Particle physics experiments are huge—they have to be, in order to accelerate particles with enough energy to properly study them. The Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland is nearly 17 miles around, while others are closer to the 2-mile range. But scientists working on a new experiment reported Wednesday that they’ve…
Should you find yourself inside a black hole, you will die. Should you find yourself near a black hole, you will also die. Aside from the fact that these massive, light-trapping monsters are impossible to reach on human timescales, there are simply not many ways to measure the plasma surrounding them without dying or…
Yowza. Here’s a crazy rigged contraption that uses microwave energy from cavity magnetron to generate plasma and burn the heck out of things faster than you can warm a Hot Pocket. We can see it squeeze out plasma in a lightbulb, shatter glass and make basically anything burn. It’s a neat exercise to show how powerful…
The Backyard Scientist’s slow motion series is always fun because they’re just quick and easy experiments that show off cool tricks you can do at home (don’t do it at home). This time he makes plasma with a microwave oven transformer (which creates a super cool arc of plasma around the blue bolt of electricity) and…
Well, here's something cosmic to be thankful for this weekend. A NASA-led study of the Van Allen radiation belts has uncovered new information about the invisible "shield" that keeps harmful ultrarelativistic electrons from the Earth.
Today I found out about a man who saved over two million lives just by donating his somewhat unique blood plasma.
Researchers at NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) posted a short video on their Facebook page, showing a "small, hovering mass of twisted strands of plasma" as it "shifted back and forth before erupting into space."
The pink glow you see above is coming from the world's smallest plasma transistor, an unfathomably miniscule device 100 times smaller than the width of a human hair. It's not just tiny, it's tough, and theoretically able to withstand brutal environments. And it could massively change consumer electronics.
So there's Windex, but if that's feeling too cleaning product-y for you, be aware that you can also clean glass with pure oxygen plasma. Sure.
Panasonic's ST/VT/ZT plasmas are the best televisions on the market, and they won't be on the market much longer. Amazon and Paul's TV both have versions of these sets on sale today, and that is a sick price on the 55" VT.
Trying to watch the sun's explosions with your naked eyes is a recipe for blindness, but luckily NASA has a couple of telescopes that can show you all that fusion glory with none of the permanent ocular damage. Take, for instance, this 200,000-mile long canyon of fire.
According to Reuters, Panasonic is going to stop production of its fantastic plasma TV sets by March 2014. That sucks. But also not surprising since previous reports had hinted at Panasonic planning to cut its TV production and that the TV market has been overtaken by seemingly every other technology not named plasma.
Reuters is reporting that Panasonic is planning to cut its TV production—and perhaps pull of out of the plasma TV market altogether.
What happens when you discharge a 4,500 Volt capacitor into a bucket of copper sulfate? Apparently you raise the spirit of Cthulhu. He just happened to come back to us in the form of a tentacled ball of plasma. Copper sulfate (CuSO4), is a copper atom, a sulfur atom, and four oxygen atoms. Plasma happens when either…
Specifically, that bright dot in the center of this image is Hercules A, a galaxy located over two billion light-years from Earth. But what really dominates the scene are the two gargantuan jets of plasma shooting out of Hercules A.
I know, I know. We all want to enjoy a gorgeous OLED TV or eat 4K visual deliciousness in our living room but those sets are ridiculously expensive and going to be pretty unrealistic for a long while. The best TV at the moment is the Panasonic VT50, a plasma screen, but we all know people's eyeballs have their own…
Panasonic and Samsung make some sweet plasma TVs. The newest LG, the 9700, is definitely an improvement over the company's plasmas to date. But can it maintain the pace set by its competitors?
The phrase, "holy shit, this is a fantastic television," is bandied about far too often. In the case of the Panasonic 55-inch VT50 Plasma, it's spot on.
