Thursday, October 28, 2010

RHX Status Update

We've got the basis for the RHX environmental chamber -- temperature and humidity controller as well as a Mettler XP56 balance. The XP56 has a 50 gram capacity and weighs to 1 microgram. We've insulated the acrylic environmental box to help with the temperature control. A cheaper version of the box could probably be made of sealed styrofoam with a little window -- but we had access to an already constructed glove box. Temperature is controlled to 0.1 degrees C using 3 thermoelectric peltier coolers. For the humidifier we use a commercial cigar humidor.

On another front, we finally got a solid date for a Plumbate sherd -- 1153 BP.

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Tuesday, October 5, 2010

A bit of a diversion

Over the past several months, Mark Collard has posted a number of YouTube videos on topics related to science, evolution and general irreverence. They are all humorous and great diversions from otherwise bleary days. I thought I'd aggregate them plus some others for your watching/listening pleasure.