My chemical colleague Jonathan Goodman was kind enough to allow me to syndicate Chem Inf Letts on the Sciencebase site, so I thought I’d give him another plug in the SciObs blog and see if we can knock the “other” JG off the search engines’ top slot for the Prof’s name. After all, a chemistry professor, in my humble opinion, is a far more relevant character for the search engine’s to list at number one than the other guy (even if he is a maths professor!)
Category: Science
…of oysters and mussels
It’s great that an old client of mine, The Scotsman, sees fit to cover recent happenings at the national meeting of the American Chemical Society regarding oysters and mussels being the food of love, but did they have to reinforce the negative image of chemistry by using the phrase “the unromantic-sounding annual meeting”? It’s bad enough that the chemophobes make constant digs at the subject, but those reporting on science don’t need to reinforce the stereotypes, surely. Anyway, something that might appear unromantic ain’t necessarily so…who knows what goes on in between lectures and behind those poster displays…
Decoded language
Sexism is thriving in Washington science apparently. According to an article in the Post referrring to recent research on Chromosome X: “She was slow to reveal her secrets, but the X chromosome has
now bared it all”. The article, Human X Chromosome Coded, itself is interesting, but why employ such a lewd opening…? It’s certainly got people talking about it on the science journalist discussion groups, maybe that was the aim, but surely there were stronger metaphors they could have used.
You can read a past article by David Bradley on women in science here. Hopefully, sexism is kept to a minimum in it!
The New Faces of Science
Forget American Idol, Fame Academy, Big Brother and X-Factor, FameLab is the one to watch. FameLab is looking for the new face of science! Ever since Einstein poked out his tongue for photographers and probably well before that, science, like every other field of human interest, has needed its icons. As part of the Cheltenham Science Festival, FameLab hopes to put a face to science. Science for the people is more about engagement than PUS these days, so check it out and watch out for those science idols…
Each of this year’s finalists has now done a showreel. This includes footage from the regional heats and the grand final, as well as clips filmed at a residential masterclass. You can view them all here
Cornell university researchers
Cornell University researchers are working hard to ensure P2P systems work as they should. Assistant professor in Computer Science, Emin GÜ® Sirer, for instance is working on various programs such as Credence, which he hopes will counter P2P pollution.
He’s also spotted a serious vulnerability in the Limewire P2P program, which runs on the Gnutella file sharing system and triggered Limewire to send out a patch to its approximately 35 million users.
Maybe this is a naive question, given the sheer number of users out there, but what are Cornell researchers doing improving systems that are commonly used to propagate copyright material illicitly across the net? Are there actual legitimate reasons why people would be using Limewire and other P2P software? Presumably, business users and academics wishing to share their information would do so through an intranet, ftp, or by email, rather than allowing all and sundry to access their files through a P2P network.
I could understand it if the academic community were working with the copyright holders on techniques to prevent copyrighted materials being propagated in this way, but this seems to be an odd way to spend research funds, or am I missing something here?
Trumpet Blowing
Ever since I first brought to Western attention the problem of arsenic in groundwater on the Indian sub-continent through my article in The Guardian a decade ago, I’ve tried to keep up with developments. Now, researchers have discovered that the dried roots of the water hyacinth can remove arsenic from contaminated water. This could provide a simple, effective and, most importantly, cheap method of removing arsenic from the water supply in some of the poorest regions of the world.
Chemistry Student Beats Microsoft
A chemistry student in the US has beaten software giant Microsoft to a legal pulp, according to a report in The Register. David Zamos of Kent State University re-sold on e-bay some MS software bought at an educational discount rate. MS sued and then Zamos counter-sued says The Register. The funniest thing about the article though isn’t Zamos’ contorted retort to the MS legal claims (“Microsoft purposely established and maintained a sales and distribution system whereby rightful rejection and return of merchandise that is substantially non-conforming is either impossible or practically impossible due to the ineptness of its employees, unconscionable policies malicious intent and deceptive practices,” he wrote in the countersuit, reports The Register), but that the webzine then asks, “What’s this kid doing messing around with Chemistry?”
Well…if Zamos is clever enough to out-do MS in legalese, he could only be a boon to the chemical industry and ought to be given a high-level position as soon as he graduates…
Joel Shurkin’s Blog
My mentioning Joel Shurkin’s blog brought forth some sarcastic comments because of my quoting his remark on cancer cause and cure. One blog made the quite obvious comment in joannejacobs.com that “make a mouse drink enough water, it’ll develop cancer from it”. I wasn’t sure if that entry was being sarcastic or not, but I think Joel himself was being ironic…science writers see dozens of research papers that swing both ways on such matters as cancer cause and cure. Equally we see headlines proclaiming “[insert favourite chemical here] Causes Cancer” and just as many saying, “Scientific Breakthrough in Cancer Fight”.
Any compound can be demonstrated to be cytotoxic under the right conditions and so kill cancer cells or cause cancer in healthy cells. It’s the “right conditions” that matter though. Nevertheless we should heed the warnings about some chemicals: DHMO.org
One Week They’re Telling Us One Thing
One week they’re telling us that fidgety people stay slimmer because they burn 350 (k)cals a day more than the non-fidgets, then there are warnings that exercise might not work for some people, might cause some people more harm than good, and gym goers might even pick up MRSA from infected equipment. Then we hear, cutting calories is the way to live longer, but at the same time laziness might reduce stress on the heart, presumably only if you are not of a gloomy disposition and laugh a lot. It’s a confusing world, the world of medical advice. Check out the sciencebase medical newsfeed for the latest word on discoveries in medicine.
How to Maintain a Healthy Windows System
How to maintain a healthy Windows System. This page does what it says on the tin, providing a run down of what you need to do to maintain your Windows set up and cut down on the old Bluescreen of Death. One thing though lots of the text on this page is very pale and impossible to read if there’s a lot of glare on your screen…so here’s a quick tip to make any “too pale” text easily readable: “Control A” (Selects all). All text on the page then becomes white on a nice dark blue background. Much easier on the eyes if browsing in bright conditions…