NASA technology tends to find its way into the sporting world more often than you’d expect. Fitness is important to the space program because astronauts must undergo the extreme g-forces of getting into space and endure the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body. The agency’s engineering expertise also means that items like shoes and swimsuits can be improved with NASA know-how.
As the 2024 Olympics are in full swing in Paris, here are some of the many NASA-derived technologies that have helped competitive athletes train for the games and made sure they’re properly equipped to win.
The LZR Racer reduces skin friction drag by covering more skin than traditional swimsuits. Multiple pieces of the water-resistant and extremely lightweight LZR Pulse fabric connect at ultrasonically welded seams and incorporate extremely low-profile zippers to keep viscous drag to a minimum.
When the swimsuit manufacturer Speedo wanted its LZR Racer suit to have as little drag as possible, the company turned to the experts at Langley Research Center to test its materials and design. The end result was that the new suit reduced drag by 24 percent compared to the prior generation of Speedo racing suit and broke 13 world records in 2008. While the original LZR Racer is no longer used in competition due to the advantage it gave wearers, its legacy lives on in derivatives still produced to this day.
Trilion Quality Systems worked with NASA’s Glenn Research Center to adapt existing stereo photogrammetry software to work with high-speed cameras. Now the company sells the package widely, and it is used to analyze stress and strain in everything from knee implants to running shoes and more.
After space shuttle Columbia, investigators needed to see how materials reacted during recreation tests with high-speed cameras, which involved working with industry to create a system that could analyze footage filmed at 30,000 frames per second. Engineers at Adidas used this system to analyze the behavior of Olympic marathoners' feet as they hit the ground and adjusted the design of the company’s high-performance footwear based on these observations.
Martial artist Barry French holds an Impax Body Shield while former European middle-weight kickboxing champion Daryl Tyler delivers an explosive jump side kick; the force of the impact is registered precisely and shown on the display panel of the electronic box French is wearing on his belt.
In the 1980s, Olympic martial artists needed a way to measure the impact of their strikes to improve training for competition. Impulse Technology reached out to Glenn Research Center to create the Impax sensor, an ultra-thin film sensor which creates a small amount of voltage when struck. The more force applied, the more voltage it generates, enabling a computerized display to show how powerful a punch or kick was.
Astronaut Sunita Williams poses while using the Interim Resistive Exercise Device on the ISS. The cylinders at the base of each side house the SpiraFlex FlexPacks that inventor Paul Francis honed under NASA contracts. They would go on to power the Bowflex Revolution and other commercial exercise equipment.
Astronauts spending long periods of time in space needed a way to maintain muscle mass without the effect of gravity, but lifting free weights doesn’t work when you’re practically weightless. An exercise machine that uses elastic resistance to provide the same benefits as weightlifting went to the space station in the year 2000. That resistance technology was commercialized into the Bowflex Revolution home exercise equipment shortly afterwards.
Want to learn more about technologies made for space and used on Earth? Check out NASA Spinoff to find products and services that wouldn’t exist without space exploration.
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Botanic academia
People talk about China’s pollution, but isn’t that just our pollution in China? ‘We’ moved the factories over specifically for lax environmental laws and cheap labor. China’s pollution is our pollution.
Tailor Birds “Sewing” Nests
(via)
Now I am old, all I want to do is try;
But when I was young, if it wasn’t easy I let it lie,
Learning through my pores instead,
And it did neither of us any good.
For now she is gone who slept away my life,
And I am ignorant who inherited,
Though the head has grown so lively that I laugh,
“Come look, come stomp, come listen to the drum.”
I see more now than then; but she who had my eyes
Closed them in happiness, and wrapped the dark
In her arms and stole my life away,
Singing in dreams of what was sure to come.
I see it perfectly, except the beast
Fumbles and falters, until the others wince.
Everything shimmers and glitters and shakes with unbearable longing,
The dancers who cannot sleep, and the sleepers who cannot dance
بالنسبة لمعظم الأطفال، يمكن تقسيم اليوم الدراسي العادي إلى أجزاء من الحركة والجلوس بثبات. الفرصة (الفسحة): وقت الركض و اللعب. حصة الصالة الرياضية: تكرار للفرصة. جميع الحصص الأخرى: قدم على الأرض، الثبات في الكرسي، ويرجى عدم التململ أكثر من اللازم.
ولكن كما تفسر صحيفة نيويورك تايمز، فإن عددا متزايدا من خبراء التعليم يجادلون بأن النظام المعتاد عليه صارم أكثر من اللزوم. يفترض على الأطفال أن تتحرك كثيرا. خاصة أثناء التعلم.
