The original ChavMeister, Charles Dickens, whose satirical soaps have entertained the chattering classes for decades is to get his own theme park. It’s not going to be a bit like DollyWood or even Peter Gabriel’s yet to get off the ground interactive concept park. Instead, it will be built in Chatham at a cost of 60 million quid (ish) and feature an Ebeneezer Scrooge ride, cobbled streets with a replica of the Old Curiosity Shop, and themed restaurants. Sounds great, I wonder if they’ll sell Burberry too…I have great expectations.
Month: April 2005
Antibacterial Research Should Be Focused on Facts, Not Fear
Most people will have seen the ludicrous healthscare stories that emerged when scientists discovered the almost ubiquitous bacteride, triclosan, releases small amounts of chloroform (a suspect carcinogen infamous for its anaesthetic effects in TV thrillers). I say ludicrous, because the amounts that are released are so small and presumably nothing compared to the much greater amounts of “chemical nasties” released by household air fresheners, shoe polish, bleach, etc etc. However, when you see a statement from The Soap and Detergent Association (SDA), you have to wonder if they protest too much. Antibacterial Research Should Be Focused on Facts, Not Fear. Then again, I don’t think so, the mainstream media loves a scare story and this is a gift on a plate, virtually unfounded hyperbole pandering to the chemophobic multitude.
Good and bad news for chemistry texts
It was rather heartening to learn that a study by researchers at two Pittsburgh universities has demonstrated that newspaper and magazine articles do a better job of teaching students how chemists work than most high-school textbooks. But, at the same time its’s rather disheartening that if students are not reading outside the curriculum box then they are going to leave education with a very distorted view of what chemists do. Source: Chemists say high school texts fall short
Chemistry of Popping Popcorn
If you’re like me, you loathe having to pick out the unpopped kernels from a big stack of popcorn. Now, one of the most powerful techniques in chemical science, X-ray diffraction, could lead to a much more satisfying experience next time you settle down with a bucket of popcorn. The technique has provided new insights into why some popcorn kernels pop and why others are dysfunctional.
According to Bruce Hamaker, crystallographer Rangaswamy Chandrasekaran and colleagues at the Whistler Center for Carbohydrate Research and Department of Food Science, Purdue University, in West Lafayette, Indiana, moisture loss from popcorn kernels is the underlying cause of much disappointment and broken teeth for fans of the puffed corn product. There can be no worse sensation than when reaching the bottom of a bucket of popcorn you pluck out a few unpopped kernels rather than the expanded seeds. Indeed, unpopped kernels could be said to be one of life’s great tragedies. More…
Meanwhile, the chemistry of popping popcorn aside, here’s a video showing you how to make popcorn with your iPhone:
UPDATE: Lifehacker has a nice simple method on how to filter out the unpopped kernels from microwaveable popcorn.
MRSA on the up
According to a report in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine, community-associated infection with methicillin, or multiple resistant Staphylococcus aureus MRSA), is now a common and serious problem. Infections usually involve the skin, especially among children, and hospitalization is common.
Scott Fridkin at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, and colleagues evaluated MRSA infections in patients identified from surveillance in Baltimore and Atlanta and in hospital-lab results from twelve hospitals in Minnesota and found 1647 cases of community-acquired MRSA infection reported 2001 through 2002.
The researchers suggest that the national burden and ultimate clinical impact of MRSA remain unclear, but one thing is certain: the disease has emerged in patients who do not have the established risk factors for this potentially lethal bacterium.
Journal ups and downs
Why do publishers insist on producing new journals at every turn, weren’t we promised a paperless laboratory at least a decade ago and instant access to all the information we could ever need with a few mouseclicks? Yet, I received a press release from the RSC today announcing their new high-profile journal “Molecular BioSystems” (why the capital “S”). Do we really need another journal on biosystems with a molecular bent? But, worse still, I also hear today (via the CHMINF-L discussion group rather than a bulletin sent to RSC members, which as a member I would have preferred!) that the RSC has massively cut the budget to its own library! The juxtaposition of those two happenings is truly the most ironic* thing I’ve heard for a while.
*ferric for the pedantic.
Nuclear distance
Should we be picking on the BBC? I think so. Not content with persisting with Fahrenheit AND Celsius in their weather forecasts, they are still mixing and matching between metric and imperial distances.
This article on nuclear waste disposal discusses options for getting rid of nuclear waste under the ground at a depth of between 300m and 2km. It then goes on to tell us “on average people in Britain live about 26 miles away from one of more than 30 radioactive waste sites”, the implication being that we might be able to picture how far 2km underground is but would be less comfortable knowing that we’re just 26 miles from a waste site as opposed to the much more distant 41.8429 kilometres. Whoops…fell into the conversion trap didn’t I? Anyway, what do they mean by average? Mean? Median? Mode? We ought to be told.
For more instances of mix and match units and over indulgence in significant figures, check out the archives on our sibling tech blog.
Subterranean homesick Martians
It’s a mere slip of the keys, but Mark Henderson has inadvertently relocated the surface of the earth to Mars in his recent write-up of the “aqueous sea” observed on the red planet by the European Mars Express spacecraft. Check out par 2 in his article Frozen sea…, where you will read of a “subterranean aquatic layer”. Pardon me, but isn’t “Terra” the name of our planet and thus subterranean refers to below the earth’s surface. Anyway, what’s wrong with “underground water”, rather than all this aquatic layer malarcky?
Ohpurleese.com – latest issue
Forget this week’s announcement from Scientific American that is to abandon a Darwinocentric approach to evolution just for today. Ohpurleese has announced the discovery of the Higg’s Boson: Ohpurleese.com. The work was apparently carried out in a cold fusion kind of experiment by Professor Hayes at Kangmere College, whereever that is (it’s an anagram of Greek Man if that’s any help)…methinks this elusive particle will exist for a mere 12 hours! (Check out the apparatus and mutant hand, but don’t bother with the full paper PDF at the Kang-Mere (with a hyphen) site, as you’ll get this message: “WITHDRAWN. Due to ongoing patent registration and some overseas litigation the .pdf files have temporarily been removed.” Apparently, they couldn’t leverage quite enough levers.