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Amusing News Aliquots
Silly samplings from this week’s science news, compiled by Sophia Cai, Bethany Halford, and Jeff Huber.
Credit: Disney
Forget mouse ears. The best souvenir of your Disney vacation is your face on a 7.5-inch Stormtrooper figurine (or a figurine of yourself locked in carbonite after you have to pay for said vacation). [iO9]
Super geek dad builds 7-foot tall Transformer costumes in his spare time (with video). [Geeks Are Sexy]
The Newscripts gang loves irony. Like the burglary researcher whose work keeps getting plagiarized. [Improbable Research]
Tap … tap tap tap tap … tap tap tap tappp tap … It’s “Call Me Maybe,” why can’t you get that?! My fault?! No, you’re bad at communicating! [iO9]
Secret to hearing other galaxies? Be really, really quiet. Like, turn-off-your-cellphone-and-radio quiet. [NBC News]
Malaria parasites not only make mosquitoes more harmful, but also more hungry for human blood. Great. [BBC]
Kangaroo attacks an Australian politician during his jog, which is scary but also kind of adorable. [ABC News]
Also in Australia: It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s a hot-air balloon in the shape of a mammal with several nipples that’s supposed to make us reflect on our place in the world called Skywhale! [The Australian]
What’s the secret to living a long, healthy life? Well, it helps if you’re a woman. [BBC]
Amusing News Aliquots
Silly samplings from this week’s science news, compiled by Sophia Cai, Bethany Halford, and Jeff Huber.
Astronaut demonstrates what happens when a wet towel is wrung out in space. His cabinmates remind him of their spaceship’s strict “Clean up after yourself” rule. [Huffington Post]
The Pew Research Center and Smithsonian magazine release an online quiz to evaluate how your knowledge of science and technology compares with others’. Beat your grandfather to the punch, and forward him the link before he sends it to you. [Pew Research Center]
Newest loot for Mexico-to-China smugglers: giant bladders from endangered fish. [Washington Post]
And you thought medical marijuana had a hard time – researchers now looking into ecstasy as a possible treatment for serious stress disorders. [USA Today]
Happy 50th issue, Nature Chemistry. It’s good to know we’re not the only ones who have goofed up and published left-handed DNA. [The Sceptical Chymist]
Turns out the “cinnamon challenge” dare isn’t as innocuous as it sounds. Some attempters have wound up with long-term breathing problems or collapsed lungs. [Time]
Supposed extraterrestrial skeleton turns out to be a mummified human. Hunt for real-life Alf continues. [Metro]
Mars rovers – so immature. [io9]
#ChemMovieCarnival: Dramatic Acid-Base Chemistry in Fight Club
This week, friend of the blog See Arr Oh is hosting a blog carnival devoted to chemistry in film. I’m a big fan of the silver screen, so in honor of the #chemmoviecarnival, I’m going to break a couple of rules and talk about one of my favorite films: “Fight Club.”
Living in a world where casual violence has become far too commonplace, I confess that it feels peculiar to be so fond of this film. After all, there are some alarming acts of violence in David Fincher’s adaptation of Chuck Palahniuk’s novel about, well, many things, but in particular life in our consumer-driven world.
I first saw this movie when it came out in theaters, back in 1999, and one of my companions commented as we left, “I hate everyone who liked that movie.” For me, however, the film’s violence is just an unusual way to get at a theme that might otherwise come off as cheesy: Appreciate every moment of your precious life.
To that end, there is this chemistry-related cinematic moment, in which one of the film’s central characters (Tyler Durden, played by Brad Pitt) gives the other (played by Edward Norton) a chemical burn with lye. Be forewarned it’s pretty graphic.
Please, please, please do not do this. It is not cool to give yourself or your friends chemical burns. That said, note the accuracy of the chemistry here: “you can run water over your hand and make it worse, or you can use vinegar to neutralize the burn.” Also, I am always amused at how Durden is so careful to put on gloves and safety glasses, but then rips them off for dramatic effect. It’s certainly not the most positive depiction of chemistry in film, but does drive home the movie’s point.
