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ADVANCED MATERIALS & PROCESSES • JANUARY 2014 47
Michigan Tech rolls back
into Guinness Book
with giant snowball
Michigan Tech’s (Houghton) ASME student
chapter gathered 30 strong on the softball
field and began to roll snow in hopes of
getting back into the Guinness Book of World
Records. It took 2.5 hours to create the
massive snowball with a circumference of
32.94 ft. Estimates were that it weighed in the
neighborhood of 3-4 tons, said Parshwa
Patwa, who led the effort. Licensed surveyors
Steven Hein and Casey Storm verified the
snowball’s size, and Patwa, a third-year
mechanical engineering major, captured the
entire event on a two-hour video. Guinness
verified the record, and Patwa received the
official certificate in September 2013.
.
Rats may require Oreo rehab
Students from Connecticut College, New
London, along with neuroscience professor
Joseph Schroeder found that “America’s
favorite cookie” is as addictive as cocaine—at
least for lab rats. And just like most humans,
rats go for the middle first. In a study designed
to shed light on the potential addictiveness of
high-fat/high-sugar foods, Schroeder and his
students found that rats formed an equally
strong association between the pleasurable
effects of eating Oreos and a specific
environment as they did between cocaine or
morphine and a specific environment. They
also found that eating cookies activated more
neurons in the brain’s “pleasure center” than
exposure to addictive drugs.
“Our research supports the theory that
high-fat/high-sugar foods stimulate the brain
in the same way that drugs do,” says
Schroeder. “It may explain why some people
can’t resist these foods despite the fact that
they know they are bad for them.”
While it may not be scientifically relevant,
neuroscience major Jamie Honohan said it
was surprising to watch the rats eat the
famous cookie. “They would break it open and
eat the middle first,” she said.
Research shows the rats conditioned with
Oreos spent as much time on the “drug” side
of the maze as the rats conditioned with
cocaine or morphine.
.
Martian penny
viewed on Earth in
ultra-hi-res
An instrument aboard
NASA’s Curiosity rover on
Mars sent an ultra-high-
resolution image of a penny
back to scientists on Earth.
The coin was photographed
by the Mars Hand Lens
Imager (MAHLI) aboard
Curiosity in northern Gale
Crater on Mars. The penny, a
1909 VDB edition minted in
Philadelphia during the first
year that Lincoln cents
became available, is part of
the MAHLI calibration target.
At 14 µm per pixel, this is the
highest resolution image that
the MAHLI can acquire, said
R. Aileen Yingst, senior
scientist. The image was
obtained as part of a test; it
was the first time that the
rover’s robotic arm placed
the MAHLI close enough to a
target to obtain MAHLI’s
highest-possible resolution.
The previous highest-
resolution MAHLI images,
which were pictures of
Martian rocks, were at 16-17
µm per pixel.
Image of a U.S. penny acquired by MAHLI
aboard NASA’s Curiosity rover on Mars. During
the penny’s 14 months on Mars, it has
accumulated Martian dust and clumps of dust,
despite its vertical mounting position. Courtesy
of NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/Planetary Science
Institute.