Sep
22
22
Uncategorized
Google Mashes Up Earth & Climate
Posted by Cheryl Hogue on September 22, 2009 in Uncategorized
Google is entering the global political debate on climate change.
The internet search engine today unveiled a mashup of Google Earth and data from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Called Google Earth Climate, this interactive Web tool lets users explore the IPCC projections of what would happen to average temperatures and precipitation in various regions of the world between now and 2100. The application has two different possibilities — a “high emissions scenario” (the world burns coal and fossil fuels at an expanding rate) or a “low emissions scenario” (countries switch to forms of energy that release little or no carbon dioxide).
The two emissions scenarios are a bit hard to follow onscreen, especially when they run uninterrupted. But the various buttons provided in the tool allow a viewer to slow down the action, navigate around the world, and even turn the virtual globe.
It’s pretty clear where Google stands on the issue of climate change. (more…)
On Scientists Versus Toothiologists
Sep
15
15
Posted by Jyllian Kemsley on September 15, 2009 in Uncategorized
A hat tip to Cosmic Variance for this gem of a monologue, roughly centered on the divide between science-based medicine and homeopathy, by comic Dara Ó Briain. Ó Briain reportedly studied mathematics and physics as an undergraduate.
Plan B for Climate Change
Sep
2
2
Posted by Cheryl Hogue on September 2, 2009 in Uncategorized
If the governments of the world can’t get their act together and cut greenhouse gas emissions soon, the world will need plan B.
That backup plan, according to a report this week from the Royal Society, is for science to help save the day through geoengineering. This includes technologies that suck carbon dioxide out of the air. Or perhaps shading the Earth’s surface from the sun’s rays by spewing aerosols into the stratosphere.
Slashing emissions is the number one way to address climate change, the Society reaffirms. But if political talks on reducing emissions get stuck – and they very well might – geoengineering will be the only game left in town to fend off serious global warming.
Every geoengineering technique carries risks for people and the planet, the report warns. But some are better than others.
(more…)
Perspectives In JACS
Aug
21
21
Posted by Rudy Baum on August 21, 2009 in Uncategorized
ACS has two flagship publications, C&EN and the Journal of the American Chemical Society, more familiarly known as JACS. Being a journal, JACS is appropriately a bit more conservative about introducing new features than C&EN. So it’s sort of big news when JACS inaugurates a brand new feature as it did this week: JACS Perspectives.
“Twenty-first century chemistry represents the forefront of the molecular sciences,” writes JACS Editor Peter J. Stang in his editorial introducing the Perspectives series. The unprecedented advances in chemistry “have opened up new frontiers not only in chemistry but also at the interface of chemistry and essentially every other scientific and engineering discipline,” he continues.
Since its start more than 130 years ago, JACS’s role has been “to capture these cutting-edge, fundamental advances and to widely disseminate them to the chemical and scientific communities. However, as scientific and chemical research becomes more complex and interdisciplinary, it becomes ever more challenging to communicate and explain new results and advances, especially to non-experts and students.” The JACS Perspectives are designed to facilitate that communication.
The first Perspective is on “Synthesis at the Interface of Chemistry and Biology” by Xu Wu and Peter G. Schultz of the Scripps Research Institute and the Genomics Institute of the Novartis Research Foundation.
Chemistry in French and German
Aug
18
18
Posted by Linda Wang on August 18, 2009 in Uncategorized
Laura B. Sole, a senior chemistry major at the University of Virginia, spent 10 weeks in Lyon, France, this past summer conducting research at Claude Bernard University as part of ACS’s International Research Experiences for Undergraduates (IREU) program, which is in its third year.
Twenty two students participated in the program this year, and they were hosted by research universities and institutions in France, Germany, Italy, and the U.K. In exchange, 15 students from Germany conducted research at U.S. universities.