In Print: Science Models
If you ever visit the Museum of Science in Boston, in a certain corner of the museum you’ll find a giant insect hovering over a toy train set. This particular display, in a section about scale and models, delights and terrifies my three-year-old. He loves the train but is scared silly by the big bug. I had this section of the museum, and the ideas of scaling up and scaling down, on my mind when putting together this week’s Newscripts column. That’s because one story focuses on a new protein model building kit and the second story is about making bite-size gummy people.
Models are a big deal in science. They help us visualize and give us tactile experiences with all sorts of different things. From grade school, I recall a giant model of the ear and ear canal. My favorite thing to do was to pull out the tiny ossicles–those smallest of human bones–from the middle ear canal and try to figure out which was which amongst the hammer, the anvil, and the stirrup.
Credit: ThinkGeek
In chemistry, where we can’t really see the molecules we study, models are even more important for getting across ideas such as chirality and structure. Did anyone else learn stereochemistry with toothpicks and gumdrops?
It will be interesting to see what happens with the new Tangle Proteins Building Set, from chemistry professor Marcel Jaspars, of Scotland’s University of Aberdeen, and sculptor Richard X. Zawitz.
The new set looks like it will give budding biochemists the ability to build proteins in the same way that organic students build natural products.
As for the second item in the column, I confess that I wrote about the FabCafe in Japan because I saw the pictures of their gummy people online and was absolutely taken with how cool they looked, especially the image below. It’s so Matrix-meets-Haribo.
Credit: www.fabcafe.com
One of the C&EN editors even told me that he thought $65 was a bargain for seeing yourself reproduced in gummy candy. I heartily agree. Too bad this was just a special event at the FabCafe. And that the FabCafe is so far away (from me anyway). I love the idea of sitting down with a cafe au lait and then trying my hand at a laser cutter. Are there any Newscripts readers who have had the good fortune to visit this spot?
Amusing News Aliquots
Silly samplings from this week’s science news, compiled by Sophia Cai, Bethany Halford, and Jeff Huber.
You can dance if you want to. You can leave your friends behind. Because your friends don’t dance and if they don’t dance, they’re not as cool as this sea lion. [Nature World News]
Sea lions are trending: This baby sea lion was removed from a San Diego-area hotel after enjoying its patio furniture. World awaits sea loin’s angry Yelp review. [Huffington Post]
Have you got a theory or a hypothesis? Check out science’s seven most abused words. [SciAm]
Cookbooks always strive to come up with recipes that are out of this world, but Amsterdam’s “Baked” cookbook has an unfair advantage. [Huffington Post]
Japanese study finds that balding men are more likely to experience heart problems than their fully maned counterparts. So it’s not all fun and games for men losing their hair. [BBC]
A trout can survive a year without food, just by changing the size of its intestinal tract – how’s that for a diet technique? [National Geographic]
What do you do when you make the world’s lightest solid material? Why, put it on flowers, of course. [Book of Joe]
And now for an anatomy magic trick: 3-D printing an exact replica of a living (and unscathed) animal’s skeleton. [Wired]
Parents who fight in front of their kids may inadvertently hinder their children’s cognitive development. “But what about passive-aggressive texts?” curious couples wonder. [LiveScience]
If your last name were Burns, what would you study? Fires, natch. [Improbable Research]
Also, check out the London IgNobel Show live webcast, coming up shortly. [Improbable Research]
Four Tips for Getting the Best Beer Foam
The Newscripts gang is always on the lookout for ways to make happy hour even happier. Monica Villa, beer lover and aspiring science writer, shares the following tips on how to get the best bubbles in your brew.
