Visualize This

Did you ever want to present information in a visual format, but didn't know which one was most appropriate? Don't know a Petri net from a concept fan? Or perhaps you just need even more visual stimulus from your information?

Well, welcome to a feast of visualization splendor. Just have a glance at the Periodic Table of Visualization Methods... your eyes will never go hungry again.

Thanks to Visual Literacy for creating this great info, and to Jeff Atwood of Coding Horror for blogging about it.

Lord Raise Me Up

As usual, human ingenuity has raised science to a new height. In this case, a very small height, but let us not quibble about a few details. UK researchers have discovered a way to circumvent the Casimir force, which is what causes very small things to clump together. By using a clever type of lens, the researchers were able to reverse the Casimir force in their experiment.

Despite the fun headlines, this does not mean repulsors for the masses. Any practical application would likely be amazing new manufacturing techniques for nano-tech materials, and new types of nano-devices, not flying cars at this point. More like nano-engines that are more efficient due to reducing friction by "floating" the components of the device together.

At the very least, this should spawn a new outbreak of copycat perpetual motion machines and the like...