#composite testing laboratory

[maeon-labs]

Material Testing Labs in Chennai

Material Testing Labs in Chennai offer comprehensive testing services to ensure the quality and compliance of various materials. Our expert analysis includes mechanical, thermal, and chemical testing. Trust us for reliable results and enhanced material performance.

[spr1ngpvrinbwunnie]

A Scientist’s Heart: Unintentional Vulnerability

ℍ𝕒𝕣𝕝𝕖𝕪 𝕊𝕒𝕨𝕪𝕖𝕣/𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕠𝕔𝕥𝕠𝕣 (ℙ𝕣𝕖 -“𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔻𝕠𝕔𝕥𝕠𝕣” 𝕍ℍ𝕊 𝕋𝕒𝕡𝕖 𝕒𝕟𝕕 𝕖𝕧𝕖𝕣𝕪𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕟𝕘) 𝕩 ℂ𝕠𝕝𝕝𝕖𝕒𝕘𝕦𝕖!ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕖𝕣

(Harley in his middle 30s and reader/you in late 20s)

🇨​🇴​🇳​🇹​🇪​🇳​🇹​ 🇼​🇦​🇷​🇳​🇮​🇳​🇬​: None ꜱᴜᴍᴍᴀʀʏ – Harley placed a chocolate on the table in front of you, his gaze full of challenge. "I want to see if you can detect any unusual chemical components in this." When you tease about whether this is a "little gift" for Valentine's, Harley suddenly falls silent. There was a moment of hesitation—a strange reluctance in him. Why does he seem so confused?

A small, neatly wrapped chocolate sat on the sterile surface of the laboratory table, incongruous amidst the stacks of papers and scattered notes. The silver foil reflected the cold fluorescence of the overhead lights, an almost laughable contrast to the tension lingering in the air.

Harley stood across from you, arms folded, expression unreadable save for the sharp glint in his eye. "I want to see if you can detect the chemical anomaly in it," he said, his voice laced with the usual clinical detachment. The challenge was evident, as was the way he avoided meeting your gaze directly for too long.

You picked up the chocolate, turning it between your fingers, feeling the slight warmth of its surface begin to melt against your skin.

"This isn't a test, is it?" The words were light, teasing, but beneath them lay something more probing.

Harley scoffed, adjusting the cuffs of his coat as though dismissing the very notion. "It's a perfectly legitimate experiment." Yet the way he shifted, the brief flicker of something unreadable in his expression, told another story.

You unwrapped it slowly, deliberately. If this was truly about scientific inquiry, then surely there was no reason for the faint stiffness in his posture, the almost imperceptible way his fingers tapped against the edge of the table—a rare tell, for a man who prided himself on control.

"Is this some sort of Valentine’s tradition you’re observing in your own... unconventional way?" you mused, watching him carefully.

His reaction was nearly imperceptible, but you saw it—just a fraction of a second where his jaw tensed, a twitch of his fingers before he masked it with a smirk. "Don’t be ridiculous. Valentine’s Day is hardly relevant in a place like this."

You hummed, pressing the chocolate against your lips before taking a slow, deliberate bite.

The taste bloomed on your tongue—rich, dark, with just the slightest bitterness that melted into something unexpectedly smooth. If there was an anomaly, you hadn’t found it yet.

Harley watched you, his gaze heavy, assessing. It was clinical, or at least he wanted it to be. Yet something lingered beneath the surface, something that he hadn’t quite dissected yet.

You swallowed, letting the silence stretch between you, before offering the remaining half of the chocolate to him with a knowing look. "You should try it too. You know, for scientific integrity."

He stared at it, then at you, and for the briefest of moments, there was hesitation—like he was considering something beyond the taste, beyond the chemical composition, beyond the thin veil of justification he had wrapped this entire moment in.

Then, with a quiet exhale, he took the chocolate from your fingers. "Fine," he muttered, as though this was merely an extension of the experiment.

But you both knew better.

───── ⋆⋅✝⋅⋆ ─────

The laboratory hums with the soft, rhythmic ticking of the clock on the far wall. The air is heavy with the sterile scent of disinfectant, metal, and something faintly chemical—unspoken proof of another long day in Playtime Co.'s underbelly.

The chocolate sits between them like an unspoken challenge.

Harley’s gloved fingers tap once against the surface of the steel desk before he leans back, expression unreadable. His sharp gaze lingers on the small, wrapped confection as though dissecting it with the same methodical precision he applies to his experiments.

“Now I want to see if you can detect anything unusual in its composition.”

That’s what he said. No explanation beyond that, no ulterior motive hinted at in his tone—just another experiment, another hypothesis waiting to be tested.

But the weight behind the words was deliberate. The way his fingers flexed against the edge of his chair, the way his throat bobbed minutely as if he were swallowing down something unspeakable—there was something more lurking beneath the surface.

You stare at the chocolate for a beat longer before picking it up. The foil crinkles between your fingers, the sound unbearably loud in the clinical silence of the room. You could play along, let him have his little game, or—

You take another, smaller chocolate from your pocket and place it on the desk in front of him, mirroring his gesture with a smirk.

“Your turn.”

There’s the briefest flicker of something in his expression—mild annoyance, perhaps, or some form of begrudging amusement buried deep beneath layers of indifference. His eyes on the chocolate as though it offends him before scoffing quietly, almost to himself.

“You expect me to participate?”

“I expect you to analyze it. Isn’t that what you do?”

His jaw tenses, his gaze flicking from you to the offering in front of him. He doesn’t touch it.

When you take a bite of the chocolate he gave you, your first reaction is instinctual. Your tongue tingles with an unfamiliar warmth—not unpleasant, but unexpected. It isn’t the taste of standard dark or milk chocolate.

No, there’s something else layered beneath, something that lingers at the back of your throat.

A slow burn. A hint of spice.

Your brows furrow slightly as the sensation spreads, and across the desk, you hear the faintest exhale of breath—something dangerously close to amusement.

When your eyes meet his, there’s a knowing glint in his expression, as though he’s already memorized every microreaction, every involuntary shift of your features.

───── ⋆⋅✝⋅⋆ ─────

Sawyer did not believe in uncertainty. He detested vague conclusions, abhorred anomalies that disrupted the clean, clinical lines of his hypotheses.

In his world, every variable had to be measured, every factor accounted for. Control was everything.

Yet here he was, introducing an uncontrolled variable into his own carefully constructed equilibrium.

It had started with the chocolate—an excuse, really. A simple test, draped in the sterile guise of scientific curiosity. He had watched, impassive, as you scrutinized the confection, your fingers turning it over with the same wariness you reserved for his more questionable experiments.

He had expected you to question him, to pick apart his intentions the way you often did. And you had. But something in your voice—light, teasing—had pressed against the edges of something unfamiliar.

So he tested another hypothesis.

Harley moved closer.

Not enough to be obvious. Not enough to be intentional. Just enough for the air between you to thin, for the static to build in the small, imperceptible ways he had only ever noticed in the presence of something… unexamined. He was watching now—not the chocolate, not the experiment—but you. The way your breath hitched for a fraction of a second. The way your fingers stilled over the table before resuming their absent tracing along the foil wrapper.

