Pizza chemistry
A new study about antioxidant content in pizza crust makes me realize that I was in the wrong area of chemistry. Instead of wondering about my relative carcinogen exposure, chemical burns and taking antibiotics for that one bacterial infection that made my hand swell to twice its normal size, I could have been baking pizza. [...]
Health insurance, that monster
Health care and health insurance policy heaps up as an entire basket of (smelly) things to write about, but my colleague Gretchen Cuda’s excellent post on her blog has inspired me to write of my own experience among the uninsured. She writes on Bright Scideas: In browsing the Plain Dealer this morning, I came across [...]
Curvy clarinet
Watching the Inauguration on TV today, this former chamber musician and band geek had to give a shout out for the John Williams piece performed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill. I performed in chamber groups on both flute and piano during my high school piano recitals. [...]
chemical art (and life) decoding
The late period of Vincent van Gogh’s art screams harmonies of color, but his earlier work was decidedly dark. I wrote a kids’ piece last fall about how chemistry and art history came together to decode a woman’s face lurking below the surface on one of the artist’s sunny South-of-France paintings. The x-ray technique is [...]
Cute animal alert
My source at the National Zoo (otherwise known as my husband) sent me this photo of the newest bundle of gorilla joy. Apparently mom gave birth in the exhibit in full view of the public on Saturday. They don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, and zoo folks may not get a good [...]
genetic (material) gyrations
RNA researchers rejoice! It’s been a good week for DNA’s often-underappreciated cousin. Most people are worried about the genetic material that stays safely tucked in the nucleus of cells, but RNA is definitely the genetic workhorse. Without these molecules, our genetic programs would be useless artifacts locked in the cell nucleus like some sort of [...]
The network of connection
In January, this freelancer’s mind turns to thoughts of networking, marketing and generally making new (hopefully productive, dare I say lucrative) contacts. I’ve been thinking about networks in a variety of contexts, whether it’s been family, friends, social networks, and the ways interactions between people and within systems ping-pong chaotically, but in ways that mathematics [...]
Roving Mars for 5 years and counting
The Mars rovers may not make the news as much as they once did, but Spirit and Opportunity are still the little Mars missions that could. Spirit bounced its way through a successful landing on Mars 5 years ago, on January 3, 2004. The rovers feel like old dear work colleagues that I revisit from [...]
the toy that stumped Niels Bohr
I didn’t make it to the Nobel Prize festivities in early December. But my husband’s Ph.D. adviser (a friend of a 2008 laureate) hobnobbed with the Nobel elite. She brought back a couple souvenirs as holiday gifts for members in the lab. First of all, everyone needs their own chocolate Nobel Prize. But we were [...]
