Jan 31, 2011
Valentine’s Day science – Spring may not quite be in the air, but Valentine’s Day is on the way and love is certainly on the minds of researchers in the US. A small functional magnetic resonance imaging has been used to investigate love. The study revealed brain activity in 10 women and 7 men when they looked at photos of their spouses to whom they had been married an average of 21 years. The …
Six science snippets from David Bradley
What is entropy? – This property of all matter – this collapse into disorder – is given a name: entropy. Things that are disordered have greater entropy than things that are relatively more organized. A glass of water, in which the molecules of water itself can move around relatively freely, is more disorganized – has greater entropy – than a block of ice, in which the molecules of water …
Jan 29, 2011
Seven slices of science stuff from David Bradley
Vuja de – Thinking outside the box with new eyes? Haven't we see this managerial psychobabble before or is it just vuja de?
Alchemist Newsletter – An element close to every Alchemist's heart, quicksilver, or more properly mercury, featured in the chemistry news roundup this week, as does the creation of life from the primordial soup and how that may have begun. In the world of agrichemicals …
Jan 24, 2011
Four more picks from the latest science news by David Bradley
Tales of the unexpected: a night with Tim Radford – My mentor at The Guardian, Tim Radford, told tales of science writing at a special event last week and warned the audience that the public can be very squeamish about new scientific practices, whether it is test-tube babies or heart transplants. This reaction, he warns us with his long view of how societies adapt to …
Jan 20, 2011
Science news snippets from the net meanderings of David Bradley
Fighting malaria without DDT = FAIL – Review suggests DDT essential in fight against malaria, despite claims for green approaches. A new research paper exposes allegedly false claims and misrepresentations of science by United Nations environmental organizations to stop successful uses of DDT and other public health insecticides in malaria programs.
Adverse drug reactions are not an argument against modern medicine – The number of preventable …
UPDATE: 2011-01-20 Version 3.0 of the chemistry dictionary is now available. Now, with crowd-sourced, user-submitted words and an OpenOffice.org dictionary extension.
“It took me the better part of a month,” Azman told us, “but I’ve made my own and I want
it to be as open-source as possible. Sciencebase is now hosting Azman’s efforts ready for free download zipped chemical dictionary file here). The chemistry dictionary is in standard “.dic” format and instructions for installing it on …
