Natural gas: Not all that clean (but we can fix it!)
Nature reveals that natural gas is quite a bit more polluting than we thought – with less-than-airtight facilities leaking 60% more methane than estimated, or […]
chemistry
Science Art: Nitrogen with Secret Binary Robot (Brain Freeze Ice Cream Wallpaper Detail), editor’s own work.
Click to embiggen It’s hot here. Spent all day at a swim meet. Non-competitors not allowed in pool. There’s a chain now that makes ice […]
Ship-exhaust power: making batteries from soot.
Nature reports on a new way to turn ship exhaust into an energy source. Dr. Jun Kang at the Korea Maritime and Ocean University in […]
Bio-material stronger than steel… and spider silk.
Science Daily looks at a form of cellulose – that is, like, wood, you know? – that’s been remade at the nano-level to be stronger […]
SONG: Titanium (penitential cover)
SONG: “Titanium” (penitential cover) ARTIST: grant. SOURCE: This has no scientific source; it’s a penitential cover for being late for the February song. (I think […]
Science Art: With this electrolytic cell as little as a milligram of various heavy metals may be precisely determined, 1922
Click to embiggen Early electronics: a cell for isolating minute quantities of heavy metals, apparently by zapping a drop of a solution under a powerful […]
Household chemicals cause as much smog as cars now?
Nature gets a little provocative with research that seems to show that as much air pollution comes from our houses as our cars: Volatile organic […]
Making wood that’s stronger than steel
Nature has a new process for turning trees into a building material that’s tougher than girders or automobile frames: “It’s a new class of materials […]
Science Art: V alambicchi, from Acta Eruditorum, 1740.
Click to embiggen Alembics (or alambics), used to distill and to purify. Where whiskey comes from, and all kinds of other chemistry.
A sticky bioprinting breakthrough.
Science Daily has more on the Osaka University researchers who have found a new way to stick together the ever-more complicated cells for 3D printing: […]
Battery charging got 20 times faster – by adding asphalt.
NextBigFuture bigs up the Rice University researchers who added a pinch of asphalt and graphene to their batteries to create a high-capacity power source that […]
Science Art: Top view of ribbon diagram of ribonuclease inhibitor (PDB accession code 2BNH).
Click to embiggen Ooo! Everyone loves a party! This is a protein, though, not a party decoration. The full title of this image (or, really, […]
SONG: The Ring I Made For You (A Time-Crystal Canon)
SONG: “The Ring I Made For You (A Time-Crystal Canon).” ARTIST: grant. SOURCE:The quest to crystallize time,” Nature, 8 Mar 2017, as used in the […]
Science Art: Saturated Hydro-Carbon, by B.E. Pike, 1947
From The Wonderland of Science. A children’s book. From 1947. This is what little kids were reading then. Not that our culture is in decline […]
Our first breath of air, analyzed 2.3 billion years later.
Science Daily peeks into the deep, deep history of the “Great Oxidation Event,” analyzing a very old sample of some of the first oxygen to […]