Rule changed: the very first antibiotic compound
Penicillin. This is definitely one molecule that conquered the territories of the grim reaper.
Before Penicillin, a minor wound infection could mean a gangrene (followed by amputation), death, or all of them if you were particularly unlucky. People used to die for minor skin scratches. Falling, handling a rose, sewing, [...]
One of the most frustrating experiences when learning a new technology is finding useless examples. An example is the most precious thing that comes with a new library, language, or technology. It must be a starting point, a wise and unadulterated explanation on how to achieve a given result. A perfect example must have the [...]
A magnitude 8.8 quake occurred in Chile. A tsunami warning has been issued. Very good details, and a map of the predicted height of the tsunami across all the pacific can be found at Phil Plait’s blog.
Apparently, Japan is not concerned about the Tsunami, which should hit around 3 AM GMT (12AM Japanese time). The [...]
The paper I submitted some time ago at the Journal of Physical Chemistry A has been published: Borini S, Limacher PA, Luethi HP, “Structural Features Analysis and Nonlinearity of End-Cap-Substituted Polyacetylenes”, DOI: 10.1021/jp908439x
I already wrote about the findings reported in this paper at the time it was accepted. It is a very nice paper, and [...]
With this post I want to start a series about single molecules whose synthesis, discovery, or explanation had such dramatic effects for humanity to produce a complete paradigm shift for daily life or scientific insight. On purpose, I left out the “big ones”: you will not find DNA in this list, nor you will find [...]
I ran out of business cards recently, so I had to make new ones. I took the chance to indulge a bit over the QR-Code, a two-dimensional barcode you can find on everything in Japan. It’s a pretty nice barcode system, very stable with respect to corruption and quite ok in terms of capacity. Among [...]
After the recent tragic events in Haiti, it is a priority to help doctors without borders as much as possible. Please donate, even a small amount from a lot of people can make a sizable difference.
Some time ago I had Fugu, or puffer fish, a highly poisonous fish with no known antidote. Here is a picture to document the fact
Well, it could just be me in front of something that looks like fish, and I’m not going to eat it anyway, but trust me, I had it. Yes, I wanted [...]
I love xkcd. A comic combining fun and math by definition has to be good and geeky and the author, Randall Munroe, is a real genius on this. The latest comic is pretty interesting
The image is self-descriptive, meaning that each graph represents information about the image itself. For example, the first panel contains a pie [...]
I just wrote an answer to this very interesting question on Stackoverflow. Now, as a disclaimer, I’m not an expert in statistics, but I did enough statistics to “know the beast”, or at least what are the dangers. I will rearrange my answer for this post, to address the more general case.
The main issue is [...]