Credit: Shutterstock
Beer drinkers know that quality beer foam means a better beer. So what exactly is this luscious lather? Beer foam is composed mainly of the same glycoproteins and organic acids found in beer, but at higher concentrations. Brewing and aging denature the glycoproteins (which come from yeast cell walls and barley), exposing their hydrophobic regions to carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, their hydrophilic side groups hydrogen-bond with water. This segregation of gas and liquid forms the basic structure of foam.
To create the best beer foam in your glass, follow these steps:
- Wash your beer glasses by hand; dishwashers leave detergent residues that interfere with bubble formation. The lacing of foam on the sides of a glass is actually an indication of cleanliness. Scratches at the bottom of a drinking glass can serve as nucleation sites for bubbles, so don’t sweat the imperfections in your barware.
- Serve your beer at the right temperature. Ideal beer temperatures vary by type, and the truth is that not all beers create a lot of foam. Darker beers and those with higher alcohol content tend to form less foam, while lighter-colored, hoppy beers form high-quality foam. These light-colored beer types should be served at 39–45 °F. Higher temperatures force CO2 gas out of solution, so aim for the higher end of the temperature range to increase foam volume.
Choose the right glass for the beer you’re drinking. BeerAdvocate magazine has compiled a helpful list of the appropriate glasses for each class of beer, highlighting traits that contribute to quality beer foam. Among these qualities are ample space for high foam volume (tulip glasses), slenderness for the fluffy foam of wheat beers (weizen glasses), and room to showcase rising gas beads (pilsner glasses).- Pour vigorously. A strong pour decreases beer surface tension, aiding in bubble formation. Start at a 45° angle, then straighten the glass to 90° midway through (as demonstrated in this video).
Bonus tip: Change your look for improved foam quality: Mustaches and lipstick carry lipids that disrupt bubbles.
Charlie Bamforth shared these tips in a recent ACS Webinar titled “Getting a Head through Chemistry: Great Beer and a Frothy Foam.” He is a professor of malting and brewing sciences at the University of California, Davis, and author of “Foam,” which he plans to be the first of a six-volume series on beer.
Amusing News Aliquots
Silly samplings from this week’s science news, compiled by Sophia Cai, Bethany Halford, and Jeff Huber.
“Radioactive Cats”
Copyright Sandy Skoglund
Scorched rat blamed for this week’s outage at Japan’s Fukushima nuclear power plant. Someone get Sandy Skoglund. It’s time to send in the radioactive cats. [BBC]
Couples trying to conceive should probably not book that romantic vacation to outer space. [Huffington Post]
Without singing, dancing, or even shedding its burlap-plastic coat, “Canada Club” fossil wins “Dino Idol.” [NBC News]
Why didn’t the turtle cross the road? Because everyone was trying to run him over with their cars. [Philly.com]
Scientists have been sending insects to the guillotine since 1923. [io9]
In the quest for a better bourbon, whiskey-makers sent their barrels on a four-year cruise. And you only get two weeks of vacation. [SciAm]
What is the “better mousetrap” of 2013 that will have the world beating a path to your door? Weaker weed, apparently. Does this mean there will be more #chemjobs for marijuana chemists? [Slate]
Amusing News Aliquots
Silly samplings from this week’s science news, compiled by Bethany Halford and Lauren Wolf.
Credit: Jean Luc Lacour
Turning Martian rocks into plasma. Curiosity’s ChemCam rules. [Popular Mechanics]
Google searches tip off scientists to unknown drug side effects. Oh, and you should know that any medical abnormality you’ve ever searched for is saved in a Web log somewhere. [NYT]
Scientists are trying to get you to do their work for them … by seducing you with video games. [NPR]
The latest in bug body armor: Nanopillars on clanger cicadas’ wings rip bacteria to shreds. [Nature]
Boo. The chemistry of why sausages are bad for you. [Guardian]
Breaking news: Practice doesn’t really make perfect. It just makes better. Sort of. [Discoblog]
Finally, the Newscripts gang would be remiss in not mentioning the new chemblog on the block, The Baran Lab blog Open Flask. Welcome aboard Phil and the gang. It’s great to see you here. [Open Flask]