Once more, it is Friday. And exactly seven days after the last one, too.

That can’t be a coincidence. Something must be up.

It as been a pretty awesome week for science, judging by the sheer number of cool as ice stories sitting in my Firefox browser just begging to be blogged about, including the effects of eating buckyballs, paint that changes colors according to temperature, using magic to make water flow backwards, and some pretty impressive news from the year 1976.

So with exactly twelve more words of ado, let us get on with the science and the appreciation thereof.

This One Is For You, Buckey!

Thanks to the dawning of the age of nanotechnology, we now have the tools to realize Buckminster Fuller’s dream of manufacturing fullerenes, which are molecules made up of sixty carbon atoms arranged in Fuller’s classic geodesic shape. The spherical ones have been nicknamed “buckyballs” in tribute to their inventor.

And already, these fullerenes are exhibiting some very interesting properties. And perhaps none more interesting than in a recent study where it was found that feeding rats olive oil infused with buckyballs nearly doubled their lifespan. And nobody is entirely sure why.

The French researchers who discovered this were only looking to see if the buckyballs were toxic or not. There had been previous indications that buckeyballs were indeed toxic, but that, rather mysteriously, they appeared to be more toxic when you used fewer of them.

Homeopaths take note.

But of all the possible results, nearly doubling the lifespan of the rats was not one that was foreseen. My theory, for what it is worth. is that buckyballs are powerful antioxidants and were perhaps able to therefore keep the number one leading cause of death in tame rats, namely cancer, at bay.

Then again, olive oil itself is filled with antioxidants, and that alone might explain the result.

Color My World

meanwhile, Chinese researchers have developed house paint that changes color in reaction to the outdoor temperature, thus maximizing energy efficiency.

The paint would absorb sunlight when the temperature was below 20 degrees Celsius, and reflect sunlight when it was above it. This simple but impressive trick could, according to its inventors, raise your home’s temperature by 4 degrees Celsius in the winter, and lower it by 8 degrees Celsius in the summer.

Not to mention freaking out your neighbors who are affording a free show of your house changing colors right before their eyes on certain days of the year. Imagine the ooohs and aahs from outside your house on a day when the temperature kept dipping above and below 20!

I really want to know what that would look like.

Four degrees warmer in the winter is pretty good, but eight degrees cooler in the summer is especially awesome. That could go a long way towards turning a hot day outside into a merely warm one inside. And all accomplished without any energy input from us humans. The solar energy itself propels the change.

It is not a full solution, but it could be a major help to future energy efficient homes.

And think of the fun artists could have making public art installations with paint that changes according to the temperature!

Fun With Time And Space

And speaking of having way too much fun with science, some people used some simple camera and sound trickery to create this absolutely eye popping and gorgeous illusion.

Are you not entertained? I absolutely love stuff like this. In order to get the effect, they passed the stream of water past a speaker vibrating at 24 hz, then synced the camera to shoot 24 frames per second, thus creating the illusion that the stream of water was frozen in time.

Then, it is just a matter of advancing the camera to 25 frames per second to make it look like it is going forward in slow motion, or even better, taking it down to 23 frames per second and then voila, it looks like the water is flowing backwards, from bowl to tap.

The principles are simple but the effect is extradodinary. To me, this seems like the perfect thing for a science museum to set up as an exhibit. Young and old alike would love it.

Amazing News From 1976

As usual, I have saved the best science story for last, and it is, in a way, a blast from the past.

Scientists have recently applied modern computing horsepower to data collected by the Viking probe on Mars in 1975, and have concluded that the Viking probe actually discovered life on Mars after all!

Specifically, they re-analyzed the results of the original life-detection experiment, called the Labeled Release experiment, and discovered a higher level of order within the result than could be explained by merely physical process. The more likely result is that such order only comes from biological processes.

Not exactly a slam dunk result. Statistical analysis is notoriously unreliable, and when it is extremely high level analysis of data from decades ago centred around so philosophically ill defined concept as “levels of order”, it is wise not to get too excited about the results.

But still, this is a pretty interesting result, and a good reason to further interest in somehow getting a good solid microscope to the surface of Mars some day so we can scoop up a little soil and take a good look at just what is going on in there.

The evidence is piling up that, at the very least, there was life on Mars at one point, and the liquid water on the surface of the planet to support it, and that might very well be what this recent analysis is indicating.

And recent studies of extremophile organisms here on Earth suggest that it is just possible that life, albeit quite primitive life, could very well live in the harsh conditions of the surface of Mars.

It is certainly not the Mars of Edgar Rice Burroughs or Ray Bradbury, but it would be very nice to discover we are not the only life in the neighborhood.

And if life can happen twice in the same solar system, what does that do for Drake’s Equation?