Checking the Facts and Sharing the Truth

Monthly Archives: February 2016

Can you travel The Tube 'Futurama' style?

David Latchman
Physics, TV
2 responses
February 17, 2016

Set in the year 3000, the series Futurama features one of the most interesting forms of personal travel—pneumatic tubes. These were used primarily in the late 19th to the early 20th century to transport small packages over short distances, typically within a building or city. Though it is in very limited use today, there has been renewed...

Is Spider-Man's Wall-Crawling Impossible?

David Latchman
Physics, Science
No responses
February 10, 2016

Earlier this month, scientists from the University of Cambridge published an article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences titled, "Extreme positive allometry of animal adhesive pads and the size limits of adhesion-based climbing." This article said basically one thing: geckos are the largest creatures that can climb walls. Stephen Colbert lamented the study's finding on The...