Author Archives: stu

A silicon spoof

Posted on April 2, 2015 by stu

This post is a follow-up to yesterday’s (did you notice the date?) that looked at an April 1981 paper by Dietmar Seyferth and James J. Pudvin published in the (now defunct) ACS journal CHEMTECH. This article reports the isolation of … Continue reading →

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Some surprising silicon chemistry

Posted on April 1, 2015 by stu

Ever since Scott Denmark told me about a gem of a paper back at the Bürgenstock conference a few years, I’ve been meaning to blog about it. Well, today is as good a day as any* I suppose, so here … Continue reading →

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How to make sloe gin… and a little bit of chemistry

Posted on February 22, 2015 by stu

First, the recipe. Making sloe gin really is as easy as 1, 2, 3… – it only requires three ingredients (a fourth is optional) and the particular ratio my recipe uses is 1:2:3 (sugar:sloes:gin). The recipe is easily scaled depending … Continue reading →

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A quantitative analysis of how often Nature gives a fuck

Posted on February 8, 2015 by stu

After seeing this tweet the other evening: Huge respect to @CSPO_ASU's Dan Sarewitz for getting the one word sentence "Bollocks" into @nature http://t.co/AQC4hdENMC — Jack Stilgoe (@Jackstilgoe) February 6, 2015 I started to wonder just how sweary Nature has been … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun, Journal stuff, Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , | 7 Comments

What if (I read more books this year)?

Posted on February 6, 2015 by stu

I read many books in 2014. Some of them I read so many times that I could probably recite them word-for-word. These books typically involved a gruffalo or the offspring of a gruffalo, however. And if there was no gruffalo … Continue reading →

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Not that Noble

Posted on October 15, 2014 by stu

From Justus Liebigs Annalen der Chemie in 1856… Either this chap was publishing under a not-terribly-creative pseudonym, or someone at the editorial office got a bit confused…

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I did a Nobel thing…

Posted on October 6, 2014 by stu

It’s difficult to make predictions, especially about the future – so said Niels Bohr (or maybe Yogi Berra, or Mark Twain or… boy, it’s hard to track down who *really* said something…). Anyway, @carmendrahl and @laurenkwolf from @cenmag were kind enough … Continue reading →

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100 chemists on Twitter

Posted on September 22, 2014 by stu

This is not a list of the top 100 chemists on Twitter. For a start, I’m not really comfortable defining ‘top’. Most followers? Most tweets? Shiniest avatar? Funniest bio? Most well-known in the real world? (Define ‘well-known’ and ‘real world’, … Continue reading →

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Animal authors

Posted on July 11, 2014 by stu

Earlier today, I noticed that Sylvain Deville had taken to Twitter to point out an unusual canine co-author on a scientific paper: Does this name rings a bell ? hint: #lordoftherings Turns out, it's also the 1st author's dog! http://t.co/T7ecRgJ42E … Continue reading →

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The heaviest naturally occurring element on Earth?

Posted on May 15, 2014 by stu

OK, let’s make sure that we’re clear on the question first. By ‘heaviest’, I mean the element with the largest atomic number. By ‘naturally occurring’, I mean pretend that humans have never existed on this planet (probably would have turned … Continue reading →

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