental setup inside the modified Applied Test Systems model 2605 pneumatic creep tester, in which the anode was located at the top of the sample and the cathode at the bottom. The system was electrically insulated from the rest of the furnace. Credit: Jain ===================================================================================================================== On a serendipitous occasion, while attending a conference and listening to Rishi Raj, a professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado Boulder, speak about the remarkable effect of moderate electrical fields on lowering the sintering temperature of certain ceramic powders, Himanshu Jain, a professor of materials science and engineering at Lehigh University,...

A congressman stole the water glass Pope Francis was drinking out of during his address at the White House on Thursday. Representative Bob Brady, a devout Catholic and Democrat from Pennsylvania immediately made his way to the podium after Pope Francis finished speaking and grabbed the glass that was still filled with water. He then drank the water, gave some of the water to his wife Debra, and saved the rest for his grandchildren. Representative Brady took photos as well, and had his staff send them out to the press.

There is a beach in Fort Bragg, California, that’s famous for the iridescent sea glass that shimmers on its shores. A dump until the 1960s, Glass Beach underwent massive cleanup projects in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but the glass from bottles and other items remained, worn smooth over time as it tumbled through the ocean... In fact, even though removing sea glass from the beach is prohibited, rangers from California State Parks, which owns the beach, see people taking the smooth, pebble-like glass pieces home in Ziploc bags and buckets all the time

Sponges are among the simplest of multicellular organisms, but they contain an advanced human technology: fiber optics. In a case of reverse biomimetics, scientists have determined that one of the products of proud human engineering was already at work in a lowly sponge...

<p>AP) -- Scientists say they have identified an ocean sponge living in the darkness of the deep sea that grows thin glass fibers capable of transmitting light better than industrial fiber optic cables used for telecommunication.</p> <p>The natural glass fibers also are much more flexible than manufactured fiber optic cable that can crack if bent too far.</p>

Imagine a glass window that's tough like armor, a camera lens that doesn't get scratched in a sand storm, or a smart phone that doesn't break when dropped. Except it's not glass, it's a special ceramic called spinel {spin-ELL} that the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) has been researching over the last 10 years. "Spinel is actually a mineral, it's magnesium aluminate," says Dr. Jas Sanghera, who leads the research. "The advantage is it's so much tougher, stronger, harder than glass. It provides better protection in more hostile environments—so it can withstand sand and rain erosion." As a more durable...

-A glass dish unearthed from a burial mound here is the first of its kind confirmed to have come to Japan from the Roman Empire, a research team said... The dish and bowl were retrieved together from the No. 126 tumulus of the Niizawa Senzuka cluster of ancient graves, a national historic site. The No. 126 tumulus dates back to the late fifth century... According to the team’s analysis, the chemical composition of the clear dark blue dish is almost identical to glasswork unearthed in the area of the Roman Empire (27 B.C.-A.D. 395). Measuring 14.1 to 14.5 centimeters in...

THE FUTURE OF GLASS - "AMAZING"! If you wonder why HP, Dell and other leading computer manufacturers believe the end of the computer as we know it is near, here’s why. It's not the iPad that has them concerned about the future. It is developments like the ones Corning is working on that are game-changers:

For Democrats, 2016 is the year they hope to shatter the nation's highest and toughest glass ceiling. But so far, the party's self-declared glass ceiling cracker has the party's other women waiting on her. While Hillary Clinton makes up her mind about whether to make another White House bid, other Democratic women with presidential ambitions aggressively insist they're not running this time around. They've signed a letter encouraging Clinton to jump in. They've gone to early nominating states to tout her candidacy — while sometimes turning down their own invitations to those same states for fear of sending signals that...

This video involved about 2 months of research, and me reaching out to several individuals. I would like to thank everyone who took time out of their schedule to contribute to my wacky research. A big thanks to the following people: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ My wife and kids. I'm sorry this took so long and I wasn't the kind of active father I want to be during the 5 weeks it took to make this. Dr. Martyn Poliakoff for getting me access to documents which details experiments on the Prince Rupert's Drop by the Royal Society http://rsnr.royalsocietypublishing.or... (behind a pay wall) Being...

Seattle may be home for tech giants Amazon and Microsoft, but Google Glass isn't welcome in one local diner. Nick Starr, a network engineer, found this out the hard way after wearing Glass to Lost Lake Lounge last week. (Via Facebook / Nick Starr) After being seated, Starr writes, "A woman who works there comes up to us and tells me that the owner's other restaurant doesn't allow Google Glass and that I would have to either put it away (it doesn't fold up btw) or leave." (Via Facebook / Nick Starr) ​ The two then reportedly had a back-and-forth....

Excerpt: Yes, you can get a ticket for driving while wearing the new eyewear-like Google Glass wearable computer, which is now being tested nationwide for possible entry into the consumer market. Cecilia Abadie, 44, who lives in Temecula and works at a golf store in San Diego, got just such a ticket Tuesday night after being stopped for speeding by a California Highway Patrol officer. Quickly, Abadie posted a note on the Internet: "A cop just stopped me and gave me a ticket for wearing Google Glass while driving! ... Is Google Glass illegal while driving or is this cop...

(Phys.org) —When a molten material cools quickly, parts of it may have enough time to grow into orderly crystals. But if the cooling rate is too fast for the entire melt to crystallize, the remaining material ends up in a non-crystalline state known as a glass, with atoms caught in place essentially as a frozen liquid. Recently, a group of researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) came across an unexpected reversal of this usual sequence of events. After cooling a molten alloy of aluminum, iron, and silicon, they found that glassy nodules of a non-crystalline solid...

At Philz Coffee in Palo Alto, Calif., a kid who looks like he should still be in high school is sitting across from me. He's wearing Google Glass. As I stare into the device's cyborg eye, I'm waiting for its tiny screen to light up. Then, I wait for a signal that Google Glass has recognized my face. It isn't supposed to do that, but has hacked it. "Essentially what I am building is an alternative operating system that runs on Glass but is not controlled by Google," he said. Balaban wants to make it possible to do all sorts...

US Senator Elizabeth Warren, the architect of the Consumer Financial Protect Bureau (CFPB), wants to put Glass-Steagall back into place. One of the purposes of the originial Glass-Steagall Act of 1933 was to separate commercial and investment banking. “The four biggest banks are now 30% larger than they were just five years ago, and they have continued to engage in dangerous, high-risk practices that could once again put our economy at risk,” according to Senator Warren. Hmm. The enormous spike in excess reserves may be what she is thinking about. EXCRESNS But Senator Warren forgets a few things. First, the...

his Model of Stephenson's Steam Engine was made in 2008 by master glassblower Michal Zahradník. Highlights: * The crankshaft is glass. The piston is glass. The counterweight that makes the wheel spin evenly is glass. Imagine that everything is made out of glass. * There are no sealants used. All is accomplished by a perfectly snug fit. The gap between the piston and its compartment is so small, that the water that condensates from the steam seals it shut! * Notice the elaborate excessive steam exhaust system next to the piston