Cool Science

2. The online pricing myth. Some time ago, there was a brief period in which journals offered deep discounts to subscribe to web only editions on the premise that it saves tremendous costs in preparing the print editions. Those rates are long gone and the presses are back to their claims of 'high production costs' when in fact production costs have dropped because of the online publishing, and were low to begin with because of the free content and peer review (point 1 below). Related to this, personal subscriptions to scientific journals are in the stratosphere, running several hundreds of dollars at a minimum and often thousands. Gone are the days when faculty could subscribe to 2-4 journals most relevent to their research group's interest. I think that's particularly sad. There's nothing like flipping through a recent issue of a journal while an experiment is running, having them lying around a lunch table while you talk about them with colleagues, etc. Maybe this makes me a dinosaur, but I think these are really important things. I wish I was making a case for personal subscriptions again, but nobody can afford them.

Posted by Dave at 04:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm going to start here a new category of posts to talk about things in the 'academic' realm. And I'll start with a series of posts with my concerns about the prices of scientific journals. A major problem facing academic researchers is the ballooning subscription rates for journals. And there are substantially more journals than ever before. Even well-funded libraries have cut back, with some famous boycotts of Elsevier by Cornell, Harvard, MIT and others; Elsevier is thought by many to be the worst offender in journal pricing but they are not the only ones. I have a few points to make and I'll spread them out over a few posts:

1. Free content and free peer review should equal fair pricing. The journals neither write the papers nor perform the peer reviews. A number of journals require authors to perform the majority or sometimes all of the layout. These services are all provided free by authors and by professors who view the review process in particular as one of the most serious and important of their scholarly duties. There is an unwritten trust between academians and the presses that providing all content, both authoring and review, for free should translate into fair pricing. Sadly, it is past time to stop submitting to or performing peer review for publishers that are gouging. This is a messy topic for professors who must publish to further their careers and advance their research.

Posted by Dave at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm going to take a go at the whole "fair use" concept. Apparently I can excerpt material if it is for the purpose of satire. So let's go for it! Apparently the mystic tan is all the rage. It's based on 'magneTAN(tm)' technology. OK, first of all that sounds more like a Transformer than a cosmetic technique. At least Optimus Prime has a chance of having something magnetic going on in all of that metal. But 'mystic tan' is aptly named; I'm going to say that it has as much magnetism as a soggy pancake, and here's the quackery behind it in their own words (this is the fair use part of the post - [my comments]):

"MagneTanTM technology is our patented [I doubt it] process that uses the human body's own magnetic properties [which are MUCH,MUCH,MUCH weaker than Earth's magnetic field so they would stick to anything but a person if they were actually magnetic] to attract Mystic Tan tanning myst to every exposed surface of the skin. When genuine [seriously, are there imitators?] Mystic Tan tanning myst passes through the spray nozzles in a Mystic Tan booth, the micro-particles [they should have said 'nano', which is much more impressive than 'micro', ho-hum] of myst are polarized [the correct word is magnetized, actually], taking on the characteristics of "tiny magnets." These particles adhere evenly to the skin to create a smooth, natural-looking tan[disclaimer:just don't walk near any magnets]"

Sure, the mystic tan probably is a great spray-on tan, but they should just leave it at that. If you want to hear about something amazing with magnets that's real and legit, just read about magnetic refrigeration. I always thought magnets were cool.

Posted by Dave at 01:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

So, I'm totally bummed out that 7-Eleven didn't do a "Kwik-E-Mart" near us (at least that I know of). See one here -you have to watch a short commercial first.

I commented a while back that the Simpson's is loaded with science references, and chemistry definitely gets its due. I found this one when Bart was mistaken for a genius:

"Chemistry class. Ms. Mellon is unable to find a lab partner for Bart, who is busy mixing and matching. She asks what he's doing, and Bart explains that ``it's really top secret, man.'' Ms. Mellon asks, ``But you do know what happens when you mix acids and bases, right?'' Bart responds, ``Of course I do.'' He mixes. Cut to exterior. The entire top floor overflows with green goo. Back inside, everyone is coated in goo. Bart: ``Sorry.''

Even a Chemistry Nobel Laureate has been on the show. One of the Simpsons writers majored in biochem (from Hahhhvahd). And one episode drove a chemistry-minded viewer to successfully graft a tomato plant and a tobacco plant (how is this chemistry? not sure...). The Simpsons is definitely ok by me.

Posted by Dave at 09:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)