Peanut butter in the head

Peanut butter inspires its own kind of logic. So one must conclude from watching Chuck Missler explain the relationship between peanut butter and something (it is difficult for a layperson or a scientist to determine what) he calls “evolution.” Missler’s video is about two minutes long. Chuck says he is the former Branch Chief of […]

Parul Kamdar joins the LFHCfS

Parul Kamdar has joined the Luxuriant Flowing Hair Club for Scientists. She says [on June 5, 2007, updating the earlier version of her entry]: I assist the law firm of King & Spalding LLP in preparing and prosecuting patent applications directed to lighting systems. I also have experience in preparing and prosecuting patent applications directed […]

Science Lesson: Smokers as workers

Smokers make poorer workers Smokers perform worse at work than non-smokers, finds a study of US navy female service members published in Tobacco Control. Smokers were also more likely to have a less than honourable discharge, to be demoted, to desert, and to earn less than their non-smoking colleagues, the study showed. So says a […]

His tiny aspirations

Hopes are safer than aspirations, as regards small insects keeping their proper place. Hopes do not by themselves cause an infestation, in the head of a human being, of gnats, midges, anthomid flies, Collembola and wasps parasitic upon the flies. Aspirations can, and sometimes do. This fact dawns on anyone who reads a report called […]

Chemistry not enough sexy?

Investigator Lorenzo Stievano writes: This is the answer we needed to students that find chemistry not enough sexy! I would like you to notice the fine detail of the equilibrium double arrows: in chemistry, all equilibria are supposed to be dynamic. The image is from the study “{trans-1,4-Bis[(4-pyridyl)ethenyl]benzene}(2,2′-bipyridine)ruthenium(II) Complexes and Their Supramolecular Assemblies with -Cyclodextrin,” […]

March mini-AIR

The March issue of mini-AIR just went out. It discusses Project Cork Rot, a professor-professor error, the Foot-Smell Registry, and the tiller vibration poet. It touches on each of the following topics: orifice demarcation; pythonic flicking; tough women where;? masked chinchilla tones; and other things. (If you would like to have mini-AIR automatically sent to […]

Goodbye, Stefek Zaba

We pass on the sad news that Stefek Zaba is dead. Two weeks ago, on March 12, at the Ig Nobel show in Bristol, Stefek sang the role of Atom, the little atom who falls in love with a beautiful woman chemist, in the mini-opera “Atom & Eve.” His performance was filled with vim, gusto, […]