The mechanical properties of polymers arise from more than just entanglements
I ran across a PR blurb from Stanford yesterday entitled How do you design a better polymer?" and am not sure whether to laugh or cry. Start with this highlight:"The polymer research process has always...
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A Plastic Object without any Temporal or Geographic Information
If you are not already familiar with the writings of Ethan Zuckerman, let me introduce you. He is a director in MIT's Media Lab and has a wonderful blog, My Heart's in Accra. He doesn't write often,...
View ArticleWhen Packaging Peanuts are Outlawed, only Outlaws will have Packaging Peanuts
There a plethora of stories over the long weekend around a common theme of ocean plastic, so I'll just offer a few quick comments on them.Oahu, Hawaii banned plastics bags a year ago, but surprisingly...
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An Unexpectedly Quick Ending to my Summer
It’s been a pretty crazy summer for me, and it just got shortened tremendously: I landed a fulltime teaching job at a local college. Yep, no more adjunct hell. My wife and I just would have liked to...
View ArticleThe Fettuccine Approach to Vinyl Siding
It's an interesting question: "Stone, concrete, wood, metal and glass all have inherent qualities that can be celebrated. What inherent qualities come to mind for vinyl in any of its forms?" This...
View ArticleHow to NOT Write a Patent Claim for Plastic Films
One of the stranger patent claims that I have ever encountered is this one:” 1. A multi-layer, thermoplastic stretch wrap film containing seven polymeric layers, comprising: (a) two outer layers, at...
View ArticleBehold the lowly syllabus...
One of the unexpected surprises of starting a teaching career is the syllabus. I don't remember much detail about how they were when I was in school some 30+ years ago, although I know that they would...
View ArticleIs there a retraction ahead for the microplastics and fish larvae research?
Retraction Watch is reporting that a recent article in Science regarding microplastic pollution is undergoing a thorough re-examination. The article claims (in part) that the particles reduce hatching...
View ArticleTrash Talking Translational Research
A new editorial (open access and less than a page long) in ACS Chemical Neuroscience takes a few swings at all the emphasis being placed on translational research and proposes that more of it should go...
View ArticleThe plastics revolution: we already had it
A news feature article in this week's Nature entitled "The plastics revolution: how chemists are pushing polymers to new limits" is more of the same old, same old. And it doesn't help that it's from...
View ArticlePolyiodide
The number of elements that are capable of forming a polymer just by themselves and without the assistance of other elements is very small. A large part of this is due to most of the periodic table...
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Theology, Rheology and some freaky strange search results
Dan Lowry (@DrFriction) tweeted last night"Whenever life seems devoid of meaning or humor, just do a web search on 'theological properties'" (referring to the fact that spellcheckers typically attempt...
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Slide Rule Giggles
I've always loved slide rules. As soon as I learned in 8th grade about logarithms and how they formed the basis for a slide rule, I was hooked. Just like 2 rulers can be used to do addition and...
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You can't get there from here
Being on a new campus this fall means getting lost. Finding the right building is the easy part. Finding a staircase in the building is also fairly simple. But the real challenge is deciding if it is...
View ArticleA cool new fabric
The tale of The Emperor's New Clothes is as much about marketing hype as it is about keeping up pretenses in a social setting. The hype over "smart clothing" is just that, but a new report (open...
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Curses! Environmental Stress Cracking
We've had a lot of aphids attacking plants in our garden this year. My usual approach is to use an insecticidal soap that I make by diluting down from a concentrate. "Normal" soap is the sodium salt of...
View ArticleWill the Patient Survive?
NURSE: Doctor! The blog! It's been in a coma for nearly 9 months, but it's starting to come to. What should we do? DOCTOR: Nurse, give it 50 cc's of Ringer's lactate. STAT! NURSE (looking...
View ArticleA Bag Ban gets Banned
The City of Minneapolis passed a plastic bag ban last year that was supposed to kick in on June 1, but that never happened. The Minnesota legislature got involved and passed a state-wide ban on bag...
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Big Bread Clip
I've never given much thought to bread clips, those small plastic devices used to seal bread bags. I admit that I've never been overly impressed with them, preferring to twist the end of the bag...
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Plastic Bottles and Terror Attacks
The Metropolitan Police released photos yesterday of some of additional "tools" used in the recent terror attacks on London Bridge. Surprisingly, they included plastic water bottles.The bottles had...
View ArticleCatching up with the Activist Investors at Dow and Dupont
It's been quite a while since I wrote about the activist investors at Dow and Dupont, Daniel Loeb and Nelson Peltz, respectively. I figured the merger of the two companies would be the end of it,...
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Two Worlds Collide in 1 Photo
This is one strange photo:So many questions. So many. Staged photos (and yes, this obviously is one) will often do that, but this one seems to have gone off in a third dimension. This was on the walls...
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From Magma to Wildebeests to Smartphone
Today's post is going to cover a wide range of topics, starting with magma rheology, and connecting to that wildebeests and smartphones. It might be too much for a Friday, so if you hold off reading...
View ArticlePlastic rice and other fake foods
One story that seems to never die on the internet are claims of "plastic rice" (1, 2 and 3.) I find the endless claims very strange, not only because of their endlessness, but also because the whole...
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A House Built from Plastic Bottles
Plastic beverage bottles are considered by many to be a bane of modern society, but their durability and strength has an appeal that some people are able to take advantage of. In Argentina, there is a...
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