DailyDirt: Better Living Via Chemistry... Just Got A Bit More Complicated

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Almost no one liked chemistry class in high school, and on top of that, colleges use chem classes to weed out pre-med students. So the subject gets a bum rap a lot, and things aren't about to get any better. The periodic table just officially changed. Merry Christmas to chemistry teachers everywhere! Here are a few more quick links about this news and some chemistry-related stories:

The atomic weights of ten elements will now be expressed as intervals. And I'm looking forward to how They Might Be Giants will explain this in a song. [url]

There's a very boring answer to the question of what would happen if you threw every element together at the same time. It would reach equilibrium after creating a cloud of smoke. [url]

Do you know where your elements come from? Are they conflict-free? Blood diamonds get a movie, but when will they make a movie about "blood tantalum"? [url]

Have you noticed that your dish detergent is phosphate-free now? Procter & Gamble says it had no choice but to remove phosphate compounds from its products -- because it's better for the environment. Unfortunately, dishes everywhere aren't getting as clean as they used to be. [url]

Gold is not a gas, doesn't burn and won't kill you -- are those good enough reasons for you? I'll take: "Reasons why an element is precious for $200, Alex." [url]

Filed Under: chemistry, elements, gold, periodic table
Companies: p&g

Basic Building Blocks Of Life Patented... But Wins A Nobel Prize

from the is-that-good-or-bad? dept

joseph franklin writes in to point out that this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to some researchers who helped uncover some of the basic building blocks of life, ribosomes. Figuring out how to model these was great, but Franklin's concern is that not only did these researchers get a Nobel Prize for it, they got a patent as well:

The patent holders and licensees surely believe that these products will be life-saving, and profitable, and I hate to rain on the Nobel Prize parade. But should research so fundamental to life, such as the ribosome structure, be locked up for commercial gain -- like Dynamite? Should a private institution, such as Yale, have the only say over how ribosomes may be developed into new biomedical technologies?

Filed Under: building blocks, chemistry, nobel prize, patents, ribosomes

Online Study Group Creator Not Expelled; But Still Punished

from the lesson-learned:-don't-study-with-others! dept

A couple weeks ago, we wrote about a student at Ryerson University in Canada, who was being threatened with expulsion for setting up an online study group via Facebook for his chemistry class. If he'd done the same thing with a group in the library, it would have been fine. But, somehow, in setting it up on Facebook, he got in trouble. After plenty of news attention over this, the school has decided not to expel him, but will still give him a zero on the assignment in question and will place a "disciplinary note" in his file. While it's good he wasn't expelled, it's difficult to see how the school can justify this type of punishment either. Here's a student trying to help both himself and the rest of the class better learn the subject matter, and he's punished for it? That doesn't seem right.

Filed Under: chemistry, online study group, ryerson, students
Companies: facebook