A reaction. Subtle, but there. Measurable.

The logical part of him—what little remained—told him to step back.

To reassert the distance that had long been his shield. But there was a flicker of something else, something insidious, curling at the edges of his thoughts.

He had spent years dissecting the world around him, reducing everything to its barest components. And yet, when it came to you, he had no clear answer.

Were you merely a curiosity? An equation left unsolved? Or was he simply searching for a justification—an excuse wrapped in clinical detachment—so he wouldn’t have to admit what he already knew?

You glanced up then, your gaze meeting his with something unreadable. And for the first time in a long, long time—Harley Sawyer did not know what to do

───── ⋆⋅✝⋅⋆ ─────

“You laced it with something,” you mutter, half-accusation, half-curiosity.

“Capsaicin,” he confirms, entirely too pleased with himself. “Harmless. A mild alteration to the original formula.”

“You spiked my chocolate with chili?”

He doesn’t answer immediately. Instead, he lifts the chocolate you had placed before him earlier and twirls it idly between his fingers.

For a long moment, you think he’s going to set it aside, dismiss the entire exchange as a meaningless distraction. But then, in a move that feels almost reluctant, he peels away the foil and takes a slow, calculated bite.

You watch him as he chews, analyzing his own reactions as clinically as he would a test subject’s.

And then—

His expression shifts. It’s subtle, barely perceptible, but it’s there. His jaw stiffens just slightly, the corners of his lips pressing into an almost imperceptible line. He swallows, his Adam’s apple dipping with the motion, and his fingers twitch minutely against the desk’s surface.

The realization dawns in slow, creeping satisfaction.

“You hate it.”

Harley exhales through his nose, irritated. “It’s unnecessarily sweet.”

It takes everything in you not to laugh. “You didn’t even know what was in it before eating it. Hypocritical, don’t you think?”

He narrows his eyes, but there’s no real heat in his glare.

If anything, it’s an expression of someone begrudgingly tolerating an annoyance he has long since accepted as inevitable.

His tongue darts out for a brief second, barely noticeable, as if trying to rid his palate of the lingering taste.

“I should’ve tested it beforehand,” he mutters, almost to himself.

───── ⋆⋅✝⋅⋆ ─────

That night, long after the lights in the laboratory dim, Harley finds himself alone at his desk... The chocolate you gave him still rests on the corner, untouched save for the single bite he took earlier. His fingers hover over it before he sighs through his nose and pushes it aside.

It’s ridiculous, he tells himself.

Just another pointless tradition. Another meaningless exchange.

And yet—

He lingers, staring at the empty wrapper from the chocolate he had given you, still resting atop your notes where you had left it. His fingers brush over the foil absentmindedly, tracing the faint creases, the remnants of your touch.

He tells himself it’s just data—just an observation.

Just another variable in an ongoing experiment.

But when his mind drifts, unbidden, back to the way you had smiled—smug and amused, teasing and alive—he can’t quite convince himself that’s all it was.

[rabidbatboy]

SYSTEM / ALTERS ALTERNATIVE TERMS

[ 🧪 ] SCIENTIST THEMED

[ system ] — laboratory, study, observatory, amalgamation, department, cranium, organism, test site, cerebrum, nucleus, composite, datum, synthesis

[ alters ] — experiments, tests, chemicals, subjects, labrats, reactions, atoms, vials, beakers, cells, variables, theories, particles, synapses, hypotheses, creations, modules, molecules

( @disrealities was the epic inspiration btw really cool system terms )

[chalkodareal]

actually no one GAF if i go crazy insane style here so whatever my here comes science headcanons. because sure.

-dr. flans has a degree...as a science teacher. he's completely qualified within a certain limit, but the "dr." part of his title is completely for show. linnell doesn't have any qualification to be teaching alongside him either. nonetheless they do whatever they wantsss :p

-they arent mad scientists, per say? they don't really have a lot of interest in regularly playing god or doing anything sinister, but they are ultimately in the pursuit of knowledge. when children aren't around they get extremely eager to sacrifice their own well-being just to figure something out.

-on that topic, they're a very strange mix of things? composition-wise, they're close to zooplankton, but on a much higher sentience level than that of something like a jellyfish. whatever they are, their bodies retain most human function but decidedly lack the actual organs that would make it make sense. dont ask me about scijohn biology, because i dont know and i dont think about it THAT much.

-here comes science as a dvd is a documentation of them specifically during their work on a cloning project. the machine malfunctions three times: once creating a green linnell (that happened to be much dumber than linnell, additionally), once creating the three evil linnells, and once creating a teenaged clone of flansburgh. the purpose of this machine was for flansburgh's own use, to create more help around the lab (as he seemingly cannot picture anyone more helpful than himself?), but it likely ended up scrapped.

-the clones dont die any easier than the scijohns would. they're all just...hanging out. the three linnell clones are probably trying to eat a cactus right now.

-flansburgh and linnell are both rather passionate about their areas, so much so that both get a little freaked about getting anything wrong. linnell tends to completely doubt everything he's said up to the point when he states misinfo, and flansburgh will sometimes double down in shame (IE photosynthesis and speed + velocity) when he's wrong. ultimately, this mindset is probably part of the reason they'd struggle as actual qualified scientists.

-the laboratory looks purposefully small on the outside---what is pictured in WDTSRS is actually very close to the top. the reason was likely for practical testing reasons. if the clones WERE to be evil (as they did turn out), being trapped in an enclosed space with them would make everything worse. the actual lab stretches down for multiple floors, with a practical living space located somewhere between the top and the bottom.

-strangely, despite having rooms dedicated to practically everything sciency (including things that...really dont need rooms), their recording studio is just a tidied up storage room.

-flansburgh has two cats---for the sake of ease i'm saying password1234 and mc freshstep, but i am aware he used to have different cats. against all scientific regulations he used to let them go wherever in the lab. he had to toughen up after an accident---with no harm to the cats, of course, but linnell sure wasnt happy.

-linnell, contrary to popular belief, is not a lab assistant (though he does take a more passive role than flans). he and flansburgh both act as scientists, and his input on a project is truthfully very important to flans. he's not dumb about science---he's just slightly better on paper. not as if flansburgh is any regulation-following hero.

-okay no one is going to agree with me on this but im like, 99% dr. linnell's likely wealthy or dead and wealthy father is helping pay for that lab. no one just HAS a portrait like that. he had good money to spend. linnell is a total nepo baby. that last sentence wasn't true.

-is their world populated with other organisms like them? well, not really. if they looked hard enough im sure there's a few around, but for the most part it's a total grab bag of creatures and people.

-the dr flans teen clone just...lives in their lab. flansburgh wants badly to experiment on him, and thus the clone somehow has a better relationship with dr linnell than his own future self. they're somewhat like his parents, but he's largely independent and under-supervised as neither are entirely sure what to be doing with him. big into wasting their budget they are lying to the government to get.

