Hardware, Prototyping, and Fabrication
🌳 All the different ways you can cut a log and the kinds of wood patterning it produces.
🎨 Just when you thought 3D printing couldn't be any more hacked, velocity printing let's you emboss patterns on your print surface by locally varying print speeds.
🖱 The CAD industry hasn't really changed in over a decade, with the same 4 major players making up the vast majority of the market. Is there any way to oust the incumbents?
😍 These laser-etched wood tables from Woo Design are filled with resin and it creates one of the most amazing effects I've ever seen!
🤖🐶 If you've wanted to own a dog, but don't have the time to take care of one, Boston Dynamics has a solution. They're commercializing a small version of their famous quadrupedal robots for consumers.
🆕 Silicone molding is one of the best techniques for reproducing high-detailed models, but it can also be a very tricky and time-consuming process to figure out how best to actually make the mold. A group of scientists, however, has figured out how to generate the optimal molds for a 3D model by using 3D printing to produce the mold precursors.
Software and Programming
🤝 How to win Linkedin.
🆒 I'd certainly consider Oscar Falmer's AR-enabled business card future-proofed.
💻 Learn best practices in machine learning with these helpful guides from Google.
⁉ I'm out here pursuing a PhD in biomedicine and, meanwhile, there are other PhDs out here publishing papers on how well deep neural networks can make memes. (Original paper here)
Science, Engineering, and Biomedicine
🐌 Once this snail reaches a certain size, it metamorphosizes and no longer needs to eat. Sounds like a pretty extreme diet to me.
🌱 It's not just human mothers that talk to their babies - plants do it too.
💭 We may not have to worry about mind-control devices after all, since we already have less control over our thoughts than we thought we did. (Yes, the end of that sentence is a little confusing.)
❄ How did ancient civilizations in Egypt and the Middle East manage to access enough ice to last an entire summer? In a super-interesting TED Talk, UPenn Professor Aaswath Raman explains how these people were able to leverage the cold of space to produce ice in massive quantities, and how modern nanophotonics can let us do the same on a much more profound scale.
✖ It's well known that humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, but why? In an effort to find out, researchers used CRISPR to make a yeast with one 🅱ig chromosome.
📝 I wrote a scientific paper‼ The version linked here is still the original proof and there will be a few minor changes coming down the line, but the overall message will remain the same: a resin formulation for 3D printing that gives users a variety of formulation options, while retaining compatibility with off-the-shelf printing systems.
Mapping, History, and Data Science
🔎 Do you live in a political bubble? The New York Times made this *~*incredibly*~* detailed map of the 2016 election results to help answer that question.
🤴 Be the king of your own castle with this medieval town generator.
📸 1988 happened 30 years ago and while I wasn't actually around for it, this picture series from The Atlantic highlights some of the most important moments of that year.
🌃 The history of Manhattan's grid street pattern in 30 (give or take) tweets.
📊 What the heck to data scientists do anyway?
Events and Opportunities
It may be sad that summer is ending, but at least that means there are all these events to look forward to:
- Friday - Sunday, 8/24-8/26 The technology behind sex is often forgotten and neglected, but there are lots of opportunities to develop improvements around safety and education. Learn more about sextech and build your own solutions at the Sextech Hackathon.
- Tuesday, 8/28 The Secret Science Club will convene once again at the Bell House in Brooklyn, featuring ant paleontologist Phillip Barden.
- Wednesday, 8/29 The NYC Transit Techies will be meeting up to talk data visualization, cartographic design, and a new bikeshare API.
- Wednesday, 8/29 The NYC chapter of DesignX will are meeting up for a workshop on collaborative design followed by a networking happy hour.
- Thursday, 9/6 JLABS is now fully up in running in their new NYC location. See what they have to offer biotech startups at their next Open House.
- Thursday, 9/6 Biomedical students from around NYC are invited to Five Mile Stone for the next iNet After Work hangout.
Some other upcoming events to keep on your radar...
- Tuesday, 9/11 SciArt Center, an organization focused on the intersections between science and art is having their next after work mixer at Peculier Pub.
- Wednesday, 9/12 The Weill Cornell Bench to Bedside Initiative kicks off their 12-week seminar series with an overview of up-and-coming translational technologies.
- Wednesday, 9/12 If social entrepreneurship is more your wheelhouse, then head over to the networking happy hour being hosted by social venture accelerator Net Impact.
- Thursday, 9/13 The first installment of New Lab's new cross-disciplinary discussion series, The Radicant, will focus on how AI is blurring the lines between truth and fiction.
- Saturday, 9/15 Queens Council on the Arts' Artist Commissioning Program and Viva la Comida Festival present the World Premiere of Salsa Masala: A Jackson Heights Block Party, a new work completed by ACP Awardee in Music Composition Neil Padukone.
- Wednesday, 9/19 The NYC chapter of Astronomy on Tap will meet up once more at The Way Station to talk about Space Junk.
- Thursday, 9/20 Before the official kickoff for Maker Faire NYC, catch up with the local maker community and friends from MatterHackers at the Fat Cat Fab Lab.
- Saturday & Sunday, 9/22 - 9/23 New York World Maker Faire returns to the New York Hall of Science. It is, without question, one of the single most exciting technology events in the NYC region and, if that wasn't enough, I'll be there with my 3D printing materials startup, Proto-Sauce!
- Tuesday, 9/25 New York's premier biotech entrepreneurship program, ELab NYC, will kickoff their call for applicants at Alexandria LaunchLabs, featuring networking with alumni of the program.
- Saturday, 10/20 Interested in what the future of biomedical innovation holds? Want to meet the rest of the NYC biotechnology community? Then check out the 2018 Future of Care conference at the Rockefeller University.
- Ongoing: Check out the Futureworks Ops21 courses being offered on the latest trends in advanced manufacturing.
Map of the Month
🔍 This interactive map comparing present-day and 1836 New York City gives you a window to the past.