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1) You're using an 11 step process that involves pre-warming your mug and a french press and calling other people snobs?

2) According to "scientific testing", you get drastically reduced caffeine extraction at the temperatures you'd get from tap water. You need near boiling water (200 degrees) for the best flavor and caffeine extraction.

"Inkjet will fade and smear horribly if it meets a single drop of water (rain, for instance). It won't last a week in the mail."

*taps alienw on the shoulder*

That's only if it uses a water/organic solvent-based ink. Commercial inkjets use an oil-based ink.*

*Yes this is coming from someone who's worked for both a printer manufacturer and an ink maker (oddly enough both in the same neighbourhood)

http://www.chemsoc.org/chembytes/ezine/2003/kunjap pu_mar03.htm

A nice paper on inks.

Speaking of paper. The paper composition is the other half of a successful print, and has more technology than you think for something made from dead trees.

Well, for one, a complexs molecule can be more than simple carbon chains, as one "tool" said so in a post below this one.

Okay! So what you're saying is that: "big, complex molecules can be made of other things than just carbon chains"? Well that's not news to anyone who knows about silicone rubber, for instance.

So who are these people you speak of saying otherwise? Who are you debating on this?

BTW, you shouldn't use the term "complex molecule". In chemistry a "complex" is something different than a molecule.

The Second law semantically conradicts itself. If energy cannot be created, nor destroyed, only transferred/transformed thru heat (which is how we measure all things energy-wise, by wattage) then the entire universe, as far as we can tell, is a perpetual motion machine

No. The universe as a whole isn't gaining or losing any energy. It would only be a perpetual motion machine if it was gaining energy.

How about learning some science before criticizing it?

"Weve got sound based fusion reactors nearing break-even,"
No we don't they do not know if sonofusion even exists. http://www.chemsoc.org/exemplarchem/entries/2004/b ristol_eaimkhong/Sonofusion.htm

"we have what could be an easy way to generate hydrogen from water using sodium."
This uses MUCH more power then it generates. To get the sodium you must separate it from molten salt. This is NOT a source of energy but potentially and energy storage system.

" Now, with this in mind, tell me why ethanol is needed?" Because it may or may not be better than break even. It probably does not make sense to grow corn just to make ethanol however if you use the waste products you may have a net gain. BioDiesel is in much the same category. Ethanol may be bad science and a waste but not for any reason you posted.

Viagra started life as a potential treatment for hypertension, and then angina.

Hervé This (a molecular gastronomer) built a machine which, given the ingredients and a formula, makes the sauce. You can make mayonaise (the formula is H\E) or meringues for example. Of course you have to know the formula.

http://www.chemsoc.org/chembytes/ezine/2003/burke_ oct03.htm

"Meanwhile, This is working with the Institut für Micromechanik in Mainz, Germany, on a prototype of a machine that makes dishes from a 'calculus of recipes'." -- The machine exists now.

I was under the impression that type-II superconductors consisted of small domains of Type-I that become additive macroscopically

I'm not really sure. In the BCS theory, Cooper pairs can only form at temperatures below about 40K. (The animations on this page are really cool.) Beyond that the lattice is just vibrating too much.

The current Tc record is 138K, so if cooper-pairs are forming there must be some other mechanism. Not that I'm a condensed matter physicist or anything.

High-Tc inorganic superconductors are all Type-II

Yes.

With this background, I can think of a laser that has just enough power to absorb into the vitamin A molecule without having the power to heat up any other molecules around it - like the rhodopsin protein.

The collimation of the laser merely allows precise control of where the image is created.

Reference http://www.chemsoc.org/exemplarchem/entries/2002/u pton/rhodopsin.htm

A similar trick was apparently "used" by Stradivarius in making violins, in that inadvertent soaking in brine in combination with the usual varnishes applied creates a good sound. More info further down on this page. I've listened to a talk by Nagyvary in which one of his violins was played, and it's truly stunning to hear (I used to play the violin before I found out I was better at coding :)

I know this is offtopic but, this is the most beautiful periodic table.

The parent is correct, it certainly is not the first time that light has ever been generated from a molecule by applying electricity!

