That is great -- I teach English at a high school in Thailand and I will have to show this to the science teachers. No microscopes, but I think all the parts would be easily available.

And heck, I should build one myself to mess around with my daughter (not a year old yet so it will be a while, but that will make a good father/daughter project too).

Great sift!

I use a microscope to put parts on and do them one at a time... place... solder... place. solder.... repeat

Maher is quickly falling into the trap of many 'New Atheists' and turning towards a strong denouncement of Islam (http://www.salon.com/2013/03/30/dawkins_harris_hitchens_new_atheists_flirt_with_islamophobia/).

The end of that article is particularly telling after having read the whole thread of comments here:

"Proving that a religion — any religion — is evil, though, is just as pointless and impossible an endeavor as trying to prove that God does or doesn’t exist. Neither has been accomplished yet. And neither will."

One thing that has been hinted at here but not overtly said is that there is a dominant, violent ideology which certainly rivals if not trumps the posited "evil" Islam in terms of casualties and suffering. Who builds the drones and the bombs and the fighter jets that rain fire from the skies? Who manufactures the small arms and ammunition that fuel countless civil wars across the globe? For me the answer is clear: oligarchical, capitalist states. Let's put them (and by them, I mean complicitly us) under the microscope for their acts instead of undertaking the Sisyphean task of proving that one religion is more evil than another.

Ok, Matt ... you determined that scripture and theology did not sufficiently answer the questions you were asking. Is there another set of beliefs which does? What is the source of any knowledge that you have? Have you yourself tracked a quantum particle/wave. Or have you even watched a paramecium under a microscope and wondered why it "swims".

If you can't devise a belief structure which accounts for the observed behavior of the universe, then you are ultimately bound by descriptions given by others. And if you cannot refute their given explanation based on observable phenomena, you have only wishful thinking to support your beliefs.

The Rings books are some of the most amazing fiction ever. That's to say, they are rich analogies for real day-to-day life. The story of a truly alien universe can be found at the end of a microscope where no creatures have anything we can identify as pride or rage or homes or property. Good fantasy, OTOH, mirrors real life in moving ways.

Memorizing all that crap and thinking it's worth something, however, I don't get.

Ponds and streams were an endless source of fascination when I was young. I too had a decent microscope (though probably not as decent as your mom's). Those are fond memories.

I was very lucky to grow up with a mother who is also a biology teacher. We had a decent microscope at home and a pond in the garden. It felt incredibly special to put a small piece of pond weed on a slide and put it under the microscope. It's an alien world in a drop of water and my brother and I found it fascinating.

I would urge any parents out there to get a microscope and play around with it with your kids. You'll be amazed what you see!

This doesn't seem particularly viral, but it does seem like a *commercial for the manufacturer. I always love seeing these assembly robots working super fast to assemble microscopic components.

I imagine it's a result of various forces and circumstances (I don't think it's a coincidence that the droplets were soapy water which would increase it's surface tension/bubble strength).

Also keep in mind that a droplets surface would be a mesh of the outermost water molecules held together by their polar attraction. As the sphere bounces and moves its surface would have mini waves and ripples along it that would push against and then move away from the molecules on the water surface below it as the kinetic and polar forces acted.

If you imagine that every sphere of water had portions of its surface moving away from the water surface below and then oscillating back towards the surface while the molecules on the spheres surface that had been touching the water surface below would begin to oscillate back into the sphere.

This would create many points of contact oscillating against and away from the water surface below and thus there might not be enough contact/pressure between the 2 surfaces for it to coalesce at any given time. Imagine bugs whose feet are tiny enough for them to "stand" on water due to surface tension and the principle would be the same. It'd be like an infinite number of these bugs legs jumping up and down on the water at a microscopic level.

Also I'm not familiar enough with how water molecules align themselves while at the surface of something so perhaps the alignment of their atoms helps as well?

Thats all a guess though I'm sure you could google the real answer.

Your Obama is an empty chair.>> ^quantumushroom:

"I want everybody to experience the abundance and the greatness of this country. I want everybody to be told how to do it, not told that it can't be done, which is what Obama does. If anybody ought to be under the microscope, it's Obama. Obama's tamping down expectations. Obama's ratcheting up fear. Obama's the guy whose foreign policy is falling apart. Obama's the guy who's watching our economy disintegrate. Obama's the guy whose policies are making it tougher and tougher and tougher for excellence to matter in one's pursuit of life.
Mitt Romney hasn't done anything to anybody.
--Rush

>> ^quantumushroom:

"I want everybody to experience the abundance and the greatness of this country. I want everybody to be told how to do it, not told that it can't be done, which is what Obama does. If anybody ought to be under the microscope, it's Obama. Obama's tamping down expectations. Obama's ratcheting up fear. Obama's the guy whose foreign policy is falling apart. Obama's the guy who's watching our economy disintegrate. Obama's the guy whose policies are making it tougher and tougher and tougher for excellence to matter in one's pursuit of life.
Mitt Romney hasn't done anything to anybody.
--Rush

"I want everybody to experience the abundance and the greatness of this country. I want everybody to be told how to do it, not told that it can't be done, which is what Obama does. If anybody ought to be under the microscope, it's Obama. Obama's tamping down expectations. Obama's ratcheting up fear. Obama's the guy whose foreign policy is falling apart. Obama's the guy who's watching our economy disintegrate. Obama's the guy whose policies are making it tougher and tougher and tougher for excellence to matter in one's pursuit of life.

Mitt Romney hasn't done anything to anybody.

--Rush

>> ^probie:

What is it with Australia? Seriously. It's as if all the really nasty evolution took place in one small corner of the planet. Great Whites, tiny jellyfish that can kill you, mammals that produce poison, microscopic hypodermic needle plants...


As Dylan Moran said
"No-one should live there. It's a rock. On fire. And everything there is trying to kill you."

disclaimer: I lived in sydney for two years and nothing succeeded in killing me.

What is it with Australia? Seriously. It's as if all the really nasty evolution took place in one small corner of the planet. Great Whites, tiny jellyfish that can kill you, mammals that produce poison, microscopic hypodermic needle plants...