the power of goo

Information transfer is a life principle

2009-05-23T12:27:11Z

Fels D (2009) Cellular Communication through Light. PLoS ONE 4(4): e5086. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0005086

People like Popp have been laughed at for their biophoton hypothesis (and experiemntal results) for ages now. Of course, what sounds like Sci-fi can never be true, at least some scientists seem to “know” and thus forget that science is not about believing you know it all. Anything is possible, unless proven otherwise. And then still methods can change.

Nevertheless, here is an excerpt from the abstract:

Information transfer is a fundamental of life. A few studies have reported that cells use photons (from an endogenous source) as information carriers. This study finds that cells can have an influence on other cells even when separated with a glass barrier, thereby disabling molecule diffusion through the cell-containing medium.

Hopefully enough for you to want to read up.

Now for the crazy ones out there: doesn’t this sound like a very good start for biological nanotechnology, carbon/silicon hybrid systems?

Allright… enough sci-fi for today

Accelerated aging of wine?

2009-02-24T21:37:30Z

…is being discussed over at khymos.org. Great article, again!

Red wine…

2009-02-09T14:47:07Z

…is a very useful and pleasurable indulgence we at tpog.net do take pleasure in. barrique red wines are amongst our favorites, so this news item had our hearts sparkling

Apparently Italian winemakers are moving away from using oak barrels to age their red wine, and looking to acacia, cherry, chestnut and mulberry instead. All these woods have been used by winemakers elsewhere in the world before, and what I want to know is how, or if, this will affect the taste of my current favourite Italian tipple – Chianti Classico Reserva.

read more at http://prospect.rsc.org/blogs/cw/?p=1346

Jurassic park

2009-02-04T13:33:06Z

It is far from the focus of this blog, but the headline is remarkable.

Extinct ibex is resurrected by cloning An extinct animal has been brought back to life for the first time after being cloned from frozen tissue.

The technology is nowhere near perfect yet, and the first specimen they tried to clone “newborn ibex kid died shortly after birth due to physical defects in its lungs. Other cloned animals, including sheep, have been born with similar lung defects.”.

How far away from the first extinct species being reborn this way, if at least for a while? What will happen to these animals: will they be able to breed? Will genetic variability be too low?

And, last but not least: when will the tech cross to “engineering”?

[update] There is also a lengthy article in New Scientist, Jan 10 2009:

Personality traits often associated with innovators

2009-02-05T17:09:18Z

please go read & join the discussion “Personality traits often associated with innovators” at friendfeed.

Uploaded with plasq’s Skitch!

(click on image for full resolution)

Lost in transit?

2009-02-01T13:05:10Z

There are some changes going on on the backend of this blog. Mainly adding new functionality or at leat fixing bugs & buggers.

In the meantime, no more custom modified look & feel — justa plain modular and pluggable theme from wordpress.org.

So, please keep coming and commenting

Re: How to pronounce Angewandte, Makromolekulare and Chemie

2009-02-01T12:57:08Z

Andrew asked the question:

How to pronounce Angewandte, Makromolekulare and Chemie, PLEASE?

Here’s the sound files. Any further questions?

Polymer chemistry - wtf?

2009-02-01T13:19:52Z

For all those readers out there who are no polymer chemists. I hope there are some, there must be: 2 out of 4 regular readers are also authors of this blog; both are polymer chemists. And since statistics say we only have 10% polymer chemists out there, you all are not.

So, please check out this web page for some concepts of what we must endure: http://www.polymerchemistryhypertext.com/index.htm

Concepts in chemistry and quantum mechanics.

2009-01-20T16:48:03Z

A quick literature link: there is a rant in one of the latest editions of Angewandte Chemie which is quite readable and educating:

Jansen and Wedig respond to a paper which talks about getting rid of oxidation states in favor of “quantum-mechanically funded” electric charges. But there is much more about the underlying problem: can you really create all those nifty tools we chemists use to make thinking about chemistry and molecules much more easy — from quantum mechanics, the mother of everything non-thinkable?

At least this polymer chemist found the article useful and stimulating. How about you?

Oh, here is the link:

DOI (german) 10.1002/ange.200803605
DOI (english) 10.1002/anie.200803605

The power of goo: A less savoury aspect of other kinds of goo

2009-01-25T15:20:32Z

The recent wrangling between Ukraine and Russia over Natural Gas Transit to western Europe got me looking into natural gas and biogas. So I stumbled across “The Complete Biogas Handbook”.

The first tidbits I was able to read online looked rather simple from a trained chemical engineers point of view but hands on from an “I want that in my backyard” angle. So I am looking forward to getting the book soon, to judge it in its entirety. The review is to follow soon.

From my preliminary reading of “The Complete Biogas Handbook” and other sources (wikipedia and a lot of googling) biogas and natural gas are essentially the same, the latter having been sequestered in porous layers of rock for eons, after being produced like the former by anaerobic bacteria decomposing organic matter.

As natural gas is heavily treated prior to consumption (acidic impurities, mercaptanes from protein) I wondered what are we doing with biogas? After all it is inadvertently (vide odour) produced in sewage treatment plants: Are we putting it to use already?

