‘BLOOD LAMP’ Mike Thompson, an artist based in Amsterdam, wanted to design a piece that forced people to think about the cost of the power they use. So he made a lamp lit with the user’s blood. His “Blood Lamp” glows thanks to a reaction with luminol, a molecule used in police forensics that gives off electric blue light when exposed to an iron-rich protein in blood called hemoglobin. Iron atoms catalyze the oxidation of luminol, creating a high-energy, unstable peroxide molecule that releases energy as blue light as it relaxes to its low-energy ground state. After the user adds blood and the reaction consumes all of the luminol, the light fades, and the lamp can never be used again.
Credit: Mike Thompson
Related C&EN Content:
Counting CD4+ T Cells By Chemiluminescence
Plane To See
My friend just told me that her PI was disappointed when one of her PhD students took a week off in the summer last year…
Lovely crystallization effect from an extraction the other day
Vacuum distillation of polyaromatic compounds could be fun.
In this case I only had to sit with an UV lamp to see when will my compound distill, since it had a bright blue fluorescence (as seen), while the side products of the reaction did not had any visible emission when irradiated with UV light.
I just knew that my inherent mistrust of AI would save me someday
Researchers from Georgia Tech, backed by money from the Air Force, ran a test to see if people trying to escape from a high-rise building would trust a robot to lead them. Overwhelmingly, the sheeple followed the little droid to their simulated deaths. In the video, the researchers theorize why people obliged.
Follow @the-future-now
It’s Schlier-tastic!!
These are my invisible wonders! Gas flows and fluid interactions. Nothing but hot air, metho and acetone, yup, humble old nail polish remover.
The images were captured using a colour indicating z-system schlieren optical array, an open shutter and a flash duration of 125 microseconds.
As you can see by these profiles, a universal constant amongst science ladies is a need for hairties.
What better way to celebrate Women’s History Month than by celebrating these amazing and accomplished women of science, brought to you by Lauren Goldberg (aka Auberg Designs on Etsy).
Each necklace sports the profile (or cameo) of a different woman who pioneered science in her own way. Available in silver, copper, or bronze with different finishes. So many phenomenal women, I can’t choose just one!
Annie Jump Cannon - astronomer
Caroline Herschel - astronomer
Heddy Lamar - inventor/actress
Ada Lovelace - programmer
Grace Hopper - programmer
Jane Goodall - primatologist
Marie Curie - chemist/physicist
Hypatia of Alexandria - mathematician
Sophie Germain - mathematician
Sally Ride - astronaut
Maud Menten - chemist
Lisa Meitner - physicist
BONUS: In honor of Women’s History Month, they are all on sale through the end of March.
- Summer
1) Sally Ride
As the first American woman to go to space in 1983, Sally Ride served as an inspiration for countless American girls. She also remains the youngest American astronaut to have traveled to space at age 32. Ride was extremely private about her personal life, but her obituary revealed her partner of 27 years was Tam O’Shaughnessy, making Ride the first known LGBT astronaut.
2) Ada Lovelace
Born in 1815, British mathematician and writer Ada Lovelace was way ahead of her time. She is considered to be the founder of scientific computing, and is chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage’s early mechanical computer, the Analytical Engine. For the Analytical Engine, Lovelace wrote the first algorithm to be carried out by a machine, and is regarded as the first computer programmer
3) Marie Maynard Daly
Marie Daly was the first black woman to earn a Ph.D. in chemistry in the United States (from Columbia University in 1947). Daly worked as a physical science instructor at Howard University while conducting research under the direction of Herman R. Branson. Daly was then awarded a grant by the American Cancer Society to support her research. She studied the role of cytoplasmic ribonucleoprotein in protein synthesis, and the effects of feeding and fasting conditions on how protein metabolism changed in mice. She also worked as an assistant professor at Albert Einstein College of Medicine at Yeshiva University, served as an investigator for the American Heart Association, and was a member of the prestigious board of governors of the New York Academy of Sciences.
4) Chien Shiung Wu
Chien Shiung Wu was a Chinese American experimental physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project, and helped develop the process of separating uranium metal into uranium-235 and uranium-238. Though her colleagues took the credit and won the Nobel Prize in physics, Wu is best known for conducting the Wu experiment, which contradicted the hypothetical law of conservation of parity.
5) Katherine Johnson
Katherine Johnson, age 97, is an American physicist and mathematician who contributed to America’s aeronautics and space programs. Her enormous contributions with the application of early digital electronic computers at NASA, and her accuracy in calculating celestial navigation made her a key part of the 1969 Apollo 11 flight to the moon. She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama in 2015.
6) Rosalind Franklin
While working as a research associate in 1951 at King’s College in London, Franklin encountered Maurice Wilkins, who was also studying the structure of DNA. Rosalind Franklin used x-rays to take a picture of DNA—known as photo 51. James Watson and Francis Crick were studying DNA at Cambridge University, and communicated with Wilkins, who showed them Franklin’s image of DNA without her knowledge. While Franklin’s image of the DNA molecule was key to the work of Watson, Crick, and Wilkins, they received significantly more credit and acclaim. Franklin died of ovarian cancer four years before Watson, Crick, and Wilkins received the Nobel Prize.
7) Hypatia of Alexandria
Women have been in STEM fields forever! Hypatia of Alexandria was born somewhere between AD 350-370, and was murdered by a Christian mob in AD 415. She was a Greek mathematician, astronomer, and philosopher in Egypt, and was most notable for being the head of the Neoplatonic school at Alexandria where she taught philosophy and astronomy.
8) Annie J. Easley
Born in 1933, Annie J. Easley was a computer scientist, mathematician, and rocket scientist. She was also one of the first African-Americans in her field. In her work with NASA and its predecessor (the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), she was a leading member of the team that developed software for the Centaur rocket stage.
9) Gertrude B. Elion
American biochemist and pharmacologist is best known for her Nobel Prize winning work developing a multitude of new drugs, and using research methods that led to the development of the AIDS drug, AZT. Elion fittingly said, “I had no specific bent toward science until my grandfather died of cancer. I decided nobody should suffer that much.”
10) Flossie Wong-Staal
Virologist and molecular biologist, Flossie Wong-Staal, was the first scientist to clone HIV, which was a major step in proving that HIV is the cause of AIDS. Wong-Staal’s work has also focused on hepatitis C, and she currently works as Chief Scientific Officer at a drug development company.