Space junk is a real problem. NASA now tracks around 20,000 pieces of debris orbiting Earth, most of them larger than 10cm across. Since the average speed of a collision between orbiting objects is 10 km/s these pieces of trash can cause a lot of damage despite their small size.

Scientists in Switzerland have a plan to clean up space junk – it involves creating a ‘Janitor Satellite’ that will seek out pieces of space junk to drag back into the atmosphere causing them to burn up.

This video was created for the Aussie science show Catalyst on the ABC: http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst

Corn flour blown through a funnel produces an excellent fireball. This both looks cool and demonstrates some interesting science. In any chemical reaction, the reactants must mix with each other significantly in order to increase the rate of reaction. Here we demonstrate that corn flour on a spoon burns slowly, but blown from a funnel, the reaction is dramatic and violent. This is because the surface area where the reaction can occur is greatly increased.

HD Slinky Slow-mo http://bit.ly/TRa4sE
How to make solid nitrogen http://bit.ly/RqPw8l
Levitating BBQ http://bit.ly/SWgOWh
Electric Flame http://bit.ly/Q3enCb

As always, if you are planning to recreate this experiment, make sure you have appropriate supervision and take necessary precautions.

Hope this was worth the wait! So many people helped with this video: Prof John Sperry, Hank Green, Henry Reich, CGP Grey, Prof Poliakoff, my mum filmed for me in beautiful Stanley Park and Jen S helped with the fourth version of the script.

Prof John Sperry http://biologylabs.utah.edu/sperry/john.html
Hank Green (SciShow) http://www.youtube.com/user/scishow
Henry Reich (minutephysics) http://www.youtube.com/user/minutephysics
CGP Grey http://www.youtube.com/user/cgpgrey
Prof Poliakoff (Periodic Videos) http://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos

Also thanks to the Palais de la Decouverte – they helped me with the whole vacuum pump setup in Paris. No, I could not actually suck water up 10m – I did about 4m, but the vacuum pump was easily able to do it and I saw spontaneous boiling on all of our various trials. Footage from this may end up on 2Veritasium.

Trees create immense negative pressures of 10’s of atmospheres by evaporating water from nanoscale pores, sucking water up 100m in a state where it should be boiling but can’t because the perfect xylem tubes contain no air bubbles, just so that most of it can evaporate in the process of absorbing a couple molecules of carbon dioxide. Now I didn’t mention the cohesion of water (that it sticks to itself well) but this is implicit in the description of negative pressure, strong surface tension etc.

For a report on ABC’s Catalyst program (http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/), I visited the Large Hadron Collider in Switzerland to find out what is being done now that the Higgs Boson has been discovered.

Although its mass has been measured around 125-126 GeV most of the other properties of the particle remain unknown. Its spin appears to be 0 or 2 but more results are required to nail this down. If it is the standard model Higgs, the spin should be 0, resulting in a fairly symmetric distribution of decay products in the detectors.

We may know this year if it’s not the standard model Higgs – this would be the case if it doesn’t decay into specific particles with the expected frequency. However if it is the standard model Higgs, it may take many more years to be certain. The large hadron collider will be shut down in 2013 for upgrades so that higher energies up to 14 TeV can be tested. Right now the LHC is operating at 8 TeV. The next announcement is expected in December.

Yes, I have made a similar vid before. This is the Australian TV version for the ABC show Catalyst http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/
Misconceptions About Temperature http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqDbMEdLiCs
The Mysterious Falling Slinky http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mAA613hqqZ0
Why Are Astronauts Weightless? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQOHRKKNNLQ

And for those of you wanting a more General Relativity based explanation. Don’t worry, it’s coming.

ShaggyPals.com is a new pet lover’s social network. Sites like Facebook make it awkward to have a page or profile for your pet, but don’t your own “shaggy pals” deserve more? Unlike other social networks, ShaggyPals.com was created with pets in mind. It has much of the functionality you get with Facebook, including video uploads and great sharing abilities.

Signing up is easy. You can either quickly sign up for an account or connect with an existing account on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more.

What are you waiting for? Get your pets the attention they deserve and be in the company of fellow pet lovers. See you there!

ShaggyPals.com home

Microwave grape plasma: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RwTjsRt0Fzo
Northern Lights: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knwiWm4DpvQ
Nanodiamonds in candle flames: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzOkuGQC3Rw
Relight Candle Trick: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1tXPVTIisl0

Is a flame really a plasma? Well it depends on your definition of plasma, but there are certainly ions in a flame, formed as molecules collide with each other at high speed, sometimes knocking electrons off of their atoms.

Special thanks to the Palais de la Decouverte for helping me perform this experiment. Using tens of thousands of volts on two metal plates, we created a strong electric field around the plasma. This pulled positive ions in one direction and negative ions in the other direction elongating the flame horizontally and causing it to flicker like a “papillon” (butterfly). Then we showed that much longer sparks can be made through the flame than through air since the ions increase the conductivity.

Made for ABC TV Catalyst http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/ as an extended version of my Comparing Temperatures video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNGJ0WHXMyE

A boomerang can execute its unique roundtrip flight by making use of three fundamental physics principles: lift, relative velocity, and gyroscopic precession.

numberphile http://bit.ly/numberphile
efit30 http://bit.ly/O4CMme
appchat http://bit.ly/NxAMlX
erikaanear http://bit.ly/MdyUzQ
whoisjimmy http://bit.ly/LtFzpW
minutephysics http://bit.ly/Muh6CC
1veritasium http://bit.ly/MrupzL

Lift is an important concept, not only in flying but also in sailing. This week I’m talking to Olympic Sailor, Hunter Lowden. But before I get to the physics of sailing I thought I would explain lift since it’s generally poorly understood.

minutephysics http://bit.ly/Muh6CC
1veritasium http://bit.ly/MrupzL
efit30 http://bit.ly/O4CMme
appchat http://bit.ly/NxAMlX
erikaanear http://bit.ly/MdyUzQ
whoisjimmy http://bit.ly/LtFzpW
numberphile http://bit.ly/numberphile

Music by Nathaniel Schroeder
youtube: http://bit.ly/pakJLE
myspace: http://mysp.ac/qtmZQj