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Allison Loudermilk just wants more people to give science a chance. As the science editor, Allison edits most of the stories on things that blow up and otherwise keep researchers busy in the lab and moldy old basements. She has a master’s degree in journalism and mass communication from the University of Georgia and a bachelor’s degree in environmental science from Barnard College in New York City. When she’s not contemplating the mysteries of the universe, Allison dabbles in motherhood, running and reading. Be sure to leave a comment on the blog with your favorite sci-fi book and film picks so she will never, ever confuse "Star Trek" with "Star Wars." Not that she does. You can find Allison on Twitter @BlowtheMind and on Facebook at the official Stuff to Blow Your Mind page.
Most Recent: Allison Loudermilk Postings
Spider Silk That’s 10 Times Better Than Kevlar
by Allison Loudermilk | September 17, 2010
As Peter Parker could tell you if he weren’t off fighting the Green Goblin, spiders are amazing creatures. A lot of that awesomeness stems from the silk with which they spin their mighty webs. With its tough but elastic nature, the silk that some arachnids like to loop from spot to spot creates a dragline that’s tougher than Kevlar — the material you want to be outfitted with if you ever decide to take a bullet, not that we’re suggesting that.
Now a couple of researchers suggest that they’ve found the toughest biological material ever, as reported in the journal PLoS ONE.
Are LEED-certified buildings earning their cred?
by Allison Loudermilk | September 10, 2010
Imagine for a second that you want to buy a hybrid car. You haggle over a price with the salesperson, haggle a little more with the sales manager who inevitably appears, and finally settle on a price. While you’re signing the papers, you notice one that stipulates how you’ll drive your new hybrid. No jamming on the gas pedal the second the light turns green. No waiting until the very last second to stomp on the brakes. You will coast. You will become a hypermiler. Or else.
Hygroelectricity Pulls Power Out of Thin Air
by Allison Loudermilk | August 27, 2010
Actually humid air, or at least that’s the assertion offered by some Brazilian researchers who’ve been trying to make Nikola Tesla’s dream of taming and using natural electricity a reality. Hygroelectricity, as presented by Dr. Fernando Galembeck at the 2010 American Chemical Society meeting, goes after charged atmospheric water droplets and attempts to collect and convert them into usable energy, similar to the way solar panels operate.
In the race for renewable sources of energy, this is welcome news, indeed. Plus, if we mere mortals aren’t going to be able to throw lightning bolts around anytime soon, capturing them and making them serve our human needs is almost as good, right?
Biofuels Become More Efficient; Binge on Whiskey
by Allison Loudermilk | August 23, 2010
The world of biofuels is abuzz these days with new innovations. First up, an intrepid metabolic engineer from the University of Illinois has stepped up to the challenge of efficiently developing biofuels. And that’s great because while we keep coming up with ideas for feedstock — or things that we can turn into biofuel like corn or switchgrass or butter(!) — we’re having a hard time balancing the energy equation in terms of efficient production.
Sink-Toilets Help You to Wash and Go
by Allison Loudermilk | August 16, 2010
For many of us, visiting the bathroom is a lot like visiting Las Vegas. What happens in there, stays in there. Several companies are hoping to change your habits in there though, most notably by inducing you to wash your hands on top of the toilet.
Big deal. Sink-toilets have been hanging around highly efficient Japan for decades. The compact devices feature a toilet on the bottom and a sink mounted on the top in the spot where you might usually keep some well-thumbed reading material. Once your affairs are in order, you simply turn around and wash your hands, with the fresh water coming from the tap, trickling into the sink basin, politely bypassing the tank and traveling directly to the toilet bowl to refill it.
Churches Pray for Energy Star Certification
by Allison Loudermilk | August 6, 2010
Running a church is hard work. After all, a house of worship is a port in the storm to members of its community. Services, soup kitchens, bible studies and confessionals have to be held as planned for each and every needy soul. All that outreach consumes not only the time and commitment of members and staff, but also a fair amount of energy.
With utility costs averaging $1.66 per square foot per year, the First Parish had enough. Find out what the church did inside.
