Heh. Neat.
The Natural History Museum is setting out to digitize 80 million specimens. Most of these are part of various herbariums (herbaria?), particularly the Hans Sloane Herbarium. Plant samples. You know.
The challenge is, most of this stuff is just plants pressed into albums. Not even glued, just pressed. You can imagine how hard it is to open and photograph that stuff without dropping bits all over the floor.
I don’t know if you can see it, but those little armatures holding the pages open? They’re made of Legos. Which makes perfect sense:
‘By making it completely out of Lego it is possible to have it ordered and shipped to almost anywhere, and the low cost makes it affordable to everyone. It is especially important for scientists in developing countries and students.’
To be honest, I’m surprised there doesn’t exist some special titanium-and-molybdenum super-sciencey chrome-plated lego-like but much more serious kind of building kit for projects like this.
Surprised and bitterly disappointed.
Posted: April 16th, 2018 under personal, science.
Comments: 5
Comments
Comment from BJM
Time: April 16, 2018, 9:18 pm
A clever, Rube Goldberg-ish, kludge. Often the ad hoc solutions to behind-the-scene problems are as interesting as what is being filmed.
Comment from peacelovewoodstock
Time: April 16, 2018, 9:36 pm
Well indeed there are metal legos: https://www.etsy.com/listing/588082535/glam-metal-batman-custom-lego
Comment from ExpressoBold
Time: April 16, 2018, 10:18 pm
Pictured: The Sir Hans Sloane Herbarium in the Darwin Centre Cocoon at the Museum in London… Uh huh.
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@peacelovewoodstock :
Sent on the Juno Expedition to Jupiter:
https://www.space.com/12546-lego-figures-jupiter-juno-spacecraft.html
Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: April 17, 2018, 3:03 am
I remember reading an article a while back about a clever soul who thought of using Barbie’s knee joints for the joints of artificial fingers.
Comment from OmahaBob
Time: April 17, 2018, 11:43 pm
First differential analyzer (analog computer to solve differential equations) in England was made of Meccano parts, except for a couple specially machined cams – circa 1838.
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