Scientists levitate ultra-pure glass

cnn ^ | Thursday, April 1, 2004 | By Tariq Malik

[demlosers]

An experiment originally designed to fly on the International Space Station led a team of researchers to develop a completely new type of glass, a material formed while floating in mid-air in a NASA laboratory on Earth.

Using static electrical fields to levitate the material, scientists were able to construct a pure glass, free of any contamination typically associated with containers. It could serve as the centerpiece for new medical and industrial lasers, as well as have broadband Internet applications.

[Fedora]

Cool site! Thanks for posting it.

You're welcome, hope you enjoy it!--it's a fun site :)

[Darksheare]

Oh no!
That reminds me of the Driver's ed films and such.
"Highway of DEATH" and the sexual health vid "dirty Suzie" (or whatever the name was)
Made our minds melt.
The voice acting in those were awful, and made some of us laugh out loud, being disrespectful youths in the 80's watching films made for the disrespectful youths of the 60's or so..

The "Dirty Suzie" one will almost make you swear off of carnal knowledge of your wife or anyoen for life.
'This man did not heed the warnings, and he fell victim to VD! His pain is twofold, both physical and social..'

Then there was the one they traumatised us with in 4th grade dealing with drunk driving.
Th emost memorable thing about it: a youngster is riding his bicycle into the road from his driveway. You KNOW something bad is about to happen because oddly you hear, for no apparent reason, a bunch of cheer-leaders chanting 'reverse! reverse! reverse! reverse!'
Sure enough, out of nowhere a green AMC Gremlin driven by some kids, blaring the Cars song "Let's Go" and beer bottles ahoist comes tearing around teh corner -without being heard until then!- weaves all over the road, and then narrowly misses the boy.
At about this point I was busy laughing and being sent to the Principle's office.

[Fedora]

LOL! Yeah, they made us watch Highway of DEATH, too :) Never saw Dirty Suzie, but they showed us some film along similar lines only everyone in the film was dressed in early 1970s Brady Bunch style, LOL!

[Darksheare]

LOL!
Uh oh.

[Darksheare]

Be glad you didn't see 'Dirty Suzie' as it was pretty horrible to watch.
The guy is sitting on a hospital gurney and he was definately NOT acting.
And the deadpan voice over was absolutely terrible to bear, what with the guy on the gurney letting out a skull-splitting howl when the doctor started his exam when previously he was only moaning and whimpering.

Of course, we disrespectful youths were suppsode to be dutifully traumatised and instead were laughing like insane crows over it.
As awful as those films were, there's a kind of demented nostalgia about them.
Like the children who wished they didn't have shadows, so they 'sold' their shadows to a magician and couldn't play shadow tag during recess and became social pariahs and outcasts because of this.
And the geography film strip about compass directions with a VERY Mod Squad dressed woman named *groan* Compass Rosa.
They were so awful, and such nannyism, that they HAVE to be archived somewhere for fun and rememberence.

[Fedora]

I was trying to answer your last post when I got hit by a virus (I think) that crashed my system for a few hours. Hobbit Hole tech support helped me fix it, so now I'm back. Anyway, I was going to tell you, here's another one to go with Highway of DEATH, LOL!

LAST CLEAR CHANCE

Trying to find an archive where there are more of these--like you say, there's a demented nostalgia about it, I'm sure there must be some out there :)

[cartoonistx]

REAL glass -- short for Rare Earth Aluminum oxide

I seem to recall a scene from the 3rd Star Trek movie where Scotty obtains some plexiglass panels from a 20th century scientist by giving him the formula for "transparent aluminum". Now we Do have it!

[Darksheare]

Some of them are reviewed at Badmovies.org and there are links to other sites that have horrible films listed and reviewed.
Though I didn't find any viewable archive content of the old educational film shorts.
Just reviews of them.
*snicker*
SOMEONE just HAS to have them available on DVD just to torment the younger generations who didn't get to see them.

[FourtySeven]

Cool sites.

[Fedora]

SOMEONE just HAS to have them available on DVD just to torment the younger generations who didn't get to see them.

I agree! :) I'll check into it--wish I could remember the name of that one famous series with the old guy I was talking about, that was classic.

[Fedora]

Cool sites.

I always liked that kind of stuff--my Dad used to use things like that to teach his grade-school science students and sometimes he'd bring things home and show us. Sometimes even today I like to go to Toys R Us and pick up their electrical and chemistry kits just to mess around with.

[Darksheare]

Yeah, they're keepers.
Check out Badmovies.org and it's associated linked websites, some of them have info and some don't- I don't rightly remember which ones offhand.
But there's one site that has a small listing of the educational shorts.

[fso301]

I'll read this later.

[Fedora]

I bookmarked that badmovies.org site--looks like a good source of cannon fodder for MSTYfing! :)

[Darksheare]

That it is.
Especially some of the 60's movies.
And then there is "Tammy and the T-Rex"
Quite possibly the one movie with THE most mystifying ending ever.
Makes you sit there and think, "Did I just see that?"

[Fedora]

And then there is "Tammy and the T-Rex"

Never seen that one--looks like another candidate! I see it got a rating of one lava lamp from the reviewers at the Stomp Tokyo site, which is another excellent resource for such things:

Stomp Tokyo Video Reviews - B Movies, Godzilla, and more!

Tammy and the T-Rex

[Darksheare]

*groan*
"Tammy and the T-Rex" has one of the weirdest endings I've EVER seen.
It's worth seeing JUST for the ending alone.