Sole, who is double majoring in French, conducted her research entirely in French. She presented her results during the undergraduate poster session on Monday afternoon, and C&EN asked her to give her poster presentation in French (just because it’s cool to hear chemistry in French!):
As an added perk, hear Joachim Moch, an exchange student from Goethe University in Frankfurt, give his poster presentation on “Single molecule proton transfer studies with helical properties” in German:
Periodic Brews
Aug
17
17
Posted by Ivan Amato on August 17, 2009 in 2009 Fall National Meeting, ACS Meetings, Chemistry is Everywhere, Uncategorized
You gotta eat. And you gotta drink. And one place to do that in the Gallery Place/Chinatown area of Washington where most of the national meeting action is taking place is Regional Food & Drink Washington, known for short as R.F.D. Its beer list is legion, so much so that the managers felt compelled to channel the spirit of Dmitri Mendeleev–whose 19th century photographic portraits suggest he would have been quite capable of gulping down a keg of beer without assistance (or at least a heckuva lot of vodka)–to help them and their customers grasp and classify the diversity of the beer offerings. All of the food servers–including my waitress last night, American University political science major Francesca Giarratana–wear a black t-shirt bearing “The Beeriodic Table.” The shirts are not some suck up for the meeting, Giarratana told me; they are part of the standard uniform. And the t-shirts will surely be a welcome draw for any ACS attendees who might wander into the restaurant. With the iconic shape of its chemical inspiration, the letters in the Beeriodic Table’s boxes codify different beer types, such as lagers or India Pale Ales. Numbers at the top of each box indicate the alcohol content by volume of the particular beer category. The numbers at the bottom indicate each category’s range of “original gravities” in degrees Plato (named after a guy named Fritz, not the philosopher), a scale of the brewing industry for the concentration of dissolved solids, such as sugar.
Tacky Science
Aug
17
17
Posted by Ivan Amato on August 17, 2009 in 2009 Fall National Meeting, ACS Meetings, Uncategorized
Venues like convention centers and gargantuan hotel ballrooms are the most obvious signs of how massive ACS meetings are, but somewhat subtler signals of bigness are all over the place, such as this bucket of pushpins on a table last night in Hall D at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center. Hundreds of poster presenters would take a small paper cup to get a scoop of pushpins and then bring them, along with their scrolled-up poster, to their little bit of vertical real estate on the poster boards that filled the hall.
From Fake Pharmaceuticals To Serbian Sausages—Ah, IUPAC
Aug
4
4
Posted by Sarah Everts on August 4, 2009 in Chemistry and Food, Uncategorized, Where is C&EN?
Yesterday at the IUPAC conference in Glasgow, I was reminded of a fascinating but disturbing factoid: that Viagra and the appetite suppressant sibutramine are among some of the common ingredients snuck into counterfeit drugs and herbal remedies from the UK to China. That is, when an “active” ingredient of any type is added. There are lots of cases of plain old talc pills. Or fakes with really nefarious additions, like heavy metals or diethylene glycol–which has caused deaths from the USA to Bangladesh.
(more…)
Spying on competitors through FOIA?
Jul
28
28
Posted by Jyllian Kemsley on July 28, 2009 in Uncategorized
Over the weekend, DrugMonkey posted about a researcher who received a Freedom of Information Act request for his grant application to the National Institutes of Health, apparently from a would-be competitor.
The matter has been resolved, the FOIA target says:
UPDATE: The FOIA request has been rescinded.
According to our Dean of Research (after contacting their Dean of Research), “the requesting individual has been counseled on the proper use of the FOIA.”
But I’m curious–how common is this? Does anyone know of chemistry professors who have received FOIA requests for their grant applications?
Skeptical About Skeptics
Jul
17
17
Posted by Cheryl Hogue on July 17, 2009 in Uncategorized
Are TV meteorologists climate scientists?
It depends on who you ask.
Yes, according to Sen. James Inhofe, a conservative Oklahoma Republican, champion of the oil industry, and zealous nonbeliever in human-caused global warming.
No, says the Center for Inquiry, a nonprofit group that describes its self as “defending scientific integrity.” The Center is perhaps best known for its experts who debunk paranormal claims like alien abductions or curses. (more…)
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