Dia de la Química als blogs de Scientific American

miquel

ImageAvui és el Dia de la Química al Scientific American Blog Network (Chemistry Day at Scientific American Blog Network). Amb ocasió d’aquesta efemèride, aquesta revista ha recollit una sèrie apassionant d’entrades fetes per diferents autors, que tracten diferents temes de química.

Malgrat que totes són interessants, potser pels interessos locals són especialmen rellevants les entrades “Doing fun chemistry”, “Molecular-Level Energy Storage”, “Hydrogen bonds: why life needs water” , “Chemistry meets Hollywood” i “The molecules that made the universe”.

A més, “Signs of Life” mostra un còmic de XKCD que senyala la posició de la química, en el rang de ciències pures… que acaben amb les matemàtiques (hi trobo a faltar la filosofia, per lligar amb les humanitats).

Però és l’entrada “Chemistry: The Human Science” la que potser és més novedosa, ja que comenta el paper central de la química, i aquella que és més “humana”:

Chemistry is the human science. What the general public refers to as “chemicals” have a profound effect on our way of life. They can forge a bridge between the metabolism of a billion year-old sponge and the fervent hopes of a mother for her daughter’s life, between the joy of traditional weddings and food and that of seeing a loved one being cured of a terrible malady. Physics may concern itself with the beginnings of deep time and biology turns its eye on the origin of humanity itself. The wonders of physics and biology are undoubtedly spectacular, but chemistry is the science that most directly engages with our senses, the discipline that confronts us face-on every single day of our lives and demands that we react.

La mateixa entrada diu també que

Chemicals delight, enrage, tease, beguile, provoke, subdue, reward, bully, soothe, punish, kill and save as directly and dramatically as human beings. Just like humans they have personalities that manifest themselves under the right circumstances. Like long-lost friends they can materialize in our lives in the form of a life-saving drug, a dab of color on a dull day or the material in a particularly comfortable new mattress. And like sworn enemies they can incapacitate us on battlefields, deform our children and provoke us to endless debate and politicking about the effects of their vanishingly small traces in the environment. Chemistry is the middle kingdom, the land which engages us with its familiarity at all levels, from the trite to the life altering. Like the landscape of Middle Earth, it is full of fascinating and baffling curiosities, triumphs and tragedies, foolishness and wisdom.

Image

La relació completa d’entrades, amb autors, blog d’origen i títol, és la següent. Per entrar en cadascuna cal anar a l’entrada del Chemistry Day at Scientific American Blog Network:

  • Caleb A. Scharf at Life, Unbounded – The molecules that made the universe:
  • Carin Bondar at PsiVid – Chemistry meets Hollywood…:
  • Jennifer Ouellette at Cocktail Party Physics – Teetering on the Edge of Chaos:
  • Glendon Mellow at Symbiartic – The Chemistry of Oil Painting:
  • Ashutosh Jogalekar at Guest Blog – Chemistry: The Human Science:
  • Cassie Rodenberg at The White Noise – Addiction: a Fault of Chemistry:
  • Michelle Clement at Crude Matter – Chemistry Day at #sciamblogs: Bridging the gap between chemistry and biology. #sciamchem:
  • Antony Williams at Guest Blog – All that glisters is not gold: Quality of Public Domain Chemistry Databases:
  • Hannah Waters at Culturing Science – DMS(P): the amazing story of a pervasive indicator molecule in the marine food web:
  • Scicurious at The Scicurious Brain – SciAm Chemistry Day! LSD: A drug only as good as its receptor(s).:
  • Matthew Hartings at Guest Blog – Cooking up some chemistry inside a cell:
  • Janet D. Stemwedel at Doing Good Science – Building knowledge (and stuff) ethically: the principles of “Green Chemistry”.:
  • Jennifer Frazer at The Artful Amoeba – Bombardier Beetles, Bee Purple, and the Sirens of the Night:
  • Carmen Drahl at Guest Blog – What’s In A Name? For Chemists, Their Field’s Soul:
  • S.E. Gould at Lab Rat – Hydrogen bonds: why life needs water:
  • Kelly Oakes at Basic Space – On the origin of chemical elements:
  • James Byrne at Disease Prone – Antibiotics are good for more than killing:
  • David Kroll at Guest Blog – Drugs from the crucible of nature:
  • Christina Agapakis at Oscillator – Signs of Life:
  • David Bressan at History of Geology – Hydrochemistry on the Rocks:
  • Eric Michael Johnson at The Primate Diaries – Chemical Romance: The Loves of Dmitri Mendeleev, Part 1:
  • Kate Clancy at Context and Variation – SciAmChem: Don’t douche, she declares acidly:
  • Kalliopi Monoyios at Symbiartic – We Blew a Bubble for a Man Named Edison:
  • Deborah Blum at Guest Blog – A view to a kill in the morning: Carbon dioxide:
  • Janet D. Stemwedel at Doing Good Science – Doing fun chemistry.:
  • Melissa C. Lott at Plugged In – Molecular-Level Energy Storage:
  • David Ropeik at Guest Blog – Dear chemists:

Hi ha tema per anar llegint durant el mes d’agost. Mirant pel cim les entrades, són força llargues i contenen informació rellevant, i de la qual se’n pot treure molt de suc.

Aquest post de Scientifc American Blog Network proposa seguir el hashtag #sciamchem a twitter. Segur que paga la pena!