This Thursday I'm at the Leeds Waterstones Christmas evening - they'll have a bunch of authors from around the area. If you're in town, come along and get a book signed! www.waterstones.com/events/water...

We keep learning the same lessons, again and again. // “A buzzy school promised to transform education. Parents say their children suffered. - WIRED” www.wired.com/story/ai-teach…

The national museum of Prague has one of the most impressive stone and mineral exhibits I’ve seen!

If I see anyone else saying you don’t need to learn Excel formulas anymore thanks to the new =COPILOT then I will do absolutely nothing except cry silently into the abyss.

Sorry summer but I'm over you -- already thinking about fall. Loved this story about the chemistry of pumpkin spice by @carmendrahl.bsky.social for @cenmag.bsky.social. And now I know what cinnamic aldehydes are! cen.acs.org/articles/92/...

For @seafury.bsky.social. 😜 Original post: aus.social/@dgar/115044...

📌👇

Tons of people have "PhD-level" intelligence. The fun secret is that you don't have to be all that smart to earn a PhD. You just have to be willing to work yourself into the ground for years on end. Also...PhD's often seem extra smart 'cause you generally encounter them on their chosen terrain.

It’s good to be back! www.insidehighered.com/opinion/colu...

Too pissed to comment. // Trump requests 93% cut to Appalachian Regional Commission. Ohio would take a huge hit. • Ohio Capital Journal https://ohiocapitaljournal.com/2025/07/15/trump-requests-93-cut-to-appalachian-regional-commission-ohio-would-take-a-huge-hit/

The data journalists were so busy wondering if they could do something they never stopped to think if they should. www.theguardian.com/news/datablo...

Graph of British Rivers

Yesterday, I gave a lecture on "Microscopy in Battery Research" covering the basics of SEM, TEM and AFM 🔋🔬. I love to have some things to show around, so I took a 3D-printed model of an AFM cantilever and some real cantilevers to compare. What the students liked most 1/2

Shopping for a reading lamp on Amazon. This one looks good… but what the heck does this description even mean? 🤯

@deandad.bsky.social My RSS feed reader showed a bunch of your IHE articles as "updated". Are you coming back? 🤞 (Hope so—missed your distinctive voice!)

TIL: You can order up to six free posters directly from the Nobel Foundation! Be the talk of the dept when your package from the Nobel Prize folks gets delivered. 🤣 #Chemistry www.kva.se/en/prizes/no...

#gis #cartography #gischat

What is #dataviz animation good for? An updated thread with examples.

The lasting damage that the Trump administration is doing to US science is barbaric. But more and more of the general public is hearing about it and just how bad it is:

Brilliant vis as well as an important takeaway by @chezvoila.com “Remember, a chart doesn't have to be understood in 3 seconds. It should reward the effort you put into understanding it.” Damn strait! Simple viz can have good ROI; but so can complex and/or time consuming vis.

No surprise these cuts are hitting Appalachia hard, but politically you gotta wonder how well this is going to go over with some of his base in the region. Nothing more dangerous than an Appalachian betrayed.

OMG - such a perfect remake of the Powers of Ten video by CGP Grey. How did I miss this three years ago?! “Metric Paper…” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pUF5esTscZI

Does anyone have a good lip reading app or software? Dad officially cannot talk and that would allow us to still communicate before we get eye gaze devices

“The ethical case for resisting AI” https://chuckpearson.wordpress.com/2025/01/13/the-ethical-case-for-resisting-ai/ It’ll be interesting to see how ChatGPT and its ilk disrupts the world of (online) homework in chemistry and other STEM fields. Challenging days lie ahead

In Philly we would say "wit" meaning "with cheese"; in a note to @naturechemistry.bsky.social Allan Blackman thinks chemists should demand the same when it comes to fonts: "wit" serifs. rdcu.be/d5pIA #chemsky

Terrific piece by Ashlea Lantz on the need to end the sub-minimum wage for people with disabilities. And I can personally attest that Em's coffee is great! www.desmoinesregister.com/story/opinio...

A fun 🧪 fact as we approach New Years celebrations: The reason you need to pee more when drinking is because alcohol inhibits vasopressin. Like all hormones, vasopressin has a lot of roles. One thing it does (under normal circumstances) is prevent your kidneys from sending urine to the bladder(1/4)

“The Sinclair ZX81” As someone who remembers the ZX81 fondly, and spent a lot of time typing in programs on a TI-99/4A - this comment about the Apple Pencil really hit home to me how far we’ve come. https://www.metafilter.com/206917/The-Sinclair-ZX81

“Standards for Graphic Presentation” Hard to believe these data-viz recommendations are >100 years old! 📊 https://infowetrust.com/project/1915-standards

A consequence of blindly evalutating people by citation counts

“Interacting With History - Info We Trust” Some gorgeous looking charts and history here! Who knew small multiples were this old? (1630) https://infowetrust.com/project/history-essay

Interviewer: Can you explain this gap on your CV? Chemist: Yeah, 57 mV - was dealing with a reversible redox couple for a while #Chemsky

And if you followed me on twitter you'll know that I really don't like rainbow colour plots. Please don't use them #chemsky. They can be visually misleading (e.g. they create artificial boundaries in the data) and I think should feature only 2 or 3 colours. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

You don’t see many such head to head trials (generally only happens in large markets), and when you do it’s often because the company is reasonably sure of the outcome.

“Alissa Eckert on designing the ‘spiky blob’ Covid-19 medical illustration” I always wondered about the creation of *that* image. Fascinating back story! https://www.wallpaper.com/design/design-emergency-alissa-eckert-designs-covid-19-illustration

“Mexican Cartels Lure Chemistry Students to Make Fentanyl - Criminals turn college campuses into recruitment hubs, recruiting chemistry students in Mexico with big paydays.” Holy cow! www.nytimes.com/2024/12/01/w... #Chemistry #ChemSky

I appreciate the Times reporters being willing to dig through my expletive-laden interview to find something printable!

My DAX is almost as rusty as my FORTRAN 66, but I can still write a line or two. 😀 Looking forward to some daily practice thanks to Ruth Pozuelo (Curbal)! curbal.com/25-days-of-dax-frid…#25DaysOfDAXFridaysy#PowerBIBI

I confess I never read the original article because it smelled like panic— old white panic, I guess

I assumed this was AI art, but it appears to be real? Joe Spreadsheet... who knew! www.biblio.com/book/joe-spr...

I posted this on the bad place a long time ago, but it bears repeating: See this “X” stitch on the back vent of this blazer? That is a basting stitch that should be removed before you wear it.

A helpful post from Mastodon about writing alt text for scientific charts: glammr.us/@briney/1129...

The guide to Excel PivotTable styles I never knew I needed... until I tried playing around myself and got frustrated! 😀 projectserverpants.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/p...