Save Our Earth, Let's Go Green First Place Winner in the AAAS 2009 Visualization Challenge: Photography
|
|
| Audience/Grade: | College Freshman-Continuing Education |
| Discipline(s): |
Ceramic Engineering Chemical, Biochemical, Biomolecular Engineering MEMS/NEMS Materials Engineering Nanotechnology |
| Special Topic(s): | |
| Learning Resource Type: |
Reference - Visuals |
| Media Type: |
Unknown |
| Author(s): |
Organization:AAAS - American Association for the Advancement of Science Boaz Pokroy Joanna Aizenberg Sung Hoon Kang |
| Description: | First place winner for photography for the 2009 AAAS International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge. "Noodlelike fibers stretch to latch onto a green sphere. Alone each fiber is powerless, but together they grip and support the orb, embodying cooperation at a microscopic scale. This electron microscope photograph catches self-assembling polymers in action, but it could also represent people's cooperative efforts to save Earth, says materials scientist Joanna Aizenberg of Harvard University. "Each hair represents a person or an organization," she says. "It shows our collaborative effort to hold up the planet and keep it running." Aizenberg and her colleagues design self-assembling polymers in hopes of creating energy-efficient materials. They have snapped many similar photos of micrometer-scale cooperation. This image shows hairlike fibers of epoxy resin assembling around a polystyrene sphere, which is about 2 micrometers in diameter. When the scientists added a drop of water containing these spheres, the hairs were standing straight up. But when the liquid began to evaporate, the fibers wound around the sphere. The hairs aren't attracted to the sphere chemically or magnetically; instead, capillary action glues them to it. (These same forces make wet hair clump.) "We're trying to make the process reversible and potentially use it in drug release or self-cleaning materials," Aizenberg says. She envisions polymer fingers that grab dust particles or floating bacteria and then later release them to flush the contaminants away." |
| Rating: |
|
| Related Resources | |
| Keywords: | visualization self-assembly polymers |
| Is Component of: |
AAAS 2009 Visualization Challenge: Photography |
| Usage Tip | |
| Use of Resource: |
The judges enjoyed how the photograph wove together a gorgeous image with an important message. "This image simply sprang forth from the page as the most arresting, aesthetic, and provocative image in this category," says panel of judges member Tierney Thys. |
| Difficulty: |
Medium |
| Interactivity Level: |
Low |
| Version Info | |
| Publication Date: | February 2010 |
| Platform/Format: |
WWW |
| Cost: |
Free |
| Download URL: | http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/327/5968/954/F1 |
| Metadata: |
IEEE LOM Record |
| Collection: |
NEEDS
|
