Just wanted to briefly point out, having been baffled by the report, and versions of it I've heard repeated on radio, that the journalist who wrote this got it wrong: there are no "three bladed boomerangs" nor as some other report "three bladed helicopter rotors". The original article contains some computer images of cubes of space, showing a single instance of a repeating structure, which can be built up by stacking the cubes. The structure you get when you do that is best described as being of three sets of donut shapes, one for each of three perpendicular dimensions, with the donuts merged together at various points to form a rigid but very porous solid, so that a block of the material presents uniform rows of circles when viewed from six different orientations.
I don't know what this says about the state of science journalism, but I'm not surprised... -Pete On Wed, 16 Jun 2010, Darryl or Natalia wrote: > At last, the long awaited industry of cloaking devices is now possible! > Natalia > > > Posted by Yale U. of Public Affairs > > FOUND IN: Science & Engineering <http://opa.yale.edu/science-engineering> > > Colors of Butterfly Wing Yield Clues to Light-Altering Structures > > Published: June 14, 2010 ... > The gyroid is made of chitin, the tough starchy material that forms the > exterior of insects and crustaceans, Chitin is usually deposited on the > outer membranes of cells. The Yale team wanted to know how a cell can > sculpt itself into this extraordinary form, which resembles a network of > three-bladed boomerangs. ... > PRESS CONTACT: *Bill Hathaway* > <mailto:[email protected]> 203-432-1322 _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