Do you drive a hybrid vehicle that feeds you every kind of stat imaginable on your mileage consumption? Or maybe just a run-of-the-mill beater that grudgingly displays your miles per gallon? Either way, you’re interacting with persuasive technology. Even if you opt for public transportation, chances are you’re encountering persuasive technology. And those technologies are trying hard to change the way we consume energy.
Like the term suggests, persuasive technology encompasses anything that aims to change people’s beliefs and behaviors — be it a dashboard display, a smart meter or a video game.
I started this post thinking it was going to cover water wars. We’d begin with news of Georgia’s struggle to work out a water-sharing agreement with Alabama and Florida before July 17, 2012. Then maybe we’d head to Cochabamba, Colombia, to talk about the melee that erupted in 2000 after residents of the country’s third-largest city got really mad about a plan to raise water rates by more than 30 percent. Five people dead and 40 people injured later, that price hike was a no-go.
But while I was reading about water (and drinking some, too), I learned that people are actually pretty good at sharing water, and that’s surprising considering that water management is synonymous with conflict management, writes Aaron T. Wolf.
Humans have a tendency to sprawl. You’ve seen it on the bus or train when your neighbor spills over into your narrow seat. With the help of an orbiting satellite, you can see it on a larger scale, with urban areas sprawling out for miles in every direction. Sprawl has entered the energy lexicon as well, and not everyone’s happy about it.
Energy is ubiquitous, which makes it a beautiful blog topic. Once you start thinking about energy as more than just oil or solar power, but rather as the input that powers all systems, a world of topics opens up for you. If you’re like me, you also start thinking about all the ways in which energy is lost. You just lost some reading this. I just lost some writing this.
For an amputee, all that lost energy can add up. Consider that people without prosthetic limbs dissipate a significant amount of energy while walking, mainly between strides, according to Steven Collins and Arthur Kuo, the developers of a micro-processor-controlled artificial foot they described in a February 2010 PLoS ONE paper.
Recent Postings by Category
BrainStuff
- Thank You and Best Wishes to Marshall Brain
- Contest – Design a $300 house and win $25,000
- How the Philtrum works – the place under your nose where your face comes together
The Coolest Stuff on the Planet
- Golden Fields of Canola
- The Park That Never Sleeps: Central Park
- Draw a Pretty Picture With Your Bike and Your Phone
Keep Asking
- Why can a 5 foot 8 inch man dunk a basketball on a 10 foot rim while some people of taller stature can’t?
- What happens to our sun once it runs out of fuel?
- How do we know the age of the universe?
Stuff Mom Never Told You
- Who invented the Christmas card?
- How the Kinsey Report Fueled Whiskey Sales
- How to Get Your Wedding Announcement into The New York Times
Stuff to Blow Your Mind
- Blow Your Mind: Nebula in a Box
- Blow Your Mind: Three Minutes Till Impact
- Touching the Void: Psychedelics and Death
Stuff You Should Know
- Stuff You Should Know at SXSW
- The Southern Death Cult, the Maya and Georgia
- Deformed Baby Spider Brains
The Stuff of Genius
CarStuff
- Listener Mail: What’s the world’s largest engine?
- Listener Mail: What makes a “classic car” classic?
- Was Chrysler’s “It’s Halftime in America” Super Bowl commercial a little too political?
How-to Stuff
- How to Enjoy the Fruits of Your Labor
- How to Travel the World in 4 Days
- How to Smell Like Someone at HowStuffWorks
PopStuff
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 68: Astrology: What’s PopStuff’s Sign?
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 67: Collecting: PopStuff’s Cabinet of Curiosities
- PopStuff Show Notes: Episode 66: Tracy and Holly’s Running Playlists
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know
- Good News from the Oldest Mayan Calendar
- One Year Later: Colony Collapse Disorder
- Who Killed Martin Luther King, Jr.?
Stuff to Change the World
- Who will own the Arctic?
- Obesity: The New Global Crisis
- Bill Gates Makes For A Pretty Decent Cartoon
Stuff You Missed in History Class
- Butch Cassidy: Should we read between the lines?
- Are we rooting for D.B. Cooper?
- Party Time: A Look at Unconventional Politics