-linnell specifically knows a lot about the spectrum of light and light science in general. whether this is due to his father or due to a liking for cameras, it's hard to tell.

-their lab is really only a few miles off from the city, but they're happy to treat it as an isolated desert regardless. it's largely so singular to make sure none of their experiments end up affecting urban areas. a potential downside of this is perhaps the fact that, in lieu of simply driving to the lab each day in their electric cars, they've chosen to simply live where they work. this has effected their social patterns in ways everyone but them can see clearly.

[dustedmagazine]

Dust Volume 11, Number 8

Ethel Cain

After a long, cold, occasionally snowy spring here in northern New England, we’re finally seeing some signs of life — little blue flowers in the lawn, the first dandelions, the shocking yellow of forsythia. Music, too, is pushing up new, crowded shoots as the winter doldrums elapse. We’re swamped in promos. We do our best.

This month’s Dust surveys a diverse landscape dotted with jittery dance and placid ambient music, torrid death punk and obliterating doom metal. Let it all bloom, we say. It’s up to you to pick the ones that appeal to you.

This month’s contributors include Andrew Forell, Tim Clarke, Ian Mathers, Jonathan Shaw, Bill Meyer, Jennifer Kelly, Bryon Hayes and Jim Marks. Happy spring.

Damian Anache — Lento, en un jardin reticular (Inkilino)

Damian Anache’s explores the tension between composition and improvisation. Working from a minimal palette of drone, voice, click and buzz, Anache conjures his music from the very atoms of sound. His real time manipulations involve the play of these elements creating fluctuations and juxtapositions that move between near silence and crescendos that scratch the air and seem to fold in upon themselves. Anache has an uncanny ability to untether his sounds from reality and as he molds his material, patterns take form. The simple contrast of the glacial timbre at the core of “La Llanura de las esferas” with its spectral echo creates flickers as the friction of the drones creates heat. He begins “Obvio y obtuso” with a disembodied choir which dissolves to what sounds like vocal clicks testing a rhythm over a wounded calliope, the choral sounds return, diced, denatured and reduced to uncanny emanations beyond language. An often perplexing but totally enthralling listen.

Andrew Forell

Billow Observatory — The Glass Curtain (Felte)

The duo of Jason Kolb (Auburn Lull) and Jonas Munk (Manual) have been collaborating for nearly 20 years now, but their music remains largely the same: glacial ambient, patiently constructed out of gently lapping pedaled tones, with textural embellishments that offer some welcome grit. In my Dusted review of their last release, 2022’s Stareside, I summarized its appeal thus: “hazily drifting ambient immersion, peppered with enough rhythmic momentum to prevent the music from drifting off into the aether”. In contrast, The Glass Curtain is a beatless experience, leaving the listener unmoored and floating. “Systol Nightshade” threads the sound of rainfall into the mix, but the majority of the album sounds abstract and free of reference. It’s a translucent, radiant space, but a little lacking in personality.

Tim Clarke

Ethel Cain — Perverts (Daughters of Cain)

There are all sorts of reasons Hayden Anhedönia might have called her 90-minute follow up to 2022’s cultishly adored Preacher’s Daughter an EP; artistic expression, expectation management (especially since Perverts is not actually the second instalment in the promised trilogy of Ethel Cain LPs), rent-lowering gunshots, an honestly pretty funny joke. But none of the explanations detract from the quality of the pestering drones and wracked ambience found on these nine tracks. The more song-esque efforts (“Punish,” “Vacillator,” even the closing 11:32 of “Amber Waves” with Midwife’s Madeline Johnston on guitar) sound like that first album stretched out like taffy and left to wither in the sun. The more abstracted material (“Housofpsychoticwomn,” “Pulldrone,” “Thatorchia”) is possibly even stronger, equally beautiful and harrowing; despite the extended lengths, it never wears out its welcome. The next actual Ethel Cain album, August’s Willoughby Tucker, I'll Always Love You, justly has a lot of expectations and anticipation swirling around it. But for a certain kind of listener, Perverts might remain the high water mark of her work to date.

Ian Mathers

Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz — Técnicas de Morte (Sentient Ruin Laboratories)

Brazilian death punks Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz present Técnicas de Morte, a full LP of reverb-soaked, sorta-old skool hardcore tunes. Check out “Pregos Podres,” for example, and you’ll find yourself pulling up a stool in a dusty, crepuscular club on the other side of the River Styx and clinking highball glasses with John Stabb and Pig Champion. Check out the tape’s next track, “Nada,” and you’ll be bumping and grooving with the ghosts of Olho Seco and Discharge (at that latter band’s 1981 peak). That’s not to suggest that Clan Dos Mortos Cicatriz is intrinsically backward looking or bound by cynical logics of pastiche. The songs are too energetic, the riffs are too fast and nasty. They might have a morbid interest in technologies of death, but they’ll be on the user’s end of the apparatus. Y’all better turn it up and then light out for the horizon — the psychopomp has a “Pacto Diabólico” for you to sign.

Jonathan Shaw

Decrepisy — Deific Mourning (Carbonized)

A death/doom band that’s extra heavy on the doomy ponderousness, Decrepisy makes music that moves with grotesque deliberation. Kyle House’s bass is a massive presence, and Daniel Butler, House’s old bandmate in crusty Bay Area monstrosity Acephalix, does his inimitably awful thing on Deific Mourning, grunting and groaning and being generally disgusting. But Jonathan Quintana’s guitar is the revelatory presence here, quivering and then pummeling, a weirdo performance that creeps up on you and then swallows you whole. The band’s hulking, lumpish mode is enveloping in complementary fashion — you can just about feel the peristalsis, pushing you farther down into the moist, viscid dark. Check out the record’s second half, especially “Severed Ephemerality” and “Afterhours.” Yuck, dudes. Someone better get a bucket.

Jonathan Shaw

Dikeman / Hong / Lumley Warelis — Old Adam on Turtle Island (Relative Pitch)

The album’s title references a collision of creation myths, and the music involves both creation and re-creations. Expatriate American saxophonist John Dikeman’s music with Cactus Truck and Universal Indians exemplified his roots in free jazz fundamentals, but he’s also worked productively outside those boundaries, as in the dream team combo that drummer Sun-Mi Hong brought to Jazzfest Berlin in 2024. This concert recording is the first to present his work as a composer, and we might one day look back on it as a tentative first step, since the sequence of themes work as focusing tools for some excellent blowing over Hong and bassist Aaron Lumley’s surges and retreats. The most significant compositional decision was actually one of casting; pianist Marta Warelis simultaneously inhabits the music and operates outside of it, adding levels of commentary and enhancement.

