Science Observations

by: David Bradley

This is an archive of early blog items. The full Sciencebase science blog experience is here.

Molecule of the Month - Paul May of Bristol University kindly agreed to sciencebase rendering his MotM newsfeed. I had to strip out the CML codes to make it work, but what you get via the sciencebase site is access to a fascinating chemistry resource, updated monthly and covering a diverse range of molecular structures from arsine to morphine by way of butane! 25th February 2005.

You've gotta laugh - Check out the humour section in the Reactive Reports chemistry webzine. 22nd February (DB)

The new blog spot - This blog has finally grown up and left home, it now finds itself here at the sciencebase blogspot. The SciObs page will get occasional updates, but you're more likely to find my latest rambling diatribe on the blogspot page (i can use "BlogThis" in Firefox to quickly add entries without faffing around with a web editor and FTP. 21st February (DB)

Blogs aplenty - I've had emails via sciencebase.com from three budding science writers this week telling me about their new biology blogs, I've given them a mention in my blogspot space (see item below for the link). I'm not sure whether I should be frightened by all this up and coming new talent in the science writing world, or whether I should just take it as a compliment that they felt so inspired to write, either way, now is not a time for mid-career science writers to rest on their laurels! 10th February (DB)

Jonathan Goodman puzzling chemists - Check out the short item on the sciencebase.blogspot.com page discussing briefly the work of Jonathan Goodman on the stability or otherwise of seeming stable small organic molecules. 9th February (DB)

Foxing the fox - After slagging off MSIE and praising Mozilla Firefox for months, many advocates of the non-MS browser were eating their words today as news emerged that MSIE is seemingly the only one of the current clutch of browsers that is not susceptible to the spoofing threat that relies on character display technology. Mozilla promises a long-term solution soon, although version 2 has apparently been delayed, which might mean we'll have to wait. Watch out for phish and don't assume they're only red herrings. 8th February (DB)

Fair's fair - It's not that I get too many emails from visitors asking me homework questions for ideas for their science fair project, f course not, it's just that there is surely enoughscience and medical news and stuff to read on this site without requesting my personal thoughts in an individual email, which would be deadly boring to be honest. But, to assist those who seek scientific inspiration in their academic endeavours, I've added a science fair projects page, which provides loads of ideas. 31st January (DB)

Tonnes and tons - My kids brought a leaflet home from school advertising a sports event at which they were promised "tonnes of fun". Now, how many tons of fun is that? 0.984 tons at a rough estimate, I'd say. The metrification of figurative speech indeed. 29th January (DB)

Medical News Headlines - Sciencebase has partnered up with Medical-News.net to bring readers the latest medical and health news headlines. The latest news is available live and updated by the hour on sciencebase.com 25th January (PAB)

Parkinson's - Swedish researchers have reported that smoking tobacco might ward off Parkinson's disease, a report that coincides nicely with one of the biggest owners of pubs in the UK announcing that it will introduce a smoking ban in its pubs next year. Thankfully, for those who don't see this positive as outweighing the negatives of smoking, we've got all that cutting edge US stem cell research into treatments for Parkinson's and other debilitating diseases to fall back on... 24th January (DB)

Stemming the tide - Call me cynical, but the news that all of the embryonic stem cells that would be allowed to be used in research in the US (i.e. ones obtained before August 2001) turn out to be contaminated with a mouse molecule, which means stem cell research in the US is stymied before it even gets started. Anyone got a light? 24th January (DB)

Telescopic conspiracy - The discovery of this murine contaminant comes suspiciously close in timing to the announcement that federal funds are not going to be available for fixing the Hubble space telescope. Is this a coincidence or a conspiracy. Does someone not want us to carry out fundamental research into life and the universe? I wonder... 24th January (DB)

David Bradley blows own trumpet - If you're after a writer specializing in science who has a science background and expertise in chemistry and related physical sciences and fifteen years experience then check out the resume for thisscientific journalist. US and UK markets catered for.November 2004 (PAB)

sciencebase science news RSS feed - Whassat? Basically, it does exactly what it says on the tin. You will need a news aggregator such as Amphetadesk, Bloglines, NetNewsWire, SharpReader, Straw, FeedDemon etc etc. Just search for an RSS news reader and you'll find a ton(ne) of them via any search engine. Once you've installed the proggy, subscribe to the channel: "Sciencebase Science News" and you will start seeing news in your RSS browser for the sciencebase stable of webzines, Elemental Discoveries, Spectral Lines, Reactive Reports, X-factors, Resonants, and other online content from David Bradley.If you don't know what RSS is all about, again use your search engine. It's the web syndicated. The sciencebase channel is in beta at the moment, but will be updated in earnest from September onwards.

*The item on keyboards was inspired by a report in The Register.

Earlier bloggings from the SciObs - the sciencebase science blog or even more in the SciObs archive and the SciObs arkiv. Ever wondered what science journalists do? Take a look at this brief article on science writers. Latest science news, research results, scientific oddities, hot science, chemistry blog or is it a science webblog. Listed in Blogarama,Blog Search Engine, and others. SciObs, now known as the Sciencebase Science Blog, also features in scienceblog along with many other
science blogs.