وليس ذلك من أجل الفوائد الصحية فقط، ان الطالب الأكثر نشاطا، هو أيضا أفضل من غيره كطالب. وقال( ستيف بويل)، المؤسس المشارك للرابطة الوطنية الأمريكية لمحو الأمية البدنية، لصحيفة "التايمز": "لا يفترض من الأطفال الجلوس طوال اليوم وتلقي المعلومات". وضعت منظمته مجموعة من أشرطة الفيديو القصيرة، التي تأخذ الأطفال في جولة من النشاط البدني - توفر للطفل فرصة ل " التنفس، والاسترخاء، وإعادة الشحن، وإعادة التركيز"، كما يسميها الموقع على شبكة الإنترنت. ووفقا لصحيفة التايمز، استخدمت أشرطة الفيديو في الفصول الدراسية ونوادي الفتيان والفتيات في 15 ولاية مختلفة.
الرياضة و الحركة تنشط الذاكرة. ووجدت دراسة نشرت في العام الماضي في مجلة "طب الأطفال" أن إتاحة الوقت للنشاط البدني خلال الدروس ساعد طلاب المدارس الابتدائية على تحسين أدائهم في كل من دروس الرياضيات واللغة؛ وسطيا، كانت الأطفال في مجموعة الحركة تسبق الأطفال في مجموعة الجلوس بثبات بنحو أربعة أشهر في مستوى تعلمهم بحلول نهاية التجربة التي دامت لمدة عامين. إن هبات النشاط هذه ليس بالضرورة أن تأخذ وقتا بعيدا عن الصف: في مقال بمجلة (واشنطن بوست) عام 2015، أوضحت (أليتا مارغوليس)، مديرة مركز التعليم الإلهامي، أنه باستخدام القليل من الإبداع فقط، يمكن دمج الحركة مباشرة في عملية التدريس: وتقول: "عندما يراقب الطلاب بعضهم البعض لمدة 30 ثانية أثناء الركض، يحصلون على فرصة لممارسة أساليب قياس الوقت". "هز علبة من الحليب بقوة كبيرة لتشكيل الزبدة يعلم الطلاب عن الحقائق الصعبة للحياة في ميدان الصناعة وأيضا يعلمهم عن أجسامهم، وحمض اللبنيك وما يحدث عندما تستخدم العضلات بشكل كثيف جدا لفترة طويلة جدا". هناك فائدة في ذلك للجميع أيضا: يحصل الأطفال على فرصة(فسحة) اخرى نوعا ما. ودرس أكثر متعة من المحاضرة أو ورقة العمل العادية المعتاد عليها. وهذا بدوره، يعطي للأساتذة طلاب أكثر انتباها و أكثر اندماجا بالدرس.
http://facebook.com/maktabatona1
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2017/03/kids-learn-better-when-they-can-move-around-class.html?mid=twitter_scienceofus
it’s time to look at some photos of pikas carrying plants and flowers in their mouths
At 23, JK Rowling was broke. Tina Fey was working at the Y.M.C.A. Oprah had just gotten fired from her first job as a TV reporter and Walt Disney had declared bankruptcy.
Read This If You’re 23 And Lost by Heidi Priebe (via twentysomethingstate)
2,300-Year-Old Plush Bird from the Altai Mountains of Siberia, c.400-300 BCE: this figure was crafted with a felt body and reindeer-fur stuffing, all of which remains intact
This plush bird was sealed within the frozen barrows of Pazyryk, Siberia, for more than two millennia, where a unique microclimate enabled it to be preserved. The permafrost ice lense formation that runs below the barrows provided an insulating layer, preventing the soil from heating during the summer and allowing it to quickly freeze during the winter; these conditions produced a separate microclimate within the stone walls of the barrows themselves, thereby aiding in the preservation of the artifacts inside.
This is just one of the many well-preserved artifacts that have been found at Pazyryk. These artifacts are attributed to the Scythian/Altaic cultures.
Currently housed at the Hermitage Museum.
“Have you ever hoped for something? And held out for it against all the odds? Until everything you did was ridiculous?”
— Ali Shaw (via purplebuddhaquotes)
قالت : متى نلتقي؟ قال : بعد عاماً وحرب. قالت : متى تنتهي الحرب؟ قال : عندما نلتقي.
محمود درويش. (via child-of-the-univerrse)
Here I share some scientific, artistic, literary and more material that I find interesting and important. I'm 30, studied biology in the University of Damascus. هنا اترجم بعض المقالات و المواد العلمية و الادبية و المواضيع التي اجدها مهمة و مثيرة للاهتمام.عمري 30 سنة, ادرس علم احياء بجامعة دمشق
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