Scientists Create Magnetic Soap
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
Feeling dirty? We’ve got just the story for you in this week’s edition of The World’s Technology Podcast. Scientists at the University of Bristol have created…wait for it…magnetic soap. Just to be clear, this is not a designer product for the reality TV star who has everything. Instead, this soap has a higher calling. The scientists who are working on it hope that it can one day be used to clean up major disasters such as oil spills. Tech that matters, indeed. Listen in as Professor Julian Eastoe describes how the soap manages to both repel and attract at the same time.
And what could possibly serve as a better follow-up to magnetic soap than an invisibility cloak. Perhaps the magic of Harry Potter isn’t such a fantasy after all? Dr. Andrea Alu of UT-Austin talks about a new breakthrough in “plasmonic cloaking in free-space.” Dead sexy.
WTP 355 also has a double-dip on the new online privacy laws that the European Commission is proposing. As this podcast asked about 90 episodes ago, do you have the right to be forgotten online? And is it possible to legislate and enforce that right?
We end with the beauty, forever sinking it seems, that is Venice, the Italian city built in a lagoon. There’s already one incredibly expensive project, called Moses, designed to protect the city from tidal surges. But now, some scientists from Padua University have another, much cheaper idea. Hint: It involves raising the city by pumping liquid into the sandy layer beneath the city.
A reminder that you can ignore us equally on Twitter, Facebook, and now Google +.
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 28th, 2012 at 2:55 AM and is filed under Technology Podcast. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
