Friday Science Gleanings

The Chemistry Department of the University of Nottingham has a YouTube video channel where they have a video for each element of the periodic table narracted by the stereotypical chemistry professor Martyn Poliakoff. The vidoes work however because of their verisimiltude ... these vidoes are works of love.

LINK to YouTube Channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/periodicvideos

In any event their most recent is a mash-up of the famous Lehrer "Element Song" and their narrators saying the names of the elements. It made me smile:



A preoccupation with the trivial is a universal attribute of the scientist. I found this video on light bulb filaments fascinating:



Calamaties of Nature has a series on Science and Spirituality:

And there was this as well by "The Other Coast"

While not specifically about Science I have always thought that this quote spoke to the curiousity and attitude of the Scientist:

"When a thing is funny, search it carefully for a hidden truth." George Bernard Shaw

I Always Thought the Chemistry Was Wrong On this Issue

It turns out the Mafia informants have been overstating the use of barrels of sulphuric acid to dispose of human bodies. As someone who has put a lot of organic material in concentrated sulphuric acid over the years I just know that the fumes, heat and reaction residue would not be an easy clean-up. So it was good to hear that someone did the actual science on the whole "body in a barrel of Sulphuric Acid" myth. Now I have to come up with a different plans to dispose of the bodies ...

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/02/corpse-dissolving/

(I gotta ask though how this gets tagged as "biology" by the magazine)

Saturday Quote

"In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, something that no one ever knew before. But in poetry, it's the exact opposite."

Paul Dirac (Nobel Prize in physics, 1933)
Oh, and it snowed last night too.

Friday Science Round-up

Came across this quote in my reading this week ...

"Aristotle maintained that women have fewer teeth than men; although he was twice married, it never occurred to him to verify this statement by examining his wives' mouths." Bertrand Russell

And I came across these cartoons referencing science ...

LINK

LINK

LINK

Stuff I Like

I like "Indexed" and this is the posting for today. Nice

Sometimes You Just Love Feeling Small

I saw this first on a physics site that I monitor [ LINK ] and it is yet another of the amazing time lapse sequences taken at observatories or in the desert. One can argue that it makes one feel small but I had to watch this three times ... first in amazement ... then humbled and finally grateful. Take a look but just don't be satisfied with the little image here go to the actual video to see it in all its' glory.

He Sees You When You're Sleeping ...

Several of you have expressed interest in the webcamera that I have mounted in the lab. As I have said, there was a time when I was concerned because I was alone in the lab with the students and would have appreciated a second set of eyes and an impartial account of what happened and when in the lab. So here we are. These are the images from the Intro Chem Lab 23 November:



And the Organic Chem Lab 25 November:

A River Runs Through It

So we are in the middle of the biggest storm of the season and I decided to make a quick visit to the culvert (click on image for video).

From 2010-11-07(stream)

The video isn't perfect (I see I forgot to reset the date in the camera when I changed the batteries)but it shows the culvert releasing water at 3 meters per second and pooling over the lower rock field which clearly was created without thinking about the water table. The lower rock field will not act as a filter, the landscape fabric hoarding has been torn out and is now not holding anything in. If you look closely you can also see the demarcation line of the muddy outflow as it mixes with the stream. I have to admit though that the dilution factor has to be a significant factor with the stream volume so high.

I think this confirms pretty much everything I suspected and feared. Now we just need to wait until the city starts salting the streets to see what impact that has on the stream. Something tells me the stream doesn't freeze over this winter.

From 2010-11-07(stream)

From 2010-11-07(stream)

From 2010-11-07(stream)

Calm Before the Whirlwind

It is weirdly quiet and calm here at CU. Sort of that ominous quiet before a big storm. I have been working on my courses for the fall and attending meetings. Oh, this morning I ran into this little fellow on the sidewalk in front of CU.


When informed that he would likely be stepped on he bobbed his head with a sense of resignation (echos of a behaviour observed by a student blogger who had the blog "ChemSucks"). In spite of his fatalism I helped him into a nice shaded bit of dewy grass where I like to think he cavorts and gambols in a salamandery way.

I liked this recent cartoon ...