FROM THE ARCHIVES: brew masters
Back from Dragon*Con, with my very own case of "con crud" — clearly I am paying the price for not bringing my personal supply of …
Chemistry
FROM THE ARCHIVES: down the rabbit hole
It's madness preparing for a book launch (August 31, y'all), which means it's time yet again for a trip to the cocktail party archives. This …
father of fizz
In honor of "Pepsipocalypse," and my own inordinate fondness for Diet Coke (which I share with Bora!, as evidenced by the photo at the end …
of alchemy and iron man
I have just returned from Minneapolis, or more accurately, nearby Bloomington, host to the annual CONvergence science fiction and fantasy convention. Technically I was there …
oily hair is not a problem – its a solution for the gulf coast
I had my own oil spill this weekend in the kitchen and got a bit of an appreciation for just how hard it is to clean up the slippery stuff. What is oil? Basically, it’s the polar opposite of water. (OK, it’s actually the non-polar opposite of water: chemistry joke!).
nanoparticles and microparticles making things slippery
The words “NANO GEODESIC BEARINGS” attracted my interest not just because they were in all caps, but because anytime you hear ‘nano’ and ‘geodesic’ together, you have to think buckyballs, those carbon structures resembling soccer balls that spent way too much time in the dryer and shrunk to about a nanometer in diameter.
how many horses under the hood..? none – i’ve got cows.
ALMS is a good platform for automotive industry companies pursuing greener products. The Michelin Green X Challenge, which rewards the fastest and most energy efficient cars, considers only gasoline usage at the moment, but as the series evolves, they will likely expand to include another major contributor to petroleum use in cars: oil.
my hair is red, my tires are black and their smoke is white
That particular trait — not being able to sleep when there’s something you can’t figure out — is in my mind the fundamental requirement for being a scientist. I was groggily reading my email Friday and found a request from one of my NASCAR contacts to explain something “simple”: why tires make white smoke, even though the tire is black and the skid marks are black.
all you need is….
It's Valentine's Day again, which means it's time for various media outlets to turn an analytical science-y eye on that most magical-seeming human emotion: love. …
blithe spirits
We are diehard fans of Nick and Nora Charles here at the cocktail party, for obvious reasons: check out the science-themed cocktails in our sidebar. …