Bill Meyer

ELKA BONG — Alpha Bete (Self-Release)

Elka Bong builds intricate puzzle palaces out of the tiniest pieces of digital sound, manipulating squeaks and blots and hisses and blurts to create ever changing unreal landscapes. Here in conjunction with bassist, improviser and here, knob twister, David Menestres, the duo of Al Margolis and Walter Wright are intent and serious, even at play, in four ten-minute episodes. “Reversal of the Overheated” is antic and unsettled, wrapping clinks of percussion and tootles of some sort of melodic instrument in static-buzzing clouds. “Sounding Brass or Tinkling Symbol” sputters and shrieks and corrodes inside your ears. A sound like sticks on clamped bells and altered voices provide some reality-grounding, but you are purposely directed away, towards the abstract dance of noisy sputter. “Keeping Up with the Jonses” inserts a vibrating, horror movie keyboard into its digital chatter and backtalk. And “The Scent of Time” waxes lyrical, with wiggling tendrils of synthesizer that gesture towards melodic solace, only to shrink back into themselves and curdle. Not an easy listen, but there are rewards for perseverance.

Jennifer Kelly

Good Sad Happy Bad — All Kinds of Days (Textile)

When Micachu and the Shapes morphed into Good Sad Happy Bad, they shed the nervous, jittery energy that drove their previous incarnation away from easy categorization. Their music retained enough of the weirdness that aligned the band with Animal Collective and similar kooky sonic wizards, but Mica Levi and their comrades let songwriting and hooks rise to the top of their unique brew. They also bathed their music with a sense of dreaminess. All Kinds of Days, the sophomore effort from Good Sad Happy Bad, continues this trend toward the calm. The songs reveal themselves with an effortless charm, bouncing along with traces of dub and jazz. Human experience drives the lyrical content, which is delivered by each of the four band members. This shift toward existential awareness is a mirror that Levi and the band use to encapsulate life’s turning points in song. In their hands, turmoil and grace intertwine, revealing a pleasant listening experience. 

Bryon Hayes

Hearts & Minds — Illuminescence (Astral Spirits)

While the name of this trio implies plurality, a fundamental unity sustains Hearts & Minds. Bass clarinetist Jason Stein and electric keyboardist Paul Giallorenzo have been friends since sixth grade and have maintained a playing partnership since reuniting in Chicago in 2004. Completed since 2016 by drummer Chad Taylor, H&M uses compositions by both founders and similarly oriented collective improvisations as frameworks for pithy dust-ups between charged textures, sophisticated melodic progressions and confidently refracted grooves. Giallorenzo’s synthesizer and electric piano confer a kind of retro-futurist glow that is nicely balanced by the other members’ caffeinated restlessness.

Bill Meyer

Hieroglyphic Being — Dance Music 4 Bad People (Smalltown Supersound)

Jamal Moss’s music harks back to the sweat of clubs, secret if not entirely hidden. For those seeking a different kind of charged musical experience. Physical yes, rife with carnal possibility yes, but with an edge of darkness and complexity. As Hieroglyphic Being, Moss creates sacred hallows of celebration. He imparts knowledge and demands respect for the sharing of his learning. You can dance, you will dance, but on his terms and with ears and hearts open. Scaled large but intimate, Moss goes for the slinky and insinuating, filled with ancestral whispers, cosmic exhortations, an insistence on freedom of expression as resistance. Tracks come at you from unexpected angles, the titles offering clues; “Reality is not what It seems,” “The Art of Living A Meaningless Life,” “Awakening from A Dream State.” Atop shifting beats, the bass lines are funk driven and psychedelic, cosmic synths hang and glide. Seeped in a heady erotic fug, Dance Music 4 Bad People, is house music’s secular version of spiritual jazz.

Andrew Forell

Russ Lossing Trio — Moon Inhabitants (Sunnyside)

The Russ Lossing Trio’s chosen challenge is to see how much freedom can be found within a structure, and then to see what can be made with it. Pianist Lossing, bassist Masa Kamaguchi and drummer Billy Mintz operate happily within a jazz piano trio idiom that has endured for decades, and if you chose not to pay attention to what they’re doing on this disc, it could easily serve as background fare for people who prefer their jazz served with a steak and a cocktail. But even a cursory listen reveals a wealth of quite surprise. The material encompasses Harold Arlen, Ornette Coleman and Piotr Tchaikovsky, as well as a few Lossing originals. All of it is negotiated with respect for each piece’s structural challenges as well as a readiness to go quietly airborne at any moment, lifted up by the rhythm section’s push-pull and the pianist’s knack for resolving dense improvisational forays with an updraft of melody. Full disclosure — not so long ago I wrote liner notes for one of Lossing’s solo recordings on another label.

Bill Meyer

Pedro Silveira — Costeiro (self-released)

Pedro Silveira is a Brazilian guitarist who, on his second release, focuses on the ukulele. The way he plays it, the instrument, often associated with camp and silliness, sounds so full that it can easily be mistaken for a nylon string guitar. He is joined on Costeiro by Marcelo Muller, whose upright bass balances the high pitch of the ukulele, and the tasteful percussion of Marco Lobo. The performances and Silveira’s compositions recall classic recordings by the likes of Luiz Bonfá and Baden Powell. It’s unclear whether overdubbing was involved, but a video shows his formidable technique on what appears to be a tenor ukulele. Light and breezy, this Latin jazz release is a great spring soundtrack.

Jim Marks

Southern Avenue — Family (Alligator)

This Memphis soul quartet mines powerful traditions like electric blues, soul and gospel, with ebullient, harmonized choruses, coruscating guitar licks and a way of leaning on a vamp until it’s nailed to the ground. “Upside” is maybe the best of the lot, driving hard but with a southern saunter, wheeling around the corners with Stax organs squealing. Tierinii Jackson commands the forefront with her church-grown, blues-burnt vocal style, the notes tumbling out of her in flowery elaborations. She’s got all the tools — the belt, the grunt, the growl, the melismatic embellishment, the righteous payoff—but it wouldn’t work without the smoking band, or the chorus of backing singers who bat back every phrase to her with joy and certainty. Good stuff.

Jennifer Kelly

Tàrrega 91 — Ckaos Total (La Vida Es un Mus)

You have to give props to Tàrrega 91 for the band’s single-minded purpose: relentless d-beat that documents a 1991 uprising in the Spanish town of Tàrrega that resulted in the arrest and detention of over 80 people. The Catalonian band keeps things aesthetically lean and mean, playing a variety of anarcho-punk that hasn’t changed much at all since Crass and Discharge broke the form open and continental bands like the Wretched, Negazione and Kangrena started making 7” records. One might object: history has ground onward with its own variety of relentlessness, so are these throwback sounds really what we need in 2025? The flip response will note that fascism is back, as if Franco never left. For certain, the fascists’ bullshit populism has renewed energy, and their cynical claims of fighting for the working class are even more repulsive. Maybe a shot of reliably disruptive sonic violence is just what’s required. Punks not dead, your head is.

