After vanishing for a bit into the world of working strange hours and taking classes, I am back with a discussion of discoveries hiding in plain sight. That almost seems topical! There have been plenty of scientific discoveries that occurred, essentially, because someone decided to actually look. So letâs look at some recent and not […]
One of the reasons I started this blog was to show the lighter side of science. Usually, this means the silly side. But since Valentineâs Day is on Wednesday, today weâre looking at the romantic side. And I probably wonât even make more than one âgreat chemistryâ joke, which is more than we can say […]
In my early days of grad school, I was going to look at the mechanism of reactions with silicon and gemanium triple bonds. Of course, it eventually became clear that my chemistry talents lay in spectroscopy, computational, data analysis and actually writing the paper and not at all in the actual synthesis. But in the […]
There is a tendency to interpret the phrase âhotly debateâ in academic matters as a rather sedate sort of thing. Which is absurd, since scientists are, contrary to popular belief, still people. And that makes them just as prone to absurd drama as knitting enthusiasts and science fiction fans. Though maybe not quite as much […]
As a Terry Pratchett fan, I love a good footnote. Scientific footnotes are generally fairly dry things. However, every now and then you get a footnote that is in fact hilarious. Iâve already shared my favourite, which I love for its pure âReviewer 3 made me do itâ honesty. But there are several other great […]
There was a great discussion this week on Twitter about science communication inspirations. One thing that came up was how important it was that the Magic School Bus encouraged kids to go out there and make mistakes. During the discussion, it became clear that some of the public doesnât realize just how important mistakes really […]
There are lots of reasons to undertake a scientific investigation. Sometimes itâs pure and simple curiosity. Sometimes itâs a directed effort to solve a specific problem. Often itâs pure curiosity that gets dressed up as a directed effort while writing a grant application. Sometimes it’s trying to solve one specific problem and accidentally solving another. […]
Scientific nomenclature can be a bit of a funny thing, as weâve discussed before. When you make something entirely new, it obviously needs a name. Today weâre talking about the strange situation of silanones, where the most obvious name was already taken by something that is not accurately described by the name. Silicone Since silicon […]
Animals, of course, play a big role in many scientistsâ lives. Sometimes they are research subjects. Sometimes they’re a source of inspiration. In my own work, large portions of my thesis were written with my laptop sitting delicately on top of my cat Schroedinger. At the other end of the spectrum, I frequently had to […]
There has been some amused talk of prescribing sildenafil (famously known as Viagra, much less famously as Revatio) for pulmonary hypertension. How strange it is that doctors are now prescribing an erectile dysfunction drug for potentially life threatening conditions. The logic behind the alternative uses is sound enough: they all deal with regulating blood flow […]