Butterflies' Wings to Bank Notes

Butterflies' Wings to Bank Notes

  9:06:00 PM    Science Lover

---

Scientists have discovered a way of mimicking the stunningly bright and beautiful colours found on the wings of tropical butterflies. The findings could have important applications in the security printing industry, helping to make bank notes and credit cards harder to forge.

The bright green wings of the P. blumei butterfly 
result from the mixing of the different colors of light 
that are reflected from different regions of the scales 
found on the wings of these butterflies. 
(Credit: Mathias Kolle, University of Cambridge)

The striking iridescent colours displayed on beetles, butterflies and other insects have long fascinated both physicists and biologists, but mimicking nature's most colourful, eye-catching surfaces has proved elusive.

This is partly because rather than relying on pigments, these colours are produced by light bouncing off microscopic structures on the insects' wings.

Mathias Kolle, working with Professor Ullrich Steiner and Professor Jeremy Baumberg of the University of Cambridge, studied the Indonesian Peacock or Swallowtail butterfly (Papilio blumei), whose wing scales are composed of intricate, microscopic structures that resemble the inside of an egg carton.

Because of their shape and the fact that they are made up of alternate layers of cuticle and air, these structures produce intense colours.

Using a combination of nanofabrication procedures -- including self-assembly and atomic layer deposition -- Kolle and his colleagues made structurally identical copies of the butterfly scales, and these copies produced the same vivid colours as the butterflies' wings.

According to Kolle: "We have unlocked one of nature's secrets and combined this knowledge with state-of-the-art nanofabrication to mimic the intricate optical designs found in nature."

"Although nature is better at self-assembly than we are, we have the advantage that we can use a wider variety of artificial, custom-made materials to optimise our optical structures."

As well as helping scientists gain a deeper understanding of the physics behind these butterflies' colours, being able to mimic them has promising applications in security printing.

"These artificial structures could be used to encrypt information in optical signatures on banknotes or other valuable items to protect them against forgery. We still need to refine our system but in future we could see structures based on butterflies wings shining from a £10 note or even our passports," he says.

Intriguingly, the butterfly may also be using its colours to encrypt itself -- appearing one colour to potential mates but another colour to predators.

Kolle explains: "The shiny green patches on this tropical butterfly's wing scales are a stunning example of nature's ingenuity in optical design. Seen with the right optical equipment these patches appear bright blue, but with the naked eye they appear green.

"This could explain why the butterfly has evolved this way of producing colour. If its eyes see fellow butterflies as bright blue, while predators only see green patches in a green tropical environment, then it can hide from predators at the same time as remaining visible to members of its own species."

Notes to editors: Mathias Kolle et al, 'Mimicking the colourful wing scale structure of the Papilio blumei butterfly' is published in Nature Nanotechnology on 30 May 2010.

The research was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and the Cambridge Newton Trust.

Read More

MP3 Quality Modifier

MP3 Quality Modifier

  8:12:00 PM    Science Lover

---

Great sound quality at small file sizes – perfect for your phone!


A lot of mobile phones are getting to be quite capable of playing back audio as well as standalone portable music players. Sony’s Walkman series and Nokia’s XPressMusic series of phones have sold like hot cakes recently.

The problem for a music lover, though, is fitting his entire collection into the small amount of disk space available. A lot of these phones do not support memory cards of more than 4-8GB, with some incapable of reading a card over 2GB. Alternately, a few handsets tend to get quite slow when a lot of data is stored on them.

Of course, managing a lot of music is also difficult on the smaller MP3 players, such as the iPod Shuffle, the Creative Zen Stone, etc. So space management has become an issue for music aficionados.

A great tool to try out is the MP3 Quality Modifier, which promises to take your music files and greatly compress their file sizes with minimal quality loss.

The standalone program – taking just 323KB of disk space itself – opens up to a window with a simple interface. First, you have to use the two buttons in the toolbar to add the MP3 files or a folder that you want to compress.

Once the files are listed in the main pane at the middle (complete with filename, song title, album, artist, bitrate and size), you can select or deselect which ones you want to edit.

Two sections at the bottom determine the kind of compression your file will go through. The ‘Bitrate’ section lets you select the type of mode (variable, constant, average), rate in kbps, and a preset (misspelt as ‘present’, and having four options: high quality, portable, compromise, very low quality). If you don’t know what you are doing when it comes to music editing, using these presets can be very handy.

