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ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES • AUGUST 2014 59
Stand-up robot
The image of a joke-telling robot that can tailor its repartee while performing
a stand-up comedy routine won the overall prize in a national science
photography competition organized by the Engineering and Physical Sciences
Research Council (EPSRC), UK. The competition’s five categories included:
Weird and Wonderful, Discovery, Equipment, Innovation, and People. Winner
Toby Harris said, “We’re thrilled that our experiment pitting human stand-up
comedians against a robot is inspiring others. This groundbreaking research is
helping us to understand both what makes for a great performance and what
makes for a compelling audience experience. We use new technologies to
analyze people’s moment-by-moment responses, so while teaching a robot
stagecraft was fun, it was the ability to read and react to the audience that
made it work.” The competition drew more than 250 entries, from a pool of researchers in receipt of
EPSRC funding. .
Champagne science and caviar dreams
The importance of fizz, more technically known as effervescence, in sparkling
wines and champagnes is not to be underestimated—it contributes to the
complete sensory experience of a glass, or flute, of fine bubbly. A scientist closely
examined the factors that affect these bubbles, and came up with an estimate of
just how many are in each glass. Gérard Liger-Belair, professor at the University
of Reims Champagne-Ardenne, France, notes that effervescence plays an
important role in the look, taste, aroma, and mouth feel of champagne and other
sparkling wines. Wine journalists and bloggers often cite 15 million as the average
number of bubbles fizzing in a single glass of champagne, based on simple
mathematics. Liger-Belair suspected that the formula leading to this estimate
oversimplified the matter as it does not take into account the fact that some of
the dissolved carbon dioxide escapes from a glass without forming bubbles. Also,
the size of the bubbles changes over time and could affect the final number.
Taking into consideration temperature, bubble dynamics, and the tilt of a flute,
Liger-Belair came up with a new way to calculate the number of bubbles in a
glass of champagne. And the result is far lower than what has been cited. “One
million bubbles seems to be a reasonable approximation for the number of
bubbles likely to form if you resist drinking champagne from your flute,”
he concludes. He also found that if you prefer more fizz in your bubbly,
serve it warmer than you normally would and be sure to tilt the flute when
pouring. .
3D printed historical chess sets
Over the past month, a Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, lab has been using 3D
scanning and printing technology to create chess sets, with each piece a replica of historical
artifacts found at archeological digs at Jamestown, Mount Vernon, Montpelier, Thomas Jefferson’s
Poplar Forest, and elsewhere.
According to Bernard Means, director of VCU’s Virtual Curation Laboratory, the chess sets are
proving to be an excellent way of engaging the public, students, and others interested in
archaeology and the lab’s 3D scanning technology. In one of the sets, each piece is a 3D plastic
replica of artifacts from 1607-1610 found at a dig at the Jamestown Settlement. The pawn of the
Jamestown set is a scaled-down model of a bust based on the skull of a 14- or 15-year-old boy
killed by an arrow in 1607. The bust was recently on display at the Smithsonian Museum of
Natural History. This week, the lab will donate two chess sets to the Society for Pennsylvania
Archaeology, to be auctioned off to support student attendance at future conferences for
undergraduate researchers. In the future, says Means, the team will display the sets at high
schools, VCU public events, and archeological conferences. .
Comedy Lab:
Human vs. Robot,
by Toby Harris, a
Ph.D. student at
Queen Mary
University of
London’s Cognitive
Science Research
Group, stole the
show ahead of
many other stunning
pictures featuring
research in action,
which were entered
into EPSRC’s
inaugural
competition.
Wine enthusiasts
significantly overestimated
the number of bubbles in
a single glass of
champagne. Courtesy of
Flickr upload bot.
VCU’s Virtual Curation Lab
is using 3D scanning and
printing technology to
create chess sets, with each
piece a 3D-printed replica of
historical artifacts found at
archaeological digs at
Jamestown, Mount Vernon,
Montpelier, Thomas
Jefferson’s Poplar Forest,
and elsewhere.