Photochemistry, the interaction between molecules and light (or electromagnetic radiation), can be quite spectacular. One example is luminescent compounds. Another is so-called photocromic reactions, which can be described as a reversible change of colour upon exposure to light. A neat example of such a reaction was just published in Org. Lett. and a video in the supporting information has been published on YouTube:
via The Chem Blog
I normally prefer organic products, not because I’m so worried about food additives or ionizing radiation, but because of the potentially environmentally harmful synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides used in conventional agriculture.
But sometimes the marketing depts go too far. Like when they promote 100 % chemical free compost. Unfortunately, many people appear to be afraid of chemicals in general, but everything around us is chemicals: you, me, compost… Another funny example is the carbon-free t-shirt, given that humans consist of ~ 18 % carbon by mass. By the way, we consist of 65-90 % dihydrogen monoxide :)
Writing about organic, I just learned that Cuba is in the lead when it comes to organic farming — because of the US trade embargo! The country is beeing looked at as a model for other nations. Indeed, necessity is the mother of invention.
It was Maria who suggested going on an easter-trip to St. Peterburg. As I have been longing for visiting Russia and for using my very limited Russian language knowledge, I found that a great idea. To travel to Russia you still need a VISA and to get this you actually need an invitation! You can get this from hotels if you want, but because of the limited time left, we decided to buy one. In less than an hour we received an invitation, and today we visited the Russian embassy to deliever our passports. The waiting room in the embassy was way too small and full of people in a whirling queue. There were only two windows and you had to talk through a microphone. Very bureaucratic - and Russian? Hopefully we can collect our VISAs in two days.
When I see ads like this I’m glad I live in Norway after all:
There is also a hilarious parody around. But wait, is the White House the only place the phone is calling at night..? It’s also calling at the lab…
by:Larm (directly translated as city noise) was arranged in Oslo last weekend. With around 190 concerts in 3 days the biggest challenge was of course to choose where to go. Some quite different highlights were Bladed, Haddy N’jie, Alog, Wild Birds and Peace Drums, Susanna, Binärpilot, Casiokids and Sunjammer, who’ve produced this sweet music video:
I found this wonderful interpretation of a benzene ring from Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments on Carbon-based Curiosities:
The monkeys are carbon and the bananas hydrogen. The monkeys who hold both feet of another monkey represents double bonds.
Many Norwegian universities today have their own open access repositories. The University of Bergen has BORA (shared with HiB and NHH, the University of Oslo has DUO, NTNU uses DIVA – and there exists a search engine to search though all of them (I’d never heard of it before though..): Nora. While this is good, the large majority of the work produced are never published in these repositories. Vox Publica reports that only 33 of 9868 peer-reviewed articles produced in 2006 are available!
One reason is that they are all based on an opt-in model. It’s therefore interesting that Harvard University decided that all scholarly publications by employees at the university must be made available online in an open access repository. The proposal uses the opt-out model instead, where all articles must be submitted to the repository and scholars who don’t wish their work to be openly available must apply for a waiver. I would love Norwegian universities to follow suit! NTNU has already taken a small step in the right direction, by deciding that all master’s and phd theses will follow the opt-out model.
In the future, open access might lower the barrier between academic publications and the “informal web”. Maybe blog comments on academic publications one day will be a common phenomena?
I’m Swedish no more. This spring I’m studying quantum mechanics and molecular modelling at the University of Oslo. Together with Maria Dyveke we’ve found a cozy old apartment we’re renting. We’re living together for the first time, which is both very exciting and a bit scary :)
More and more ads nowadays contain the word “green”. The world has woken up, environmental-friendly products sell, and advertisers understand that. Which is all good. But “green cars”? What is a green car?
Manfred Braunl, head of marketing in Germany for BMW, says that rather than try to impress TV viewers with ads about new fuel-saving technologies BMW is experimenting with “metaphorical” ads that aim to put viewers in a positive mood about the company and its approach to reducing fuel consumption (via Environmental leader).
And most green car ads are highly metaphorical. If a car company has developed one car that is “greener” than the others, they use this for all it’s worth to promote themself as a green and idealistic company. Like this ad for Toyota Prius.
But the good news is that there are reactions on these ads. Some days ago, Friends of the Earth told Saab to stop portraying its cars as environmentally friendlys or face legal action for misleading advertising.
In Norway, the producers of the electric car Buddy complained about these ads in April last year. What I didn’t know before today what that new guidelines were set into force in Norway in October that states that no car can be called “green”, “clean” or “environmentally friendly”. “Cars cannot do anything good for the environment except less damage than others,” Bente Oeverli, a senior official at the office of the state-run Consumer Ombudsman, told Reuters.