Jonathan Shaw

Ultisol — Precession of the Equinox (Island House)

Ultisol is the alter-ego of Georgian fingerpicker Daniel Lamb, a guitarist heavily influenced by Takoma School players, especially Fahey. But this latest full length expands the artist’s scope with thoughtful, wide-ranging arrangements, fleshed out by likeminded musicians, including pedal steel player JP Bohannon, the harpist Megan Searl, the bass player Kevin Scott and percussionist/producer Dale Eisinger. As a results, cuts like “Intermittance” starts small and grows to something epic, while “Configuration” weaves smoke wreathes of pedal steel tone and ruminative bass around a pensive guitar clangor that might remind you of Loren Mazzacane Connors. Opener “Endless” sets the tone putting radiant acoustic and tone-shifting pedal steel in front of the sound of wind and surf, like you went to heaven and there’s a beach there.

Jennifer Kelly

Dustin Wong — Gloria (Hausu Mountain)

LA based guitarist and composer Dustin Wong memorializes his late grandmother Gloria on his latest album. Based on a road trip through California the pair took in 2023, Gloria is framed as both travelog and requiem in which Wong celebrates his grandmother’s life and captures the warmth of their relationship. Wong plays live over loops of treated guitar and effects, his often-wordless vocals and percussive effects provide a sense the places they visited, the people they encountered. Echoes of their separate and joint memories feel ever present. From the clip clop rhythm and Hawaiian lap steel of “Memories of Cordelia” to the pointillist syncopation of “Glass Beach,” Wong traverses styles to present nuanced evocations of his memories and his grandmother’s upbringing and life in the church. The album closes with two versions of “Angels We Have Heard on High.” In Wong’s interpretation of the hymn “Gloria in excelsis Deo,” his reverbed voice soars over a minimal guitar pattern in the first, whilst the second is a stately, heartfelt coda to a wonderfully evocative tribute.

Andrew Forell

You Ishihara — Passivité (Black Editions)

Black Editions continues to mine a treasure trove of Japanese underground music, exposing the eclecticism that bubbled under the surface of the country’s scene. Typically focusing on ferocious psych rock and experimental sounds, with this release they’ve uncovered something gentler. Passivité was the debut release from White Heaven frontman You Ishihara, a moody collection of sultry blues tunes. Surprisingly mellow for fans of his main outfit’s psychedelic garage rock sound, the skeletal songs unfurl like whisps of smoke in a crowded room. This is a solo album in name, but not in execution. Bandmate Michio Kurihara joins Ishihara on guitar, and members of Fushitsusha and Acid Mothers Temple appear on those tracks where he wanted to incorporate a full band feel. It’s the languorous and introspective songs that truly shine, with Ishihara coming across as a lonesome singer-songwriter spilling his melancholy to a rapt audience. Passivité is a unique entry in the Black Editions canon, an enjoyable document from the mellower side of Japanese psychedelia.

Bryon Hayes

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Planetary alignment provides NASA rare opportunity to study Uranus

When a planet's orbit brings it between Earth and a distant star, it's more than just a cosmic game of hide and seek. It's an opportunity for NASA to improve its understanding of that planet's atmosphere and rings. Planetary scientists call it a stellar occultation and that's exactly what happened with Uranus on April 7.

Observing the alignment allows NASA scientists to measure the temperatures and composition of Uranus's stratosphere—the middle layer of a planet's atmosphere—and determine how it has changed over the last 30 years since Uranus's last significant occultation.

"Uranus passed in front of a star that is about 400 light years from Earth," said William Saunders, planetary scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, and science principal investigator and analysis lead, for what NASA's team calls the Uranus Stellar Occultation Campaign 2025.

"As Uranus began to occult the star, the planet's atmosphere refracted the starlight, causing the star to appear to gradually dim before being blocked completely. The reverse happened at the end of the occultation, making what we call a light curve. By observing the occultation from many large telescopes, we are able to measure the light curve and determine Uranus's atmospheric properties at many altitude layers."

This data mainly consists of temperature, density, and pressure of the stratosphere. Analyzing the data will help researchers understand how the middle atmosphere of Uranus works and could help enable future Uranus exploration efforts.

To observe the rare event, which lasted about an hour and was only visible from Western North America, planetary scientists at NASA Langley led an international team of over 30 astronomers using 18 professional observatories.

"This was the first time we have collaborated on this scale for an occultation," said Saunders. "I am extremely grateful to each member of the team and each observatory for taking part in this extraordinary event. NASA will use the observations of Uranus to determine how energy moves around the atmosphere and what causes the upper layers to be inexplicably hot. Others will use the data to measure Uranus's rings, its atmospheric turbulence, and its precise orbit around the sun."

Knowing the location and orbit of Uranus is not as simple as it sounds. In 1986, NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft became the first and only spacecraft to fly past the planet—10 years before the last bright stellar occultation occured in 1996. And, Uranus's exact position in space is only accurate to within about 100 miles, which makes analyzing this new atmospheric data crucial to future NASA exploration of the ice giant.

These investigations were possible because the large number of partners provided many unique views of the stellar occultation from many different instruments.

Emma Dahl, a postdoctoral scholar at Caltech in Pasadena, California, assisted in gathering observations from NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii—an observatory first built to support NASA's Voyager missions.

"As scientists, we do our best work when we collaborate. This was a team effort between NASA scientists, academic researchers, and amateur astronomers," said Dahl. "The atmospheres of the gas and ice giant planets [Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune] are exceptional atmospheric laboratories because they don't have solid surfaces. This allows us to study cloud formation, storms, and wind patterns without the extra variables and effects a surface produces, which can complicate simulations very quickly."

On November 12, 2024, NASA Langley researchers and collaborators were able to do a test run to prepare for the April occultation. Langley coordinated two telescopes in Japan and one in Thailand to observe a dimmer Uranus stellar occultation only visible from Asia. As a result, these observers learned how to calibrate their instruments to observe stellar occultations, and NASA was able to test its theory that multiple observatories working together could capture Uranus's big event in April.

Researchers from the Paris Observatory and Space Science Institute, in contact with NASA, also coordinated observations of the November 2024 occultation from two telescopes in India. These observations of Uranus and its rings allowed the researchers, who were also members of the April 7 occultation team, to improve the predictions about the timing on April 7 down to the second and also improved modeling to update Uranus's expected location during the occultation by 125 miles.

Uranus is almost 2 billion miles away from Earth and has an atmosphere composed of primarily hydrogen and helium. It does not have a solid surface, but rather a soft surface made of water, ammonia, and methane. It's called an ice giant because its interior contains an abundance of these swirling fluids that have relatively low freezing points. While Saturn is the most well-known planet for having rings, Uranus has 13 known rings composed of ice and dust.

Over the next six years, Uranus will occult several dimmer stars. NASA hopes to gather airborne and possibly space-based measurements of the next bright Uranus occultation in 2031, which will be of an even brighter star than the one observed in April.