I refer you to the parent's link and Cambrige Display Technology. Both are well on the way in the development of applications for simple polymer molecules that emit light when a current is passed.

I know that the simplest LEP Cambridge Display Technologies discovered (PPV) is of a similar scale (if not even smaller in diameter) to nanotubes, however I can't compare efficiencies, nor do I know much about optoelectronics so I couldn't say how a wavelength of 1.5 microns (the emission quoted in the article) compares to those of LEPs (visible light so between 400 and 700 nanometers).

My point is that I dispute the article's claim that it is the first time that molecules have produced light when an electrical potential is placed across them. Perhaps IBM think that nanotube light emission is more suited to optoelectronics than OLEDS/LEPs.

If you want to learn more about LEPs I did a project on them as part of my Chemistry degree, it's hosted by the Royal Society of Chemistry here and a slightly more up-to-date but not as pretty version is hosted here

Bardeen, Cooper and Schrieffer figured out how this works back in the 50s: see a quick intro here. They won the Nobel for BCS theory in 1971.

However, the highest temperature found (and predicted possible) for a conventional BCS superconductor was about 30K. In the mid-80s a group found ceramics that superconducted at 35K, there are now ones known that superconduct at 77K at room pressure. (Important since you can use cheap, easy to store liquid nitrogen to cool rather than very expensive liquid helium.) These materials became known as high-TC superconductors.

Nobody knows how these work, although there are a lot of people trying to find out. A workable theory that explained how this happens while ruling out the other competing theories would get you a Nobel in short order. Manage to come up with one that can predict the composition of a room temperature variety and you'll be rich beyond the dreams of avarice.

I still wouldn't advise playing with it (again), but no harm done it seems.

I did a lay report on this subject a few years ago for a university project. Have a read; I wrote it with a view to be easily digestible for the general masses :)

http://www.chemsoc.org/exemplarchem/entries/2001/w illiamson/index.html

You will need a Chime plugin for viewing the 3D molecules.
http://www.mdlchime.com/chime/


regards,

Mark

Check out the movies. Now THAT'S sexy!

Some more Titanium info, but this site is just way sexy. Check out the Flash Periodic Table on it.

Remember this post? "The Periodic Table of Comic Book Elements" from 2 days ago. The main site seems to have been fatally slashdotted, but here's Titanium on a mirror. Not so sexy, but timely. ;-)

here is a periodic table that IMHO is way cooler :-)

... or thinkers of any sort. All over their site they say the can contains "crushed limestone", aka "calcium oxide", which is found all over the Earth. Now if it were so common, it would be coming into contact with water all the time, heating up, and changing into something else. So it would all be long gone, and not common at all.

Calcium oxide is made from limestone. Here's some info. Limestone is calcium carbonate.
I'm also curious about their claim that the CaO is combined with water. I'll bet there is something else in the water to make for an effective reaction.

On one page, they say that calcium oxide is an approved food supplement. Given how nasty quicklime can be, I wonder if anyone here knows how to verify this?

OLEDs have been mentioned for a while: 1998 by Compaq, lightly technical discussion from chemsoc, a view that says OLEDs complement rather than replace TFT-LCDs from Electronic Business-Asia (August 2000), January of 1999 shows that Idemitsu Kosan, a Japanese chemical company, has demonstrated(search for "organic") 640x480x16mil with OLEDs.

Some US patents of interest: US05965901 (Cambridge Display), US05247190 (a 1993 Cambridge Patent), US04539507 (a Kodak claim geared towards reduced power consumption).

And so on.

Two fellas at Eastman Kodak who are real important on this issue are Steven A. VanSlyke and Ching W. Tang, both of whom have were sent in 1995 to give lectures in Japan on OLED technology.

My two cents says, it's about time companies stopped hyping this to the press in underdetailed press releases and actually start showing something for all their R&D efforts. Quit trying to make it the be-all end-all product the first time and get us cheaper, less power-hungry displays. When tube manufacturers realize their goose is cooked, prices will plummet for Digital TV in the US and OLED manufacturers will be handed the display market on a silver platter.

Details on the naming for 101-109