Levitating Medicine With Sound
So some clever guys over at the US Department of Energy‘s Argonne Laboratory are using acoustic levitation to turn off the gravity on medicine. Why might they be doing this? Well, it turns out there are two types of medicine doctors are looking for: amorphous, without constant form, and crystalline, with a rigid atomic structure. The amorphous type is processed much more efficiently in the body because of its solubility, and now technology is making amorphous storage a reality. Also, it looks so alien.
If you’re wondering how the liquid is levitated, there is a relatively simple explanation. Basically, two very precise speakers are aligned towards each other, and their frequencies (in this case 22 Khz which is right outside 
human hearing) meet in the middle and create a standing wave. Inside of this standing wave where the energy of both speakers is combined, an air column forms from the turbulence in the air. The pockets of moving air rest along the points in the wave where nothing is moving. Inside these nodes they can place small items. This method was originally concocted by NASA while trying to experiment with micro-gravity.
Related articles
- Acoustic Levitation: Levitating with Sound Waves (neatorama.com)
- See sound waves levitate drops of liquid (nbcnews.com)
- Scientists Invent Levitation Method to Create More Effective Drugs [Video] (gizmodo.com)
