http://ivan.tubert.org/blog The life of a Mexican yalie computational chemistry perl hacker Mon, 17 Jul 2006 20:28:28 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 My readers have been complaining that I don’t write here anymore. I’ve run out of inspiration, but here are some interesting science news: Nature News reports that injecting the aminoacid leucine into rats’ brains makes them eat less and gain less weight. So don’t be surprised if books start to appear ... http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2006/05/13/coming-up-next-the-leucine-diet As pointed out by an anonymous reader, more retractions are shaking the chemistry world. These are for papers by Prof. Sames at Columbia about Ru-catalyzed C-H activation. Check out these blogs for more details: blog.tenderbutton.com paulbracher.com Note added on March 16: Now it’s also in the New York Times http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2006/03/11/more-chemistry-scandals Chili’s World, by my friend Santiago Casares, is now in its fourth season! Don’t miss the adventures of Chili, the shy penguin looking for love, Lenny, the lemming with philosophical issues, Mac the cat, and Alice! Here’s one of my favorites so far: http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2006/02/24/chilis-world As reported in La Jornada, two Mexican scientists retracted three articles published in Journal of Organic Chemistry, Tetrahedron, and Tetrahedron Letters after finding that the results were irreproducible. The principal investigator is Prof. Eusebio Juaristi, a very well-respected chemist. It should be pointed out that this is being reported over ... http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2006/02/13/mexican-chemistry-scandal My brother sent me these links: Fuck Everything, We’re Doing Five Blades. The Onion, 2004-02-18. Gillette ups the ante, unveils 5-blade razor. Reuters, 2005-09-14. http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2006/02/08/the-onion-predicted-the-future A couple of weeks ago I saw this book from 1687 in Beinecke library (sorry for the blurry picture). The text in the title page reminds me of the “for dummies” books, except that it is more verbose and polite: HODDER’s ARITHMETICK: Or, that Necessary Art Made most eaſie Being explained in a way ... http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2006/02/06/books-for-dummies-in-the-17th-century http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2006/02/06/support-denmark I haven’t posted in a while… This is the most remarkable criticism I’ve seen for the latest Kansas board of education decision regarding “intelligent design": Evangelical Scientists Refute Gravity With New ‘Intelligent Falling’ Theory http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2005/11/29/intelligent-falling Who would have imagined it? The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community. http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2005/10/13/wikis-blogs-and-the-cia Today I saw a fire extinguisher that had the equivalent of this NFPA diamond: This is a standard code to tell firefighters about the risks of specific substances. The areas covered are health hazards, flammability, and reactivity. Now, what is ironic is that, when fighting a fire, the last thing I would ... http://ivan.tubert.org/blog/archives/2005/10/12/nfpa-irony