CENtral Science

In Print: Droplets of Rain, Strands of Honey

The Newscripts blog would like to be closer Internet buddies with our glossy print Newscripts column, so here we highlight what’s going on in the current issue of C&EN.

Petrichor: The rainy-day smell comes from a potpourri of compounds. Credit: Shutterstock

People living in the Bay Area rarely complain about the weather. But San Francisco-based Senior Editor Jyllian Kemsley tells Newscripts that, lately, she’s been a bit wistful for rain. “We’ve had very very little here since December. The California news last week, in fact, was that the water content in the snowpack is 17 percent of ‘normal,’ ” Jyllian says, noting that they probably mean “average” instead of “normal.”

So for this week’s Newscripts print column, Jyllian dug through old literature to learn the chemistry of the scent of rain–or petrichor, as Australian chemists Isabel Joy Bear and R. G. Thomas coined it in 1964. Turns out, they were able to isolate an oily yellow material responsible for the characteristic rain scent (that this Portland-raised Newscripts blogger knows so well). Although Jyllian doesn’t know the original motivations of rain-scent researchers, she does point out that Bear appears to have been a talented chemist.

Also inspired by a scientific question raised in the 1960s, Jyllian’s second Newscripts item discusses why honey and other viscous fluids don’t drip off of a spoon like water but instead stretch to lengths that seem to defy physics. Traditionally, scientists thought falling fluid is driven by gravity and not viscosity, but that doesn’t explain why honey can maintain a droopy strand for 10 meters or more, whereas a thin stream of water breaks up into droplets after a mere 10 cm. 

The ’60s scientists weren’t the only curiously fascinated ones. Assistant Editor Craig Bettenhausen says: “I distinctly remember when I was a kid turning on the sink, looking at it with a strobe light going, and having my mind blown by the realization that it was lots of little droplets and not a continuous stream.”

But thanks to a 2013 study, these collective curiosities are answered. The researchers found that the length of a fluid strand depends on small waves in the materials. These waves amplify over time and once large enough, break the fluid stream. Because viscosity dampens the amplification, honey gets to hang on a little big longer.

No Magic In China’s Solar Industry

Sunday I picked up an actual print copy of the Washington Post. In the Business section was a feature by Steven Mufson on the rise and fall of Chinese solar firm Suntech – which was at one time the world’s largest producer of crystalline silicon solar panels. In mid March the firm defaulted on $541 million worth of convertible bonds.

(The story of Suntech’s founder and now-former CEO, Shi Zhengrong, is also captured in the feature. A true rags to riches tale.)

In the waning months of 2012, pundits were forcasting major financial problems for some of China’s humongous solar companies – but many expected that the government would prop them up with loans to keep them afloat. There were many reasons why it might have: China wants to hold on to its dominance in making solar modules for export, it has huge targets for domestic installations, it has a policy of subsidizing industrial expansion, and it can provide both cheap electricity and cheap financing.

Mufson explains how Suntech was caught up in a very expensive race to the bottom in solar module production – overcapacity (in expensive facilities) and rapidly shrinking margins, fueled unhelpfully by China’s green economy plans. The U.S. added to the woe by slapping a tariff on solar modules imported from China (oversupply set the stage for what trade officials like to call dumping).

Mufson writes:

Until now, policymakers in China have used subsidies to create a world-leading “green tech” industry that would push the country up the economic value chain. But green tech doesn’t guarantee thriving businesses. In the race for global solar supremacy, world manufacturing capacity has grown to 60 gigawatts, most of it in China. That outpaced solar demand, which is expected to reach about 35 gigawatts this year, enough to power about 26 million homes. So prices of photovoltaic panels have plummeted, and it will take three to five years for overcapacity to shrink, says Bill Wiseman, managing partner of consulting firm McKinsey’s Taipei office.

China has other very large solar producers in addition to Suntech and LDK. They also have Trina Solar and Yingli. Four huge vertically integrated module makers was at least two too many. Analysts will be watching margins and debt very carefully now that it is clear that China’s future financial support for solar companies is not guaranteed.

Amusing New Aliquots

Silly samplings from this week’s science news, compiled by Sophia Cai, Bethany Halford, and Jeff Huber.

Na na na na na na na Bat Cave!!!!!: Chris Weir puts a new spin on the man cave. Credit: Walyou

Thinking of putting a wine cellar in your basement? Boring. Why not build a Bat Cave instead? [Walyou]

Hmm. Wondering if C&EN would spring to send us to this meeting next year. We’d have to get our hemp accessories ready. [Wired]

Refrigerators and washer-dryers, make way: 3-D printers could be coming to households everywhere … [Guardian]

… And they may even visit a body near you: 3-D printing is used to merge tissue and radio-wave-receiving antennae in “bionic ears.” [Science Daily]

Oh man, remember to back up your data. [Chemjobber]

Lovesick wild tiger breaks into a zoo in India in search of a mate. Scared zoo visitors seem to be overlooking how adorable this is. [BBC]

Laugh in the face of every lab safety class you’ve ever had, and hang dozens of test tubes from the ceiling with this handy chandelier. (h/t Deborah Blum, Michelle Sipics) [Etsy]

Study finds that more than 50% of ground turkey contains fecal bacteria. Dieters rejoice over a new reason to return to beef burgers. [Consumer Reports]

Jamestown settlers may have come under desperate times, but cannibalistic survival is a way of life for shark embryos. [NBC News]

If a tree screams in a forest, does it make a detectable sound? Scientists say they’re working on hearing thirsty trees’ distress calls. [Yahoo!]

“A Boy and His Atom”: The World’s Smallest Movie

Forget pushing electrons, IBM researchers-turned-filmmakers have moved 5,000 atoms to make a stop-motion film–the world’s smallest, confirms Guinness World Records. How can you watch such a tiny movie, you ask? Well, the frames in the film are magnified about 100 million times. (To give perspective: “If an atom were the size of an orange, then the orange would be the size of the whole planet Earth,” the researchers say.)

Meet Adam and his toy atom:

And you thought Disney/Pixar was good at tugging on your heartstrings with no dialogue and bare-bones animation. But in comparison to Disney’s Oscar-winning “Paperman,” which is a little longer than 6 minutes and had dozens of animators, this team of IBM researchers used the tools they had in their lab to make the 242-frame “A Boy and His Atom.” The team used a scanning tunneling microscope to drag atoms along a surface, then took pictures after each move to make the stop-motion film. I’ll let them explain:

For more on how it was made, watch all of their behind-the-scenes videos here.

h/t Chemjobber via Beth Halford