My most recent story (my first for Scientific American) combined all the elements of what I love about my work– the chance to meet interesting people, learn and experience new things, and allow my eclectic interests to co-mingle, at least for a little while. In other words, this former chamber musician got to flex my…
On Thursday I spent a couple hours at NYU on Thursday afternoon of the Silver Building near Washington Square Park. Completely coincidentally as I was going to the meeting of the Experimental Cuisine Collective, I passed this plaque commemorating the founding of the American Chemical Society. I’d never delved that deeply into the history of…
Two waves of chemistry news hit my ears in the last 24 hours. As I was getting getting ready to herd the cats to the back of the apartment and cover up the parrot, I saw this clip on WNBC’s sports desk. Yes, indeed, Tommy Lasorda just asked, “what does isotope stand for?” in reference…
A new study about antioxidant content in pizza crust makes me realize that I was in the wrong area of chemistry. Instead of wondering about my relative carcinogen exposure, chemical burns and taking antibiotics for that one bacterial infection that made my hand swell to twice its normal size, I could have been baking pizza.…
Health care and health insurance policy heaps up as an entire basket of (smelly) things to write about, but my colleague Gretchen Cuda’s excellent post on her blog has inspired me to write of my own experience among the uninsured. She writes on Bright Scideas: In browsing the Plain Dealer this morning, I came across…
Watching the Inauguration on TV today, this former chamber musician and band geek had to give a shout out for the John Williams piece performed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, pianist Gabriela Montero and clarinetist Anthony McGill. I performed in chamber groups on both flute and piano during my high school piano recitals.…
The late period of Vincent van Gogh’s art screams harmonies of color, but his earlier work was decidedly dark. I wrote a kids’ piece last fall about how chemistry and art history came together to decode a woman’s face lurking below the surface on one of the artist’s sunny South-of-France paintings. The x-ray technique is…
My source at the National Zoo (otherwise known as my husband) sent me this photo of the newest bundle of gorilla joy. Apparently mom gave birth in the exhibit in full view of the public on Saturday. They don’t know if it’s a boy or a girl, and zoo folks may not get a good…
RNA researchers rejoice! It’s been a good week for DNA’s often-underappreciated cousin. Most people are worried about the genetic material that stays safely tucked in the nucleus of cells, but RNA is definitely the genetic workhorse. Without these molecules, our genetic programs would be useless artifacts locked in the cell nucleus like some sort of…
In January, this freelancer’s mind turns to thoughts of networking, marketing and generally making new (hopefully productive, dare I say lucrative) contacts. I’ve been thinking about networks in a variety of contexts, whether it’s been family, friends, social networks, and the ways interactions between people and within systems ping-pong chaotically, but in ways that mathematics…