Practical phase changes: more carbon dioxide
I get to talk about an interesting application of carbon dioxide today in my latest article for Scientific American: sterilizing transplanted tissues such as tendon and bone. Before I heard about this technology, I certainly wouldn’t have suspected that the ubiquitous gas that we exhale could become a super-scrubber with a little heat and a [...]
Of tomato plants, iPods and Darwin’s great-great granddaughter
Could a voice actually matter in making plants grow? Most of the scientific-sounding explanations I’ve ever heard about response of plants to people have invoked the additional carbon dioxide in the plants’ vicinity. But over the weekend I heard about an unusual study carried out by The Royal Horticultural Society. The researchers played different voices [...]
Molecule of the Week: Carbon dioxide (part 1 of many)
This small molecule is too big for a single post, so I’ll probably revisit it at different points in this blog. It’s the most oxidized form of carbon, often thought of as waste product: both of fossil fuel burning and of the energy reactions that fuel life. But it’s also an essential component of photosynthesis [...]