IMAGE: This image of Uranus from NIRCam (Near-Infrared Camera) on NASA's James Webb Space Telescope exquisitely captures Uranus's seasonal north polar cap and dim inner and outer rings. This Webb image also shows 9 of the planet's 27 moons—clockwise starting at 2 o'clock, they are: Rosalind, Puck, Belinda, Desdemona, Cressida, Bianca, Portia, Juliet, and Perdita. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI

[materialsscienceandengineering]

The last time you dropped a favorite mug or sat on your glasses, you may have been too preoccupied to take much notice of the intricate pattern of cracks that appeared in the broken object. But capturing the formation of such patterns is the specialty of John Kolinski and his team at the Laboratory of Engineering Mechanics of Soft Interfaces (EMSI) in EPFL's School of Engineering. They aim to understand how cracks propagate in brittle solids, which is essential for developing and testing safe and cost-effective composite materials for use in construction, sports, and aerospace engineering. But traditional mechanics approaches to analyzing crack formation assume that cracks are planar -- i.e., that they form on the two-dimensional surface of a material. In fact, simple planar cracks are just the tip of the iceberg: most cracks -- like those in everyday brittle solids like glass -- propagate into three-dimensional networks of ridges and other complex features.

Read more.

[dragonflycap]

5 Trade Ideas for Monday: Abbott Labs, Broadcom, GE Aerospace, Nike and RTX

5 Trade ideas excerpted from the detailed analysis and plan for premium subscribers:

Abbott Laboratories, $ABT, comes into the week at resistance. It has a RSI rising and the MACD curling to cross up. Look for a push over resistance to participate….

Broadcom, $AVGO, comes into the week at resistance. It has a RSI is the bullish zone with the MACD flat and positive. Look for a push over resistance to participate….

GE Aerospace, $GE, comes into the week at resistance. It has a RSI is the bullish zone with the MACD positive. Look for a push over resistance to participate….

Nike, $NKE, comes into the week at resistance. It has a RSI in the bullish zone with the MACD positive. Look for a push over resistance to participate….

RTX, $RTX, comes into the week at resistance. It has a RSI in the bullish zone with the MACD positive. Look for a push over resistance to participate….

If you like what you see sign up for more ideas and deeper analysis using this Get Premium link.   

After reviewing over 1,000 charts, I have found some good setups for the week. These were selected and should be viewed in the context of the broad Market Macro picture reviewed Friday which heading into the peak of earnings season and the FOMC meeting, saw equity markets continuing to show strength, making new highs.

Elsewhere, looked for Gold to continue to consolidate in its uptrend while Crude Oil drifts in consolidation. The US Dollar Index continues short term move to the downside at 3 year lows while US Treasuries consolidate in their downtrend. The Shanghai Composite looks to move up to test the top of the broad consolidation area while Emerging Markets continue their short term uptrend.

The Volatility Index looks to continue in the normal range making life easier for equity markets to the upside. The charts of the SPY and QQQ continue to point to more strength on both timeframes as they continue to print new all-time highs. The IWM continues to make slower progress in its move higher. Use this information as you prepare for the coming week and trad’em well.

[darkmaga-returns]

By Rhoda Wilson April 23, 2025

Last month, in a presentation given to Health Alliance Australia, systems neuroscientist Dr. Kevin McCairn discussed his analysis of the unusual fibrous white clots retrieved from deceased, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein which is in the covid “vaccines.”

He also discussed how he determined the clots’ composition to be diseased, proteinaceous tissue; primarily misfolded fibrin (protein), also known as prions, that is highly amyloidogenic.

Dr. McCairn’s laboratory offers tests to detect amyloid burden through blood samples. Ninety per cent of blood sent to Dr. McCairn has the spike protein-induced amyloidogenic peptides. It is very concerning that clots taken from the body of the deceased still contain prions with a very strong signal months after they have been removed from the body; there are severe implications for public health, particularly concerning infected blood used for transfusions.

His latest laboratory findings and research have revealed a global amyloidogenic health disaster, where misfolded fibrin (protein) is causing multi-organ dysfunction, neurodegeneration, cancer, heart disease and other health issues.

In the video below, Dr. Philip McMillan briefly discusses Dr. McCairn’s findings.

[maeon-labs]

Plastic Testing Lab Chennai

Plastic Testing Lab offering detailed mechanical, thermal, and chemical analysis for all plastic materials. Ensure your products meet industry standards and regulatory requirements. Our expert testing services guarantee quality and reliability for your plastic materials.

[redsnowdrop]

DALLARA & FORMULA ONE

-> F1 Masterlist <-

Dallara is now present in all F3 championships, is the sole supplier of cars to the IndyCar, Indy Lights, F2, F3, World Series by Renault, Super Formula and Formula E championships, makes cars for training championships (Formulini) and participates in the Grand-Am category.

In Formula 1 it competed from the 1988 to the 1992 season, as a chassis supplier for Scuderia Italia. Drivers who have competed in Formula 1 with this car include, among others, Andrea De Cesaris, Pierluigi Martini, Emanuele Pirro, Gianni Morbidelli, Alex Caffi and JJ Lehto. In 2010 it supplied the chassis to HRT, while since 2016 it has supplied the chassis to Haas.

In recent years, engineering activity has expanded significantly (today it represents 40% of total turnover), both for racing cars and for high-performance road cars.

Dallara's continuous investment in cutting-edge technologies has reached its maximum expression in the construction of the first commercially available professional F1 driving simulator (there are 3 in the world).

Dallara participated in the Formula 1 World Championship as a constructor for Scuderia Italia from 1988 to 1992, obtaining as best race result two 3rd places at the 1989 Canadian Grand Prix with Andrea De Cesaris and at the 1991 San Marino Grand Prix with JJ Lehto; in the same years it also obtained its best placings in the constructors' standings, obtaining eighth place.

The Italian car manufacturer briefly returned to Formula 1 in 2010 collaborating with HRT in the construction of the Hispania F111; this experience ended negatively before the end of the championship, without the car ever having obtained points during the season.

Since 2016, Dallara has started a collaboration with Ferrari and Haas, supplying the chassis for the cars of the American team.

Aborted projects

In 1999, Dallara built, on behalf of Honda, 6 chassis of the laboratory car that the Japanese used to evaluate their return to Formula 1. This car, called Honda RA099, was designed and developed starting in 1998 by Harvey Postlethwaite, who had previously worked for Ferrari and Tyrrell, and was subjected to long test sessions both in Suzuka and Jerez by Dutch driver Jos Verstappen, who achieved times from mid-field, despite the fact that this project had fewer resources than those of the teams involved in the F1 championship. The sudden death of Harvey Postlethwaite due to a heart attack during a test session in Jerez put an end to the project and the Honda RA099 was put in a museum, while Honda decided to support the BAR team with its own engines. Of the 6 chassis built, only 4 were actually used on the track.

Towards the middle of 2004 a collaboration between Midland, Alex Shnaider's company, and Dallara for the design and construction of a Formula One car for the 2006 Championship was proposed. The internal name of the project was F106. To cope with this new work, some technicians with previous experience in Formula One joined Dallara; among them were Gary Anderson (Chief Designer), Claudio Gianini (structural design), Ian Thomson (composite materials) and Dan Fallows (aerodynamics). However, a few months after the start of the project, Shnaider decided to buy the Jordan team, reducing the partnership with Dallara to just consultancy for the development of some details of the single-seater.

