Tag Archives: fun

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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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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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 molecular TIE fighter

Posted on April 22, 2014 by stu

Where did the inspiration for the TIE fighters in Star Wars come from? Well, we surely can’t rule out that George Lucas read this Zeitschrift für anorganische und allgemeine Chemie paper from 1953 and was particularly struck by the following … Continue reading →

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10 quick cover-letter tips for submitting scientific papers

Posted on November 2, 2013 by stu

This is more a list of don’ts than dos; there’s a serious blog post/editorial that needs to be written about how to write an effective cover letter, but for now, here’s a quick checklist for you all… 1. Send in … Continue reading →

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The wisdom of Google

Posted on July 24, 2013 by stu

After discovering the (absolutely genius) @GooglePoetics twitter feed last night, I was curious to see what Google search autocomplete had to say in a few other cases… The first choice was obvious: Well, at least ‘fun’ comes before the other … Continue reading →

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Friday fun: Selling yourself

Posted on June 14, 2013 by stu

Over the last few days I’ve been updating some of the slides I use in my ‘Scientific publishing and communicating chemistry’ talk. One of the slides looks at five general-chemistry journals and pulls some quotes from their websites that they … Continue reading →

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