Dear all,
in August 2007 I started this blog with the classic Hello World post. Today, in April 2010, what started as a simple just-for-fun experiment has become an active part of my life and curriculum. This post marks my 100th post, with an average of slightly more than 3 posts per month.
During this time, the [...]
April 20, 2010 – 10:49 pm
Rule changed: demonstrated that organic compounds had no mysterious “vital energy”
The synthesis of urea is a fascinating and critical event. It sent a shocking quake through many open questions in chemistry, and answered them with a cold hard fact with no chance of misunderstanding. It slain one theory, vitalism, and was in front line to [...]
Recently, I had the chance to see a presentation of cool scientific magic: the Meissner-Ochsenfeld effect.
What you can see here is a magnet (the yellow-red cylinder) levitating above a small dish of superconductive material, and consequently free to spin in mid-air. The superconductor must be kept at liquid nitrogen temperature (-196 degrees C) to provide [...]
Rule changed: revolutionized the treatment of cancer
Cisplatin, formula [PtCl2(NH3)2] is a very simple compound of the precious metal platinum. It revolutionized the treatment of some types of cancer, in some cases with almost total chance of success, and it can be considered to full extent the “penicillin for (some, unfortunately) cancer treatment”.
This is something interesting. What about a prize for unscientific claims: “the Unscientist award”? At the moment, only Patrick Lockerby (the author of the post linked above) proposes such prize according to the following rules: the potential candidate must either make use of an already debunked argument, a logical fallacy, or (verbatim) “self-aggrandising puerile prosey [...]
March 30, 2010 – 11:20 am
The Large Hadron Collider just achieved the first collisions among protons at 7 tera electronvolts (TeV) at center of mass, smashing together two beams of protons at 3.5 TeV each. The setup has been compared to shooting needles from opposite sides of the Atlantic and have them impact halfway.
What we have today in front [...]
It is always a pleasure when scientific findings are used for impressive exhibitions of beauty and harmony. Sachiko Kodama is a Japanese professor and artist who took advantage of new materials to produce an amazing display of beauty
The Morpho Spirals work by applying a music-controlled magnetic field to a ferrofluid, a class of substances also [...]
March 19, 2010 – 10:53 am
Occasionally, I have to write using a pen. I’ve never had a beautiful calligraphy (by the way, a tautology, since calligraphy already comes from the Greek for “beautiful writing”) but I realized that with time my skills became worse and worse. The reason, I feel, is that my brain wants a higher throughput of concepts [...]
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 [...]