Wikipedia

[spacenutspod]

Casey Wolfe is developing and producing the next generation payload adapter for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) super-heavy lift rocket. The adapter is made with some of the world’s most advanced composite manufacturing techniques.NASA/Sam Lott While precision, perseverance, and engineering are necessary skills in building a Moon rocket, Casey Wolfe knows that one of the most important aspects for the job is teamwork. “Engineering is vital, but to get this type of work done, you need to take care of the human element,” said Wolfe, the assistant branch chief of the advanced manufacturing branch in the Materials and Processes Laboratory at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. Together with her team, Wolfe is developing and producing the next generation payload adapter for NASA’s SLS (Space Launch System) super-heavy lift rocket. The adapter is made with some of the world’s most advanced composite manufacturing techniques. Wolfe’s work integrates the technical day-to-day operations and personnel management of the composites manufacturing team and additive manufacturing team, balancing production of SLS hardware with the creation of new engines using the latest manufacturing technologies.  “A lot of my day to day is in managing our two teams, making connections, building relationships, and making sure people feel supported,” Wolfe explains. “I conduct individual tag ups with each team member so we can be proactive about anticipating and addressing problems.” Wolfe grew up in Huntsville, a place known as the “Rocket City,” but it wasn’t until she visited a job fair while studying at Auburn University for a polymer and fiber engineering degree that she began to consider a career at NASA Marshall. Wolfe applied for and was selected to be a NASA intern through the Pathways Program, working in the non-metallic materials branch of the Materials and Processes Laboratory. Wolfe supported a coating system for electrostatic discharge on the first uncrewed test flight of the Orion spacecraft. Launching December 5, 2014, Orion traveled to an altitude of 3,600 miles, orbited Earth twice, and splashed down in the Pacific Ocean. It was during her internship that Wolfe realized how inspirational it felt to be treated like a vital part of a team: “The SLS program gave everyone permission to sign the hardware, even me – even though I was just an intern,” says Wolfe. “It was impactful to me, knowing that something I had worked on had my name on it and went to space.”  Since being hired by NASA, Wolfe’s work has supported development of the Orion stage adapter diaphragms for Artemis II and Artemis III, and the payload adapters for Artemis IV and beyond. The first three Artemis flights use the SLS Block 1 rocket variant, which can send more than 27 metric tons (59,500 pounds) to the Moon in a single launch. Beginning with Artemis IV, the SLS Block 1B variant will use the new, more powerful exploration upper stage to enable more ambitious missions to deep space, with the cone-shaped payload adapter situated atop the rocket’s exploration upper stage. The new variant will be capable of launching more than 38 metric tons (84,000 pounds) to the Moon in a single launch. “While the engineering development unit of the payload adapter is undergoing large-scale testing, our team is working on the production of the qualification article, which will also be tested,” Wolfe says. “Flight components should be starting fabrication in the next six months.” When Wolfe isn’t working, she enjoys hiking, gardening, and hanging out with her dogs and large family. Recently, she signed another piece of SLS hardware headed to space: the Orion stage adapter for the second Artemis mission. With as many responsibilities as Wolfe juggles, it’s easy to lose sight of her work’s impact. “I work in the lab around the hardware all the time, and in many ways, it can become very rote,” she says. But Wolfe won’t forget what she saw one evening when she worked late: “Everybody was gone, and as I walked past the launch vehicle stage adapter, there were two security guards taking pictures of each other in front of it. It was one of those things that made me step back and reflect on what my team accomplishes every day: making history happen.” NASA is working to land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft, supporting ground systems, advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.

[rjzimmerman]

Excerpt from this press release from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA):

NOAA and United Airlines have announced an agreement to equip a Boeing 737 with a sophisticated instrument package that will measure greenhouse gases and other pollutants during domestic flights. It’s a first step in establishing a partnership that could significantly improve monitoring of carbon dioxide, methane and other greenhouse gases, as well as improving the accuracy of weather forecasts in the United States. 

The multiyear agreement is designed as a test for a potential larger network of instrumented commercial aircraft that would allow for continual monitoring of greenhouse gases and key observations, like water vapor, above large metropolitan regions in the U.S. and neighboring countries. The agreement, a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA), was announced today at the White House Super Pollutants Summit held in Washington D.C.

"This collaboration represents a significant leap forward in U.S. efforts to monitor and mitigate greenhouse gas emissions," said Sarah Kapnick, Ph.D., NOAA’s chief scientist. "If we can harness the capabilities of commercial aircraft we will be poised to make rapid advancements in the understanding of greenhouse gas emissions that can inform policies."

NOAA’s Global Monitoring Laboratory (GML) operates a network of 60 sampling sites around the world, and contracts with private pilots to collect airborne samples during 14 regular flight routes in the U.S. an average of three times a month. Analysis of these samples provides data that allows scientists to accurately track the global increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which they incorporate into NOAA’s Global Greenhouse Gas Reference Network, one of the foundational research tools used by climate scientists.

New and existing satellites have increased scientists' ability to monitor many greenhouse gas super pollutants, such as methane, but satellites do not measure them directly. Direct measurements of atmospheric composition by airborne instruments remain the most effective way to validate satellite observations. 

[time4hemp]

What Is Hemp?

It’s A Trillion Dollar Cash Crop.

Hemp is a name given to a strain of the cannabis plant.

Hemp is a name given to cultivars of the cannabis plant (Cannabis sativa) that have been selected over many generations for fiber and seed production. Most hemp cultivars contain less than 1.5% THC, a narcotic compound that has the potential for abuse in high concentrations. Cannabis sativa cultivars selected and developed for their drug properties, referred to as marijuana, or dagga, can have a THC content of 3%-25%.  Hemp is a bast fiber, producing its fibers in the stalk similar to flax, kenaf, and sun hemp.

Multiple Uses

Hemp fiber and seed are used to produce a wide range of commodities including food and beverage products, fiberboard, insulation, paper, composites, textiles, carpets, animal bedding and feed, cosmetics, body-care products, soaps, paints, fuels, and medicines.

Hemp Seed Food and Beverage Products

Hemp seed contains about 25% protein, 30% carbohydrates, & 15% insoluble fiber. Hemp seed is reported to contain more easily digestible protein than soybeans. Hemp seed contains all 8 amino acids essential to human nutrition. Hemp seed is high in calcium, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, carotene, sulfur, iron and zinc, as well as Vitamins A, E, C, B1, B2, B3, and B6.

Hemp seed imported into the United States or Canada must be steam sterilized at between 180 degrees F and 212 degrees F for 15 minutes to prevent sprouting. Many US facilities receive imported viable seed under customs bond, steam it, and release it to the consignee or customer with a Certificate of Sterilization.

Hemp food and beverage products include hemp oil and seed, flour, pasta, cheese, tofu, salad dressings, snacks, sweets, hemp protein powders, soft drinks, beer, and wine. Hemp beer can be made from the seed, flowers, sprouts, and seed cake that is a by-product of oil pressing. Hemp beer is produced and sold in Europe and the United States of America.

