From the department head ( Read more... )

While taping printouts into my lab notebook, I had plenty of time to think about things. Perhaps my feeling that science is something to be shared is not quite kosher for academia. I've gotten some uncomfortable looks and body language from other scientists in the field when I've explained what I do or my results to laypeople. Maybe in explaining ( Read more... )

If this was a blizzard, there are blizzards on a regular basis in northern nation-states. I still don't understand why this is such a problem. We collectively have the knowledge and technology to deal with this fairly easily. If it gets hot, look to how people who live in the tropics deal with it. If if gets cold, look to how people in or close to ( Read more... )

So Japan still hasn't give up on picking up whaling again. They insist no one can tell them what to catch. How ironic that in matters of climate, they realize what one nation does affects everyone else, but when it comes to fish and seafood, they don't. "Research", sure. If it's for reasearch, where's the question the research will answer? How come ( Read more... )

Last time I talked to my mother, we got onto the subject of (again) obesity in the US. I said it's funny how the same preachers that are all fire, brimstone and eternal damnation about all kinds of rather petty things are silent on the deadly sin of gluttony. I realized, in trying to say that, that I don't know what gluttony is in Finnish. Neither ( Read more... )

There's some fairly heavy snowfall and Illinois is freaking out. Apparently, society ceases to function when it snows more than an inch at a time, and it's best to barricade yourself in a nuclear bunker with a year's worth of canned food.

It snows every year here. Every year.Since this is so traumatic (every year), here's what will make society ( Read more... )

Paula Zahn Now ran a story on a family severely ostracized because they were atheists somewhere in Mississippi (I personally wonder why on Earth they went to live there - that's one of those no-go zones for me) followed by a panel of hard-core Christian ideologists who proceeded to bash atheists. There is a link on the site to send an email to the ( Read more... )

I haven't seen Spoiled Brat in days. Rather, photons reflected from him have hit my retina, but I haven't had to say a single word to him, nor he to me, in days. I'm looking out my window, where some birds are fighting over some of the last berries on the little tree right outside my office. The snow is swirling playfully like snow does, and the ( Read more... )

Every time I walk past Spoiled Brat's office, he's on facebook, checking his mail, or chatting with someone. If he's there at all ( Read more... )

I thought I'd share what's keeping me here despite my miserable lab situation. Just in case, I'm not posting how these were made, but these are some of my ruthenium films.

On silicon dioxide 1

On silicon dioxide 2

On silicon dioxide 3

On silicon