YES BRAINWORMS‼️‼️

Athletes Go for the Gold with NASA Spinoffs

NASA technology tends to find its way into the sporting world more often than you’d expect. Fitness is important to the space program because astronauts must undergo the extreme g-forces of getting into space and endure the long-term effects of weightlessness on the human body. The agency’s engineering expertise also means that items like shoes and swimsuits can be improved with NASA know-how.

As the 2024 Olympics are in full swing in Paris, here are some of the many NASA-derived technologies that have helped competitive athletes train for the games and made sure they’re properly equipped to win.

The LZR Racer reduces skin friction drag by covering more skin than traditional swimsuits. Multiple pieces of the water-resistant and extremely lightweight LZR Pulse fabric connect at ultrasonically welded seams and incorporate extremely low-profile zippers to keep viscous drag to a minimum.

Swimsuits That Don’t Drag

When the swimsuit manufacturer Speedo wanted its LZR Racer suit to have as little drag as possible, the company turned to the experts at Langley Research Center to test its materials and design. The end result was that the new suit reduced drag by 24 percent compared to the prior generation of Speedo racing suit and broke 13 world records in 2008. While the original LZR Racer is no longer used in competition due to the advantage it gave wearers, its legacy lives on in derivatives still produced to this day.

Trilion Quality Systems worked with NASA’s Glenn Research Center to adapt existing stereo photogrammetry software to work with high-speed cameras. Now the company sells the package widely, and it is used to analyze stress and strain in everything from knee implants to running shoes and more.

High-Speed Cameras for High-Speed Shoes

After space shuttle Columbia, investigators needed to see how materials reacted during recreation tests with high-speed cameras, which involved working with industry to create a system that could analyze footage filmed at 30,000 frames per second. Engineers at Adidas used this system to analyze the behavior of Olympic marathoners' feet as they hit the ground and adjusted the design of the company’s high-performance footwear based on these observations.

Martial artist Barry French holds an Impax Body Shield while former European middle-weight kickboxing champion Daryl Tyler delivers an explosive jump side kick; the force of the impact is registered precisely and shown on the display panel of the electronic box French is wearing on his belt.

One-Thousandth-of-an-Inch Punch

In the 1980s, Olympic martial artists needed a way to measure the impact of their strikes to improve training for competition. Impulse Technology reached out to Glenn Research Center to create the Impax sensor, an ultra-thin film sensor which creates a small amount of voltage when struck. The more force applied, the more voltage it generates, enabling a computerized display to show how powerful a punch or kick was.

Astronaut Sunita Williams poses while using the Interim Resistive Exercise Device on the ISS. The cylinders at the base of each side house the SpiraFlex FlexPacks that inventor Paul Francis honed under NASA contracts. They would go on to power the Bowflex Revolution and other commercial exercise equipment.

Weight Training Without the Weight

Astronauts spending long periods of time in space needed a way to maintain muscle mass without the effect of gravity, but lifting free weights doesn’t work when you’re practically weightless. An exercise machine that uses elastic resistance to provide the same benefits as weightlifting went to the space station in the year 2000. That resistance technology was commercialized into the Bowflex Revolution home exercise equipment shortly afterwards.

Want to learn more about technologies made for space and used on Earth? Check out NASA Spinoff to find products and services that wouldn’t exist without space exploration.   

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You love and support trans women!

I keep seeing people making fun of using growled, hissed, roared, snarled etc in writing and it’s like.

have you never heard someone speak with the gravel in their voice when they get angry? Because that’s what a growl is.

Have you never heard someone sharply whisper something through the thin space of their teeth? Or when your mother sharply told you to stop it in public as a kid when you were acting up/being too loud? Because that’s what a hiss is.

Have you never heard a man get so blackout angry that their voice BOOMS through the house? Because that’s what a roar is.

Have you never seen someone bare their teeth while talking to accentuate their frustration or anger while speaking with a vicious tone? Because that’s what snarling is.

It’s not meant to be a literal animal noise. For the love of god, not every description is literal. I get some people are genuinely confused, but also some of these people are genuinely unimaginative as fuck.

Reblog if you support asexuals and aren’t a COWARD

RB if your blog is a safe, accepting space for asexuals!