Turns out some places are: sewage treatment facilities and land fills.

The city of Munich, Bavaria for example is doing it at its main waste water treatment plant and landfill site. So it is a proven technology. Just google for biogas plants and you will find a plethora of trade associations and engineering companies offering a large portfolio of technologies.

What I have not been able to figure out is how much energy we could produce e.g. in co-generation power plants using the organic matter we collect using our cities sewers and from the separate collection of kitchen and garden waste. I remember reading that for example Germany might be able to replace up to 10% of its natural gas imports by the biogas made from organic waste materials. This might have a huge impact on decreasing a nations reliance on energy imports. Unfortunately I don’t remember the source.

As all these processes rely on bacteria (anaerobic and methanogenic archae) one starts to think why won’t we start where the plants do and use carbon dioxide. Peakenergy has a nice post and link to an inspiring talk given by Craig Venter. I am really looking forward to see what he and the other guys he mentioned come up with as fourth generation biofuels.

TPOG is still alive.

2009-01-20T16:38:56Z

…oh yes, this blog still exists. It has been quiet in the last few months, but this may well change in the future. Hopefully. So, just a small ping to let you know we are still here.

Polymer Chemistry is the Home Depot of Chemistry?

2008-12-13T20:37:13Z

Polymer Chemistry- The Home Depot of Chemistry. You are going to get your hands dirty. Also, have fun doing it yourself and trying to figure out what’s going on when (not ‘if’, ‘when’) it doesn’t work. The literature is not going to help you much with the “why”- it’ll just show you what to do. It sucks, but that’s polymer chemistry. But what you’ll end up doing, once it finally works, will likely be useful to other people.

Found at http://www.coronene.com/blog/?p=393

Are we all seeking truth? Even science is far from it.

2008-08-03T20:03:25Z

I wasn’t surprised to see my remark about Nature and Science contested but I was surprised to see who did the contesting, because what I see as the faults of these journals are exactly the sort of faults that you often criticize in your books. They both publish a lot of work that is fashionable and apparently exciting, but they don’t insist on including the supporting information that allows readers to know exactly how the experiments were done — half the time they wouldn’t even allow authors to include this information because they would say it made the article too long. What happens in practice, therefore, is that high-profile authors will publish a claim-staking exercise in Nature or Science and then, if you are lucky, follow it up later in a journal of lower prestige with a “full paper” that includes the essential details omitted the first time round.

Or so it seems. There is much more to read here, especially if you want to learn how big big organizations can be fucked by crappy powerpoint. And: it wasn’t the scientists that noone listened to — they messed up in telling the message so it could be understood.

New digital rights management in scientific literature

2008-07-24T08:03:35Z

I long back to the days in academia where we had university wide licenses for full text pdf of journals. Just received one document from the British Library today with the following note:

The document contains 8 pages, is 514KB, was posted on July 23, 2008 and is now available. It must be downloaded and printed within 14 days and can be accessed only one(1) time

Hello? Anyone out there? Those restrictions are ridiculous!

Endangered elements

2008-07-03T09:20:36Z

Cassandra is speaking: not only is oil approaching its end of availability, buit also other elements are getting used up and converted into products and/or waste.

Read more via Selenized, as well as here

What can we do to avoid an “end to rare elements”? New recycling technologies?

FriendFeed room “Polymers”

2008-06-18T21:49:25Z

Heya out there, we just have started a room dedicated to polymers on FriendFeed. Join us there if you like.

Some ideas what FriendFeed can do for you and how scientists use it elsewhere.

Electronic Lab Journals?

2008-06-11T18:14:42Z

Has anyone out there any experience with electronic lab journals? In an academic setting? In a corporate setting? Has anyone played with databases, excel master tables, text files?

Energy Strategy for the Road Ahead

2008-04-29T18:47:12Z

The Global Business Network published an interesting scenario analysis:

Scenario one: Current economic and energy trends continue with no major regulatory shifts in climate policy

Scenario two: Investment flows overseas make it difficult for most U.S. companies to adjust to an energy and carbon constrained world

Scenario three: Severe weather events and international economic crises bankrupt many U.S. companies and institutions

Scenario four: An innovative focus on clean and efficient technology fosters a new era of economic prosperity and self-reliance in a carbon-constrained global marketplace

Go check out the full report here.

How will your actions help shape a better future?

Social Journal club… reloaded

2008-04-27T14:01:29Z

Chek out ologeez, a new (open source?) social website where you can review and discuss papers.

If this works as intended I would love to get this thing working in my employer’s intranet. Might be a perfect way to really get some discussions going on. Think patent reviews, what’s hot etc.

Statistics and chemists — like water and oil?

2008-04-27T13:18:13Z

Chemists, in general, don’t like statistics. I guess they may be the horde of natural scientists who despise statistics the most… even though many of us could profit from a better understanding. Once you are out there in industry things change much: efficient use of resources becomes as much a necessity as anywhere else.

Here is my question to those chemists out there (in academia): what problems do you tackle with stat-fu?

And here are some links that may be of interest: