Ivan's weblog

More chemistry scandals

Sat, 11 Mar 2006 15:22:51 +0000

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

Chili’s World

Fri, 24 Feb 2006 20:08:02 +0000

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:

Mexican Chemistry Scandal!

Mon, 13 Feb 2006 22:43:47 +0000

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 a year after the initial retraction, so one can’t say that the scientists didn’t admit that there was something wrong with the results in a timely fashion. Making this the main front-page story in a national newspaper is an exaggeration in my opinion, especially giving it a conspiracy-theory title, but we all know that some newspapers like to dramatize things a bit…

The Onion predicted the future!

Wed, 08 Feb 2006 18:56:28 +0000

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.

Books “for dummies” in the 17th century

Tue, 07 Feb 2006 01:51:27 +0000

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 familiar to the Capacity of any that deſire to learn in a little time.

Support Denmark

Mon, 06 Feb 2006 18:50:21 +0000

Intelligent Falling

Wed, 30 Nov 2005 03:58:41 +0000

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

Wikis, blogs, and the CIA

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 17:39:49 +0000

Who would have imagined it? The Wiki and the Blog: Toward a Complex Adaptive Intelligence Community.

NFPA irony

Thu, 13 Oct 2005 04:40:22 +0000

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 worry about is the hazardous (?) substances contained in the fire extinguiser itself (and I would certainly not expect them to be flammable!). But don’t worry, the 1/0/0 diamond above means “may cause irritation", and is the same as the one assigned to substances such as sodium chloride. So, in the end, this is almost like looking at the nutritional information label on a water bottle…

Disclaimer: fire extinguishers can be hardazous if misused–always use the appropriate fire extinguiser according to the fire source and conditions! (And while we are at it, don’t try this at home, eat fruits and vegetables, and talk to your doctor.)

Man gets convicted for typing “..” in browser’s URL bar

Wed, 12 Oct 2005 20:25:02 +0000

Yes, that’s right, thanks to the Moronic UK Justice System when it comes to Computer Security.

Coming up next: man gets convicted of trying to rotate the knob of a locked door by using his hand…