George Carlin, 1937-2008
George Carlin died of a heart attack yesterday. He was 71.
Monday, June 23, 2008
Friday, June 20, 2008
Friday beautiful science
Today's Friday beautiful science shows the construction of a Buckeyball in action. From the News Release:
heating bends single-atomic-layer carbon sheets into nano bowls, and then adds more carbon atoms to the edge of the bowls until the formation of giant fullerenes — larger, less stable versions of the C-60 molecule. Continued application of heat reduces these fullerenes — “shrink-wrapping” is the favored term — to the size of stable C-60 molecules, the buckyball: the smallest stable arrangement of carbon atoms in that shape.Way cool. Follow the link to check out a live-action movie. Neat!
In further heating, the buckyball vanishes, providing more proof that the buckyball stage had been reached.
Buckyball codiscoverer (1985) and Nobel laureate (1996) Richard Smalley had hypothesized that buckyballs are formed in this fashion, but at his death in 2005 no experimental confirmation was yet available and other methods have been proposed.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Don't let it happen again
This gave me chills. Carl Sagan contemplates the possibility of the loss of past discoveries. While on the surface of it, it seems unlikely, and most people will say, "That could only happen in Islamic fundamentalist cultures", keep in mind that there are organizations here in the U.S. devoted to rolling back the Enlightenment.
Hat tip: Pharyngula
Friday beautiful science
This amazing image was captured as Phoenix came in for its Mars landing on May 25, 2008. The HiRISE camera on Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter pointed at Phoenix, which is seen here against the background of a 10-kilometer-diameter crater called Heimdall. The dramatic view makes it appear that Phoenix is falling into the crater, but in fact Phoenix was 20 kilometers closer to HiRISE than Heimdall, and it landed nowhere near the crater. The photo was taken 20 seconds after Phoenix' parachute opened.
Posts should become more frequent again. I'm preparing to move to California, but some of the most brutal parts are behind me (I hope) and I should be able to at least keep a regular Friday beautiful science coming.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Thursday, June 5, 2008
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Life changes
Well, it's official. I have become a paid shill of the biotech industry. This week I accepted a job at a biotech company in California, and will be leaving my post-doctoral position at a medical school. For the next few weeks posting will likely be lighter than normal, as I have to move my family across the country and get settled. I'm going to try to keep the Friday beautiful sciences coming, at the very least, but I've missed several of those in the last few weeks.
As an aside, I intend to continue writing about biotech issues of societal relevance, but in this case, I won't write at all about the industry I am working with. This is for two reasons (one more important than the other) --- One, as it will look like I am biased (but I try to write about data, and not about conclusions, so this shouldn't be all that important). Two, I don't want to anger my new biotech overlords, should they ever learn of my blog.
As I've always intended to maintain anonymity, that shouldn't be hard.
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