Microcosm and Macrocosm

Macrocosm

I'm a little late in hearing about this, but earlier this month, there were spottings of a bluish-green spiral in the sky in Norway.



Somehow, reading up on the blue spiral, I ended up on a tangent,
and started trying to find out more about Dr. Pjotr Garjajev who is a Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist.
(I've also seen his name listed as Dr. Peter Gariaev).
He's accredited with the discovery of the "DNA Phantom Effect", and as the father of "Wave-genetics"

I was watching some of the videos by one of the researchers mentioned on that examiner link above,
and in one of them, he had made mention of some of his findings that sounded quite astonishing to me.
The claim was that Dr. Pjotr Garjajev found a way to rewrite the DNA of frog eggs as salamander eggs simply by shining 'waves' of salamander eggs into them. Sadly, I haven't turned up much on the topic, and I'm a layperson when it comes to science.

That music sure is easy on the eyes!

Ruben's Tube

Before seeing one of these, I had never seen such a clear visual representation of a standing wave... without the use of a computer screen that is.
Video example


Musical Tesla Coils

Long have I known about Tesla coils. Until recently though, I had never known that they could actually produce music. The lightning bolts that this thing produces also causes a string of click-like sounds that are so quick in succession that they actually sound like solid notes. Because of this, these things can make both the music you hear, and the visual display to go along with it.
Video example


Vibrating Rice

I warn you... some of the tones produced in this video are pretty piercing, but the patterns formed by the rice are pretty
Video example


Cornstarch Cymatics

Non-Newtonian fluids have some very interesting properties. Exposing them to sound/vibration makes that pretty easy to see. Watch them come to life!
Video example

Next Gen Communications

Google Wave
I'm loving all of the hype that the new Google Wave is getting,
and I can definitely see the potential that it promises.
For now though (being that it's still in preview) it still seems rather lonely,
has a somewhat clumsy interface still,
and many of the promising bots/gadgets are not yet fully functional.

If you haven't yet heard of/or seen anything about Google Wave,
I highly suggest checking it out.
Here are a couple of videos to get you informed.

Long Video
Short Video

In the long run though, I think it will probably totally change the way we communicate online.



There are some other great services coming to the surface now also. Many of them seem to be geared towards helping us cut through all the clutter that exists in the various forms of current online communication. Here are some of the ones that I've found interesting so far.


Inbox2 (video here)is taking an interesting approach at letting you merge various types of email services and social networking services in such a way that all of their communications can take place under a single roof. Its interface seems to be quite intuitive too, allowing you to turn off various types of notifications at times when you think they will be inconvenient.

Mozilla Raindrop (video here)is a new, open source web service that is promising to think about communications more like you do. It knows that your personal emails should take precedence over bulk messages, and offers a way to be able to filter various types of communications as such.
Not just an email client.

Threadsy (video here)is an integrated communications client that will tie into all your existing email and social networking accounts. Its interface is broken down into two panes. The left of which will display an inbox style view showing you all of the messages in your accounts that were directed specifically to you. The right hand side pane will show you 'unbound' messages which are typically going to be feeds of your friends/people you're following (much like an aggreagation of home pages from Twitter/Facebook etc...)