Medusa Unleashed

A Medusa is a free swimming jellyfish. Anyone who's lived near a harbor or gone to an aquarium has seen one.

The mechanical structure of a medusa is fairly simple: a slotted semi-rigid body with a ring of contractile tissue connected just above the slots. The contraction causes a "dome" structure to appear pushing water out the back and giving propulsion. Structurally, it looks pretty close to what's pictured on the left.

Except that's not a medusa.

Instead, it's a bit of silicone polymer with a ring of rat cardiac muscle.

This feat of curious engineering is the product of the ingenious minds of Janna Nawroth and Kevin Kit Parker of Caltech and Harvard.

The original paper is here. Physorg's version is here along with video of both a real medusa and the medusoid that Nawroth and Parker have built.

This is very neat stuff. It couples biological and engineering materials and is a step on the road towards real tissue and organ engineering.

It also made me thing of something interesting. Since contractile tissue (and some electrical stimulation) was all that was needed, could something similar to this have happened before? Think of it: polymer films abound in nature. Cooperative organisms (such as volvox) are also just has ubiquitous. Imagine a colony of contractile organisms who manage to adhere to a non-living flexible substrate. They get a boost in that they become more mobile. Later, the substrate becomes catalytic: it is only necessary to trigger the response. Later, still, it's not needed at all.

Cooperative life begins.

Thanks to Jim Cambias, et al, over at Science Made Cool for this one. If you don't know their site, or Jim's work, run do not walk over there.

DIY Day

Haven't done one of these in a while. So: here are some interesting projects:
Aluminum Cast Foundry
Scrapwood loom
Scrapwood vertical garden
Wind Powered Water Pump
Biodegradable and Safe Herbicide
Underwater beach for fiddler crabs
Amphibious Desert Bike
Carpenter Bee Trap

What's Really in Obamacare?

Sarah Kliff has a good treatment of a woman who has managed to take advantage of the Obamacare law. It shows what's in there. And it's great. See here.

Lies, Damned Lies and the RNC

It's started to look like this election is going to be between liars and ball-less wonders.

By the way, by "Ball-Less Wonders" I mean Democrats. By "liars" I mean Republicans.

This is not good.

Let's talk about the Republicans. Remember that to them Global Warming is a hoax. However, many Republicans in the house represent the farm states and the south. Several near west states such as North Dakota are similarly represented.

They are farm dependent. 


Yet we are in a massive drought. The worst drought since the fifties. This graph is from Ezra Klein. The red bit is us right now.

It's pretty clear that we're in for more droughts in the future. (See also here.)

Yet, where is the relief from congress? For that matter, where is the damned farm bill?

Locked up in a Republican congress, that's where, getting ready to be thrown under a bus.

Or, let's talk about Obamacare. Remember those states that are opting out of the Medicaid expansion? (For those that have forgotten it's Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina and Texas: all Republican controlled.)  Okay. They don't want to play. But the law says that if they don't the federal government does. So the rest of the country has to pony up to cover their sorry asses. Consequently, it costs more money than if they did their job.

Not to mention Medicaid is regularly cheaper than private insurance. Here's a quote from Ezra Klein's article here:

A number of factors explain why Medicaid costs less. It tends to pay doctors lower reimbursement rates than private plans. About 7 percent of the program’s funds go toward administrative costs, about half the rate seen in private plans. What exactly this means for the health of its enrollees certainly can
 be — and is being — debated. 

That lower spending in the Medicaid programs explains how, if states opt out of the expansion, the federal government could be on the hook to spend more money — all while covering fewer people.

So we can pump more money into the coffers of insurance companies or spend it on patients. The Republicans in those states thing money in private corporations is better.

For God's sake, California pays Medicaid doctors half as much as North Dakota. (See here.)

Let's not forget the debt ceiling debacle-- wholly and completely created by the Republicans. Which cost us at least 1.3 billion. (See here.)

All of this is in the name of fiscal responsibility. Which is clearly a lie.

But the Democrats will save us. Right? The Democrats who haven't been able to get anything through congress because of Republican filibusters? And after it was absolutely clear what the Republicans were going to do refused to reform the filibuster rule? Or hold their feet to the fire and actually make them filibuster? Who are only now saying they'll reform filibuster rules if they win in November?

Yeah. Right.

Republicans to Raise Taxes

The Tax Hike Prevention Act of 2013, Orrin Hatch's not-so-secrete love child by Grover Norquist, raises taxes. Not on the rich, mind you. Only on the poor and middle class.

What a *#$*& surprise.

See here.

Small Footprints

I've been interested in tiny houses for a while. Here are some links that are fun.

Interesting entry over at the Tiny House Blog about Christiana, an interesting place in Copenhagen. Here's a wiki entry, atlas obscura entry and a youtube video.

More tiny houses here and here.

Earth bags at the Natural Building Blog.

Canopy Cottage, another curious construction over at tiny house.

The Ultimate designer aquaponics. Go thou and drool.

Romney vs Obama Tax Plan

Here's the graph showing who's getting a tax change on the two plans. Romney is red. Obama is blue.

Here's the text explaining the graph.


Now: go vote your pocket book.