Hemp Oil

Hemp seed is 25% to 35% oil, and is one of the oils lowest in saturated fats (8%). Hemp seed oil is the richest source of polyunsaturated essential fatty acids (80%). Hemp seed oil is the only common edible seed oil containing Omega-6 Gamma-Linolenic Acid. Hemp seed oil is very fragile and not suitable for cooking.

Pressed hemp seed oil must be bottled immediately under oxygen-free conditions, and must be refrigerated in dark, airtight containers.

Fiberboard

Hemp fiberboard tested by Washington State University Wood Materials and Engineering Laboratory proved to be two and one half times stronger than wood MDF composites, and the hemp composite boards were three times more elastic.

Hemp herds can be used in existing mills without major changes in equipment. Russia, Poland and other Eastern European countries already manufacture composite boards from hemp and other plant materials.

Pulp and Paper

The major use of hemp fiber in Europe is in the production of specialty papers such as cigarette paper, archival paper, tea bags, and currency paper. The average bast fiber pulp and paper mill produces 5,000 tons of paper per year. Most mills process long bast fiber strands, which arrive as bales of cleaned ribbon from per-processing plants located near the cultivation areas.

Composites

Until the 1930’s, hemp-based cellophane, celluloid and other products were common, and Henry Ford used hemp to make car doors and fenders. Today hemp herds can be used to make new plastic and injection-molded products or blended into recycled plastic products. Hemp fibers are introduced into plastics to make them stiffer, stronger and more impact resistant. Hemp plastics can be designed that are hard, dense, and heat resistant, and which can be drilled, ground, milled, and planed.

Hemp plastic products currently made include chairs, boxes, percussion instruments, lampshades, bowls, cups, spectacles, jewelry, skateboards, and snowboards.

Hemp Animal Care

Hemp horse bedding and cat litter are produced and sold in Europe. After oil is extracted from the hemp seed, the remaining seed cake is about 25% protein and makes an excellent feed for chicken, cattle, and fish. Chickens fed hemp seed on a regular basis have been found to produce more eggs, without the added hormones used in most poultry plants.

Fuels

Hemp seed oil can be combined with 15% methanol to create a substitute for diesel fuel which burns 70% cleaner than petroleum diesel. Hemp stalks are rich in fiber and cellulose, making them conducive for conversion into ethanol and methanol fuels that have a higher octane than gasoline and produce less carbon monoxide. These biomass fuels are also free from sulfur, and do not require the addition of lead and benzene used to boost octane and improve engine performance in fossil fuels. Ethanol holds condensation, eliminating oxidation and corrosion, and is reported to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by more than 30%.

Hemp has been studied in Ireland as a biomass fuel to generate electricity. Hemp has been reported to yield 1000 gallons of methanol per acre year. Hemp stalk can be converted to a charcoal-like fuel through a thermochemical process called pyrolysis. Henry Ford operated a biomass pyrolitic plant at Iron Mountain, Michigan in the mid-20th.

Paints and Varnishes and Binders

Until the 1930's, most paints were made from hemp seed oil and flax seed oil. Hemp oil makes a durable, long lasting paint that renders wood water-resistant. Hemp herds have the potential to make glues for composite construction products that are non-toxic and superior to binders currently used. With this technology, industry can produce composite products where all components are derived from hemp.

Markets for Hemp Pulp

Some paper manufacturers already have the equipment to process decorticated hemp fiber into paper. The leading European supplier of non-wood pulp, Celesa, currently produces about 10,000 tons per year of pulp from hemp. The use of hemp pulp in blends with recycled fiber of other non-wood fibers is growing. Tests by several European pulp and paper producers suggest that hemp pulp may replace cotton cost effectively in several specialty paper applications.

Potential Markets for Medical Application of Low-THC Hemp Cultivars

Many cannabis medicines have been produced using cannabis cultivars high in THC, and there has been medical research into cannabis that is low in THC and high in CBD.  CBD is a cannabinoid that does not have many of the psychoactive effects associated with THC.  CBD has been used to treat the following medical conditions: epilepsy, dystonic movement disorders, inflammatory disorders, pain, chronic insomnia, chorea, cerebral palsy, and Tourette's syndrome. According to a July 1998 report by the National Institute of Health, CBD may hold promise for preventing brain damage in strokes, Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and even heart attacks and has been found to prevent brain cell death in an experimental stroke model.

Please share this with your friends.

[medikors]

Understanding the Imaging Power of InAlyzer Technology | MEDIKORS

In the evolving landscape of biomedical and scientific research, precise imaging tools play a vital role in delivering meaningful results. The InAlyzer by MEDIKORS is an advanced diagnostic system that utilizes Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry (DXA) to provide fast, high-resolution, and reliable imaging for small laboratory animals. Widely trusted by global research institutions, this small animal DXA system supports a broad range of studies, including bone health, body composition analysis, pharmacology, and nutrition. Specifically engineered for preclinical research, this Mouse DXA device ensures exceptional accuracy, operational efficiency, and safety.

Key Features of InAlyzer

It provides scanning in just 30 seconds, with results delivered in one minute.

It achieves measurement error under 1%, offering high-precision results.

It will come in two models:

S Type (140mm x 210mm) for rats, hamsters

M Type (210mm x 315mm) for rabbits, guinea pigs

It is equipped with a 54μm linear detector delivering 4.9 lp/mm resolution, superior to standard systems.

It supports various imaging views: super-resolution X-ray, bone, tissue, and body composition images.

It offers color-coded composition images to highlight areas of high body fat.

It enables 30 regions of interest (ROIs) and 10 exclusion ROIs (XROIs) for localized analysis.

It utilizes fan-beam technology and a super flattening system for multi-animal scans.

It ensures safe handling with internal lead shielding and anesthesia access points.

It exports data in Excel and TIFF formats for structured reporting.

Applications Across Research Fields

Biomedical research: Imaging technology, biosensors, diagnostics, prosthetics

Bioscience and biotechnology: Molecular biology, tissue engineering, genetic studies

Bone metabolism: Osteoporosis studies, biomarker tracking

Dental research: Jawbone analysis, material testing

Food and nutrition science: Body fat and lean mass monitoring

Fishery and marine science: Aquaculture health, marine biodiversity

Pharmaceuticals: Preclinical drug testing, metabolism tracking

Academic research: Used in universities, hospitals, and labs worldwide

Transforming Research Through Technology

MEDIKORS InAlyzer stands at the intersection of innovation and practical utility, empowering scientists to conduct non-invasive, accurate studies without sacrificing animal welfare or operational efficiency. Its unmatched speed, detailed imaging capabilities, and intuitive data management tools make it a preferred choice for institutions across the globe. With its broad application scope and scientific accuracy, the InAlyzer redefines preclinical animal imaging, delivering results that drive discovery forward.

If you are looking for a Mouse DXA device, you can find it at MEDIKORS.

Click here if you are interested in MEDIKORS Small animal DXA devices.

View More: Understanding the Imaging Power of InAlyzer Technology