Scientists Levitate Small Animals

Moderators: Elvis, DrVolin, Jeff

Scientists Levitate Small Animals

Postby seemslikeadream » Thu Nov 30, 2006 3:01 pm

http://www.livescience.com/technology/0 ... ation.html

Image

Scientists have now levitated small live animals using sounds that are, well, uplifting.

In the past, researchers at Northwestern Polytechnical University in Xi'an, China, used ultrasound fields to successfully levitate globs of the heaviest solid and liquid—iridium and mercury, respectively. The aim of their work is to learn how to manufacture everything from pharmaceuticals to alloys without the aid of containers. At times compounds are too corrosive for containers to hold, or they react with containers in other undesirable ways.


"An interesting question is, 'What will happen if a living animal is put into the acoustic field?' Will it also be stably levitated?" researcher Wenjun Xie, a materials physicist at Northwestern Polytechnical University, told LiveScience.

Xie and his colleagues employed an ultrasound emitter and reflector that generated a sound pressure field between them. The emitter produced roughly 20-millimeter-wavelength sounds, meaning it could in theory levitate objects half that wavelength or less.

After the investigators got the ultrasound field going, they used tweezers to carefully place animals between the emitter and reflector. The scientists found they could float ants, beetles, spiders, ladybugs, bees, tadpoles and fish up to a little more than a third of an inch long in midair. When they levitated the fish and tadpole, the researchers added water to the ultrasound field every minute via syringe.

The levitated ant tried crawling in the air and struggled to escape by rapidly flexing its legs, although it generally failed because its feet find little purchase in the air. The ladybug tried flying away but also failed when the field was too strong to break away from.

"We must control the levitation force carefully, because they try to fly away," Xie said. "An interesting moment was when my colleagues and I had to catch escaping ladybugs."

The ant and ladybug appeared fine after 30 minutes of levitation, although the fish did not fare as well, due to the inadequate water supply, the scientists report.

"Our results may provide some methods or ideas for biology research," Xie said. "We have tried to hatch eggs of fish [during] acoustic levitation."


The research team reported their findings online Nov. 20 in the journal Applied Physics Letters.
User avatar
seemslikeadream
 
Posts: 32090
Joined: Wed Apr 27, 2005 11:28 pm
Location: into the black
Blog: View Blog (83)

Postby noen » Thu Nov 30, 2006 3:11 pm

You can also levitate small frogs with powerful magnets.
noen
 
Posts: 102
Joined: Sun Nov 12, 2006 5:46 am
Blog: View Blog (0)

Air pressure = 'wind.'

Postby Hugh Manatee Wins » Thu Nov 30, 2006 4:30 pm

Sound is air pressure so this is the equivalent of holding a ping pong ball up with a blower, just low pressure.
User avatar
Hugh Manatee Wins
 
Posts: 9869
Joined: Wed Nov 23, 2005 6:51 pm
Location: in context
Blog: View Blog (0)

Let's fly...

Postby Seamus OBlimey » Thu Nov 30, 2006 5:57 pm

20-millimeter-wavelength is towards the upper limit of human hearing...

http://www.mcsquared.com/wavelength.htm 17200 Hz.
(This information is provided with no warranty of its accuracy, or applicability, and any use made of this information is done so at the sole risk of the user. )

Maybe a few legs being pulled (off bugs) here?

I can think of much more uplifting sounds.
User avatar
Seamus OBlimey
 
Posts: 3154
Joined: Wed Jun 14, 2006 4:14 pm
Location: Gods own country
Blog: View Blog (0)

Postby tal » Fri Dec 01, 2006 12:37 am

tal
 
Posts: 406
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2005 11:20 pm
Blog: View Blog (0)


Return to General Discussion

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 169 guests