Real

“how did you get into writing” girl nobody gets into writing. writing shows up one day at your door and gets into you

hey man! was skimming through your aus and i was wondering what biome based challenges vos and the others would face in the templeswap au and how that would lead to vos getting imprisoned ... sounded very inter esting

Yesyes so the TempleSwap AU started as “what if the Sea Temple was a desert or jungle temple instead?” and I ran with those biomes to theme each temple and its rooms! In the Desert Temple iteration, Jack, Vos, and Sammy explore a massive sandcastle in the Twisting Sands of Spyr’hal Mesa; in the Jungle Temple version, the trio explore a labyrinth-style construct (think of a jungle temple the size of a woodland mansion) in the middle of a crazy jungle I have yet to name. As for the challenges:

🏜️Desert Temple: The traps are similar to pyramids with most of the dangers being husks and quicksand pits. (Pretty easy to avoid if you’re taking your time and keeping an eye out.) However, the main trouble comes when the trio find a giant room with a terracotta X on the floor. As Jack starts digging, the sand floor around the X falls through, revealing a bottomless pit beneath it. Sammy was unfortunately standing on the sand and falls to her death. Attempting to flee, Jack and Vos are separated when Vos stumbles into quicksand and slowly dragged into a secret chamber beneath the floor. Jack is slightly worse for wear, getting caught in a husk horde on his way to the entrance; his eye and arm get scratched up bad.

The sandstone walls in Vos’ cell are too steep to climb and mining fatigue won’t let him dig his way out. Luckily, he does have a lantern and lots of water bottles and the sand floor is pretty warm and cozy. The downsides are the occasional husk that falls through the quicksand pit onto him and the rare heatwaves that make the temple miserably hot.

🌲Jungle Temple: The winding maze of hallways is very Indiana Jones inspired with the boobytraps being trapdoors, arrow dispensers, pressure plates that move walls, etc. There are also hidden buttons that reveal secrets if you’re paying attention. The trio make it to a chamber with a golden totem of undying surrounded by pressure plates, buttons, and levers. Jack suspects the idol to be a fake (it is) and the trio opt to test the levers and pressure plates one by one to see if any reveal a hidden doorway. Most shoot arrows or open rooms that lead nowhere, but one drops a wall that hides a zombie horde behind it. The three try and regroup at a previous hallway, but Sammy trips over a vine while trying to escape the horde and is killed by zombies. While running through the maze, Vos steps on a pressure that seals him behind a wall. Jack gets an arrow to the face on the way out so that’s why his eye is messed up.

Vos assumed the pressure plate he stepped on would fire an arrow at him so he ducked and rolled… right into the hidden room that opened up. Oops. Before he knew what actually happened, the wall behind him slammed shut and locked him inside. He has rations and torches and the vines on the walls make for great bed fodder. Again, mining fatigue won’t let him break his way out and the constant zombie growls keep him awake often.

I decided to make the holding cells in Minecraft for fun. :] I wanted the chambers to be different from the Sea Temple where he’s stranded on the ceiling so the Desert Temple has him stuck beneath the floor and the Jungle Temple traps him in the walls.

Funnily enough, Vos survives in both these versions! Depending on the temple, he either lives off of rotten flesh from the husks that accidentally fall through the quicksand pit or eats moss and vines off the walls Deltarune style. Can you imagine the surprise when Jesse and co. hear a voice speak to them from beneath the floor/ behind a wall? Petra throws a rope down through the quicksand and pulls up a very sand-coated man in the Desert Temple. Or Jesse manages to find the right pressure plate to open up the wall to free a frazzled fella who looks like he totally hasn’t eaten moss ever… he promises.

rating cookie run characters based on how feasible they’d be as an actual cookie

I'm sorry if you're tired of thinking about ofmd and that whole mess but goddamn... it's incredibly painful to see so many people trying to set up fundraisers to get their families out of gaza and the sudan and desperately trying to get their loved ones to safety, I've seen so many and everyday I check to see how much progress they've made, most of them still haven't hit their goal. It hurts to see people rally around a tv show and raise all this money for a billboard, and it's very frustrating to see how people have reacted to this criticism. Like bro tv shows get canceled sometimes there's more important stuff going on

Someone else said it better but to see a fundraiser for tv show renewal advertisements raise $20,000 in less than a day while it takes days/weeks/months/years/never for fundraisers for actual causes that help real people in need reach a goal of less is absolutely dystopian and shameful

Bisexuals, watch out for “bi positivity” blogs that promote panphobia.

Ex:

Pansexuals are transphobic/chasers!

Pansexuals have internalized biphobia!

Pansexuals just want to be special!

etc.

Pansexuals, watch out for “pan positivity” blogs that promote biphobia. 

Ex:

Bisexuality only means 2!

Bisexuals hate nonbinary people!

Bisexuals aren’t actually bi if they’re in a same-sex/different-sex relationship!

etc.

Don’t give them a platform. Let’s keep the solidarity up, yeah?

EDIT 4/21/2020: Turns out I’m a lesbian but panphobes and biphobes are still fucking awful, so don’t be a shitty person!