Will and Beyond

09/03/10 @ 1:37PM EST
posted by will

Everything looks more epic with a desert horizon in the background, right? Also, excimer brought to my attention a great tumblr full of entertaining abstracts: TOCROFL. I can't be expected to keep up with them, so supplement your Will and Beyond reading.

(Also, as sam from everyday scientist points out, if you subscribe to any ACS journals via RSS, they switched over to using Feedburner, so you'll have to go through and resubscribe manually. They could have at least sent out a last warning post via the feed...)

[Image: Nano Letters]

Twirly 'neath blue sky
But where is the sand texture
Long ass graphene strain

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: science, art, abstract of the day]

Laser Ablation

09/01/10 @ 10:28PM EST
posted by will

See all of those lines and dots? Made with lasers! This is NIST610, a standard containing traces of all of the rare-earth elements.

This is what we used for calibrating the ICP-MS, which allows you to get the relative ratio of elements in a sample, useful for verifying amounts within doped samples. You can see the plasma here.

Lasers are fun stuff
They make pretty lines and shapes
Expensive machine...

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: science]

Excellent Food Combinations

08/26/10 @ 11:24AM EST
posted by will

Grilled Cheese and Nutella
Sausage and Nutella
[any food here] and Nutella
Bacon Explosion with Chocolate
Anything with Ramen
Ranch and Cookie Pizza

I've definitely eaten weird combinations than this, but that's all I can think of offhand. Yes, I realize most of those are just 'thing + chocolate', but that's what chocolate clam chowder reminded me of.

Anyone have any good ones?

[Photo: Surviving the World]

Yay weird food combos
Nutella improves all things
Corn water soup? Gross

Godspeed.

[Comments: 1][Tags: food]

Boston ACS: Day 4

08/25/10 @ 4:42PM EST
posted by will

And that wraps up ACS. (Technically it's still running Thursday, but not much is happening at that point.) Fun times. Nothing interesting was happening in inorganic today so I just went to a bunch of assorted talks.

Multiscale simulation of proton exchange membranes*
Preparation of polymers conjugated with p-extended quinone: Optical and redox properties of the polymers
Redox-driven structural folding and unfolding: Electronic communication between TTF units anchored onto a C₂-symmtric aryleneethynylene scaffold
Conjugated polymers that respond to oxidation with increased emission
Bitter, twisted truth of the hop
Dry water: Can we still make waves?
Nano Letters 10th Anniversary Reception

*This was actually meant to be a talk on carbon nanotubes, but apparently Grand Ballroom C and Commonwealth Ballroom C are different rooms. Sigh.

You can see above that they shut down the expo today, that was around 2pm (after I got some free lunch and more free swag thankfully). Tomorrow I plan to wander around Boston, hopefully the weather will cooperate.

At some point I might do some sort of wrap-up post, but we'll see.

Goodbye ACS
There were many many talks
And now I'm burnt out

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: acs, science]

Boston ACS: Day 3

08/25/10 @ 10:45AM EST
posted by will

Not so many talks today, ended up sleeping in and spending more time at the expo:

Nanomaterials for energy storage
Chemical strategies in nanoscience
Some memories and then some new chemistry of single walled carbon nanotubes
Medicinal Chemistry Letters Reception
Various Poster Sessions

And while I was at the expo, I met up with my good friend E.J. Corey. I wonder if he was at the Plagiarism in the Woodward-Hoffmann rules talk yesterday?

The conference is definitely winding down, most of the relevant talks for me were on days 1 and 2, and even most of the more interesting interdisciplanary talks were earlier as well. It's been pouring down rain pretty hard all week, otherwise I'd be tempted to ditch out for some of Wednesday or Thursday to sightsee. Hopefully it will tone down a bit for Thursday.

Bit burnt out on talks
Got lots of free expo swag
Rain, rain, go away

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: acs, science]

Boston ACS: Day 2

08/24/10 @ 5:17PM EST
posted by will

PhD Not quite as many talks as Day 1, but definitely some good ones.