The ‘Modus’ section gives you the option of figuring out the kind of output (mono, joint stereo, stereo and dual channels) and sample frequency – both of which can be adjusted directly through the preset.

Finally, choose a destination folder to save the newly-edited files to, and you’re done. Hit the ‘Start Process’ in the top toolbar and let the program do the rest. Quick, easy and very handy!

Rating: 3.5/5
Download: www.inspire-soft.net/?nav=soft_mp3qualitymodifier
Direct Download: www.inspire-soft.net/files/MP3QualityModifier1.0.zip
Size: 315.63KB

If you like this post, buy me a beer at $3!

Read More

WinCDEmu : Mounting a disc image was never so easy – just double-click and you’re done!

WinCDEmu : Mounting a disc image was never so easy – just double-click and you’re done!

  10:12:00 PM    Science Lover

---

If you play video games on your PC on a regular basis, you are bound to need a disc-mounting tool.

Honestly, playing a game off its ISO image loaded on your hard disk is so much faster than playing the same through its DVD. Disc images also go a long way in preserving your DVD – and when you are buying a game for around Rs 1,000, you want to make sure the disc lasts for as long as it can!

So after you create a disc image, how do you load it up on to your computer? The normal course is to use a ‘mounting’ tool such as Daemon Tools or Alcohol.

These programs create a virtual optical disc drive on your computer and load, or ‘mount’, the disc image onto it. The final product is as good as having a DVD in a drive! But the process to use Daemon Tools and Alcohol is long and tedious.

First, you have to run the program; then create a virtual drive through a series of three clicks; and then go on to load the image through a further four clicks. Things have got to be simpler than this, right? Well, that’s where WinCDEmu comes in.

Cutting out all the various steps in mounting a disc image, this software works automatically to give you the most streamlined interface possible. All you have to do is install the program and double-click your ISO image for the program to automatically create a virtual drive and load up the image.

It’s really that simple! And the tedious process of unmounting a disc and getting rid of the virtual drive has also been cut down: just right click the virtual drive, hit ‘eject’ and you’re done.

Supporting ISO, CUE, BIN, RAW and IMG file formats, the application can create an unlimited number of virtual drives at a time. A must-have for any gamer!

Rating: 5/5
Download: wincdemu.sysprogs.org
Direct Download: biznetnetworks.dl.sourceforge.net/sourceforge/wincdemu/WinCDEmu-2.2.exe
Size: 782.10 KB

If you like this post, buy me a beer at $3!

Read More

Hi-tech walking stick brings wind-up torch and alarm for elderly

Hi-tech walking stick brings wind-up torch and alarm for elderly

  12:23:00 AM    Science Lover

---

The new Slik-Stik walking stick is fitted with a torch, one-button alarm, and a magnet, and is powered by simply winding up a crank in the handle (inset)

A walking stick that uses wind-up technology to power a built-in torch and safety lights has been unveiled by a 70-year-old British inventor.

Developed by Trevor Baylis – who invented the wind-up radio almost two decades ago – the lightweight ‘Slik-Stik’ carries a personal alarm, can collapse to become tiny, and has a magnet to solve the tricky issue of picking up dropped keys.

His firm, Trevor Baylis Brands, recently launched the walking stick at an exhibition in London.

The Slik-Stik is the brainchild of Baylis’ 44-year-old protégé Denise Anstey, a disabled lady who was dissatisfied with the poor ergonomics and basic function of conventional walking sticks.

“When I was walking, I felt very vulnerable – a walking target. I thought it would be good for the elderly to have something they could immediately press to alert people to help,” she said.

The hi-tech walking stick is fitted with an induction generator system, with which a minute’s winding of the retractable handle is sufficient to provide several minutes of emergency illumination.

The front of the ergonomic hand-grip incorporates an LED torch light which shines a forward beam, and a foot-fall floodlight to ensure safe footing at night. The rear of the handle is fitted with a built-in panic alarm that can be activated to alert for help.

Finally, one further frustration for Denise has been addressed by the handy inclusion of a strong pick-up magnet in the handle. So in case she drops a set of keys, all she needs to do is flip the stick around.

If you like this post, buy me a beer at $3!

Read More