Single Atom Photographed

A photograph showing a single atom has won a science photography contest. David Nadlinger achieved the shot primarily through patience and planning rather than gadgetry.

The atom appears in the dead center of the photo: it’s the tiny purple dot in a black space with a pointy tip on either side. These tips are electrodes, two millimeters apart, that are suspending the atom in mid-air.

It’s an atom of strontium, a metal with similar properties to calcium. It was previously widely used in the process of extracting sugar from molasses and in the production of cathode ray television sets. Today its main uses are in radiotherapy for cancers that have spread to bones and in fireworks for its dramatic red appearance when burning.

The purple (or rather blue-violet) color of the atom in the photo isn’t from burning but instead because that was the color of laser needed to produce the shot. Nadlinger discovered that the atom absorbed light particles of that color and then re-emitted them for just the right period of time to be captured by a long-exposure photograph.

The pic was taken with an ordinary camera through the window of an ultra-high vacuum chamber that was needed to hold the atom in place. Nadlinger’s only specialized photographic equipment was an extension tube to increase the lens’s focal length.


Dance of the Drunken Gods – Epic Drunken Fist vs. Praying Mantis Kung Fu Fight

From Martial Club:

The wait is finally over! If you are a fan of the old school hong kong era, you will definitely enjoy this film! This project took 7 full days of shooting in the grueling hot sun from sun up to sun down! We would like to thank everyone in our MARTIAL CLUB STUNT FAMILY who came out and suffered in the hot sun to help us capture our vision on screen. We also cannot thank our teammates from the ANDY LONG STUNT TEAM enough for their help in the post production process from color grading, dubbing, translation, subtitles, and making sure every detail of the film is as true to the era that inspired us that in can be! Of course we can’t forget all our Marital Club fans and supporters because you guys are the driving force behind all the suffering we put ourselves through to create classic Martial Arts Action! Be sure to stay tuned because we have so much more coming and so much more planned guys don’t even know!

[MartialClub]

Blade Trilogy Gets the “Honest Trailers” Treatment [Video]

Relive the groundbreaking superhero trilogy with more firsts than you can shake a steak at, such as, Marvel’s first movie franchise; the first black superhero movie franchise; Ryan Reynolds first smart-ass comic book movie role; the first Marvel hallway fight scene; the first Marvel franchise to have a solid origin story and an even better sequel to then go off the rails on the third one.

[Screen Junkies]

Verizon To Lock New Handsets

Verizon is to start locking new phones, something it calls an anti-theft measure. It’s raised some questions about whether the move breaches a deal it made with the FCC.

According to Verizon, the idea isn’t that the phone will remain locked and forcing users to take its service. At first the phone can be unlocked simply by signing up and activating service, meaning users can switch immediately. From this spring that will change and there’ll be a minimum period before unlocking is possible. Verizon says the lock will remain for a “brief period of time” but hasn’t confirmed exactly how long it will be.

Verizon says the move is to deter people from stealing phones from stores, which is a particular risk given the small size of a phone and the high price it can command among buyers who don’t ask questions about where it came from. The carrier pointed to several recent cases of armed robberies in phone stores.

Having a waiting period before allowing an unlock is hardly a rarity in the smartphone market, but it does raise some regulatory issues. Verizon won the right to operate the spectrum used for its 4G network in an FCC auction. The terms of that auction and the accompanying license specifically said Verizon could not “configure handsets it provides to prohibit use of such handsets on other providers’ networks.”

Verizon says that’s not an issue because it’s new policy does not “impact the spirit of that agreement”. It appears that were anyone to formally complain to the FCC, the onus would be on Verizon to prove that argument.