Scientists Levitate Small Animals
Scientists have now levitated small live animals using sounds that are, well, uplifting.
In the past, researchers at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi’an, China, used ultrasound fields to successfully levitate globs of the heaviest solid and liquid—iridium and mercury, respectively. The aim of their work is to learn how to manufacture everything from pharmaceuticals to alloys without the aid of containers. At times compounds are too corrosive for containers to hold, or they react with containers in other undesirable ways.
“An interesting question is, ‘What will happen if a living animal is put into the acoustic field?’ Will it also be stably levitated?” researcher Wenjun Xie, a materials physicist at Northwestern Polytechnical University, told LiveScience.
Xie and his colleagues employed an ultrasound emitter and reflector that generated a sound pressure field between them. The emitter produced roughly 20-millimeter- wavelength sounds, meaning it could in theory levitate objects half that wavelength or less.
The ant and ladybug appeared fine after 30 minutes of levitation, although the fish did not fare as well, due to the inadequate water supply, the scientists report.
So how does he do it?
wowzers that video could do without audio
I’ve seen the principle at work with girls shirts at rock concerts.
So how does he do it?
Eats lots of beans first? 🙂
Does PETA know about this?
“The ant and ladybug appeared fine after 30 minutes of levitation, although the fish did not fare as well, due to the inadequate water supply, the scientists report.”
Could there be a more egghead way to avoid saying “we killed the fish” than objectifying the cause of death as “inadequate water supply”? Being that any fish was going to get croaked by this out of water methodology, wouldn’t a frigging Mrs. Paul’s Fish Stick have done the job just as well? This isn’ t a PETA rant, just a minor observation on techno-babble.
Awesome…human levitation at the cost of our hearing. Asphincter says what?
More cool things with sound… Thermoacoustic Refrigeration
A fish? Why did they use a fish? Do fish really need to have to levitate? They look like they’re already flying on water.
Is this why flying saucers in the movies make weird noises?
cool.
This shows the power of “standing waves.” Nothing new, but for the fact that they have focused them better than before. The Grateful Dead band used these things to give the audience a buzz. You get quite an odd feeling when you are engulfed in one of these things.
I’ll wait for the new cars…
Here’s some more science stuff.
I successfully reproduced this experiment, 200-250Hz standing sound waves, for my son’s science class, with a small MP3 player and a 20$ computer sub-woofer and a metal plate, water and 0.10 worth of corn starch.
A huge amount of fun. My cats were totally freaked out. The dog was found hiding on the second floor (we did this in the basement).
Vibrated Cornstarch
My son only got an A versus A+ because he couldn’t properly explain the “why”…what’s funny is neither can the scientists behind that link.
I highly suggest you try for that next science project. That goes for grandfathers too!