Archive by date | August 2007

ACS: Hydrogen hiccups

I recently wrote a feature about storing hydrogen gas in incredibly porous materials (shameless bit of self promotion there, but one needs to keep the fans happy). But now I’m wondering whether I got it all wrong – a talk today by Bob Crabtree raised an interesting point – the motoring industry has an infrastructure that is all set up to revolve around liquid fuels, so why go after hydrogen as a fuel if one keeps it in the gaseous state?  Read more

ACS: Poets corner

I think I’ve just encountered the highlight of my visit – a poetry reading by Nobel prize-winning chemist Roald Hoffmann. Coincidentally, I’ve been thinking a lot about poetry lately, and how a poet can convey their thoughts. I am not brave enough to attempt to write anything other than a jaunty limerick myself, so I have a good deal of admiration for anyone who can convey a complex thought in an abstract, but senseful way. And Hoffmann just spent an hour in the middle of a busy, bustling exhibition hall, packed full of people trying to sell mass spectrometers and  … Read more

ACS: It’s better to travel…

People often say to me that travelling must be one of the perks of the job, but, oh boy, there are times when I beg to differ. I tried so hard to check-in online, but the British Airways system kept chucking me out. So I tried to use the electronic check-in kiosks at Heathrow airport, but after queuing for 30 minutes, the machine refused to give me a boarding pass. I was told to join a nearby queue for the actual check-in desks, where I waited for an hour, before being told that, actually, it was the wrong queue.  Read more

Nobelium – No!

Controversies about the preparation of heavy elements are nothing new. While browsing through a 50-year-old issue of Nature, I came across a report describing the preparation of element-102 (Nature subscribers can see the report here). This described a multinational effort performed at The Nobel Institute of Physics, Stockholm, in which curium atoms were fused with carbon-13 atoms. The new element was named ‘Nobelium’ in honour of its place of birth.  Read more