Lanthanide-based hybrid nanoparticles for biomedical imaging
Naphthalimide sensitized lanthanide(III) luminescence
Room temperature colloidal synthesis of magnetic EuTe nanoparticles
All oxygen donor ligands as efficient antennae for lanthanide luminescence
Was plagiarism involved in the development of the Woodward—Hoffmann rules?
Physical properties of PbEuS nanocrystals
The Power of Procrastination
Sci-Mix Poster Session

A lot of relevant talks (found someone doing very similar stuff...) The talk on the Woodward-Hoffmann rules was really good.

[Comments: 0][Tags: acs, science]

Boston ACS: Day 1

08/22/10 @ 5:40PM EST
posted by will

All finished with talks for the day, including my own! Here's what I went to today, with the especially good ones in bold, and mine italicized.

Dynamic thin film fabrication of Palladium nanomaterials for application in hydrogen gas sensing
Graphene and nanowire transistors for cellular interfaces and electrical recording
Size-dependant magnetism in lanthanide chalcogenide nanomaterials
Energy generation in carbon nanotube induced by the chemical reaction: Thermopower waves
Fullerene-based Superatom thermoelectric materials
Novel, lanthanide-based nanoparticles for NIR to UV energy conversion
Engineering nanoparticle catalysis via a multimetallic core/shell structure
Communicating organic chemistry through the internet: Global learning communities
Focusing CENtral Science: An overview of C&EN's redesigned blog portal and its usefulness to educators
Chemistry blogging: From literature to controversy to community to...
Shape controlled colloidal synthesis of rock-salt lead selenide nanocrystals
Quantitative and size-tunable quantum growth using sec-phosphine chalcogenide anion sources
Rational synthesis of heterostructured nanoparticles with shape control

Mine seemed to go fine; glad to have it out of the way fast so I can just enjoy the rest of the conference and not fret about my own.

[Comments: 1][Tags: acs, science]

Boston: Pre-ACS

08/22/10 @ 3:30PM EST
posted by will

I'm in Boston for the ACS meeting until Friday. Crashing on Alex's couch for the week and saw Love In Stockholm Friday night. Then passed out hard, my schedule briefly before that:

Thursday, 9pm: Get back from Madison, WI. Head home to pick up food and luggage, see Amy and such.
Thursday, 11pm: Last Metro to Silver Spring. Arrive 1am.
Friday, 3am: SuperShuttle to BWI.
Friday, 6:30am: Fly to Boston, arrive 8am.

The show was great, and I slept real good Friday night. Relaxed Saturday, caught up on some internet'ing and finished up my talk for Sunday morning.

Stay tuned for ACS coverage throughout the week, if I'm not too lazy.

9am Sunday?
An awkward time for a talk.
At least done early.

Godspeed.

[Comments: 0][Tags: acs]

Operation Orange: Still Pasty

08/15/10 @ 3:03PM EST
posted by will

carrot leg To sum it up: failure. There are two days left and I'm as pasty as ever. I was hoping to update more frequently as I turned differenet degrees of orange, but no such luck. You can see how my upper leg (never gets tan) looked compared to a carrot on day 0, and it looks the same now. I had also heard that your palms and feet get orange first, but no sign there either.

Rules update. Upon further evaluation, we decided to get rid of the weird beverage rules and increase the amount from 50% to 60%.

Self-regulation. At first I was weighing everything I ate, to ensure that I would be eating at least 60% by weight. After the first week, I found that as long as I was eating at least 12 carrots a day, I just wouldn't eat less than 65% by weight. Carrots are surprisingly filling. I would generally eat a ton of carrots earlier in the day to build up a surplus, then eat about half what I normally would for lunch.

Operation Orange

07/19/10 @ 10:06AM EST
posted by will

It's been a while since my last ridiculous food challenge. Too long. After last year's week of rations, it was proposed to me to eat nothing but carrots to see if I turn orange. This sounds like my kind of thing, but I refused to pay for the carrots myself, just like I wouldn't have paid for emergency rations.

More than a year later, people have agreed to sponsor me. For one month, I will eat at least 50% (by weight) carrots. Hopefully I will turn orange. The initial goal was 75%, but after yesterday, I realized it was nearly impossible to maintain a reasonable caloric intake, since a carrot only has about 30 calories.

Having been supplied with a balanced, I massed out each carrot in a 5 pound bag, and came out with an average of 100 +/- 20g. I will mass all of my food, and be sure that I eat at least that much in carrots.