Continuing my trend of belatedly writing short descriptions of papers my group has published, this one came out in May, describing a new approach we developed for measuring the viscosity of lipid membranes: “Measuring Lipid Membrane Viscosity Using Rotational and Translational Probe Diffusion,” Tristan T. Hormel, Sarah Q. Kurihara, M. Kathleen Brennan, Matthew C. Wozniak, … Continue reading Viscosity in two dimensions
Like last year, several of us from the Physics Department manned a booth at the Oregon Country Fair, the long-running hippie / arts / music / performance / counterculture festival that occurs each year outside Eugene. I worked there today, which was lots of fun. Though our booth was mostly about energy — lots of … Continue reading “You should do birthday parties!” — Year 2 at the Oregon Country Fair
This week’s Economist has a fascinating map of the number of UFO sightings per capita, by state: When I saw this last Friday, it raised a few questions: What’s up with Washington? How well do UFO reports correlate with population density? (Do aliens have a fondness for sparsely settled, wide-open spaces?) Could I use any … Continue reading Sasquatch is an alien! (A proof in three graphs)
The Eighteenth Elephant 