MANY OF the national laboratories in the US were created to engage in top-secret work on nuclear weapons. Since the recent downturn in that business, they are all scrambling to find ways of turning laser physicists into ploughshare specialists.
Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico, is proud of how it has put its security know-how to work at a high school in Belen, a nearby town. The lab claims its work has 鈥渞educed vandalism by more than 75 per cent, vehicle theft by more than 80 per cent, and truancy by 30 per cent鈥�.
Belen High鈥檚 students, the engineer in charge said, 鈥渨ere issued ID cards, saw surveillance cameras positioned throughout the school, noticed that school property was tagged to deter thefts, and knew of the capability to detect drug and alcohol use鈥�. A breathalyser unit had been provided for the school and hair-analysis kits for parents to use if they suspected that their children were on drugs. The 鈥渢ags鈥� on property were not just any tags: 鈥渕icrodots, air scribes, indelible and invisible paint鈥� were used to mark equipment.
Advertisement
The school鈥檚 principal is very happy with it all. He believes the lab was able 鈥渢o make our high school as safe as possible without making it seem like a prison鈥�. Not like a prison, maybe. More like, well, a top-secret nuclear weapons facility鈥�
NEVER have a liquid lunch if you are on the conference circuit and want to discuss the papers in the Journal of Chemical Research, published by The Royal Society of Chemistry.
Here鈥檚 one that appeared in a recent issue. Try saying it after your third pint of Bishop鈥檚 Tipple: 鈥淪yntheses of some 1,2- and 1,4-dihydropyridines and X-ray crystal structures of 1-dimethylamino-5-ethoxycarbonyl-1,4-dihydro-3-methoxycarbonyl-2-methyl-4-phenylpyridine, 3-cyano-3,4-dihydro-5-methoxycarbonyl-6-methyl-4-phen-ylpyridine-2(1H)-one and 5-ethoxycarbonyl-1,4-dihydro-3-methoxycarbonyl-1,2-dimethyl-4-phenylpyridine鈥�.
IN HIS popular essays in Natural History magazine, evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould often uses everyday examples to explain evolutionary concepts鈥攆or instance, using Mickey Mouse as an example of the endearing facial features of baby mammals that trigger our cuddle response.
But now the tables have turned. John Alcock, a behavioural ecologist at Arizona State University鈥攁nd no friend of Gould鈥檚 assault on sociobiology, another central theme of the essays鈥攊s using Gould himself as an example to drive home a partisan point.
The skewering came at a meeting of the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society last week in Tucson, Arizona. Alcock was on the programme with a talk entitled 鈥淓volutionary stasis in the essays of Stephen Jay Gould鈥�, in which he analysed 20 years of Gould鈥檚 essays and concluded that nothing much has changed in that time. Even though Gould鈥檚 opponents have refined their own positions, says Alcock, you鈥檇 never know it from reading the essays.
No doubt Alcock鈥檚 talk went down well at HBES, a gathering rife with sociobiologists. 鈥淚鈥檓 sure I鈥檓 preaching to the choir,鈥� he told Feedback a few days before the talk. 鈥淚 will achieve a degree of tribal bonding by attacking a common intellectual enemy.鈥�
ANYONE got a hot tip for this year鈥檚 Rh么ne-Poulenc science book prize? The bookies are divided between genetics and engineering, and Feedback, too, isn鈥檛 sure where to place its couple of quid.
William Hill fancies the geneticists, with Richard Dawkins鈥檚 Climbing Mount Improbable and Steve Jones鈥檚 In the Blood joint favourites at 3-1. Ladbrokes, on the other hand, is backing Dava Sobel鈥檚 bestselling story of clockmaker John Harrison, Longitude, as their 5-2 favourite.
The other books in the race, to be run on 19 June, are Matt Ridley鈥檚 The Origins of Virtue, George Johnson鈥檚 Fire in the Mind, and Alan Walker and Pat Shipman鈥檚 The Wisdom of the Bones.
Come on now, ladies and gents, place your bets鈥�
IN THE old St Trinian鈥檚 films, schoolgirls were always blowing up their laboratory, creating mayhem rather than a profitable industrial spinoff. Now, according to The Washington Post, an accidental explosion in a school chemistry lab has led to the discovery of something called JG鈥檚 Edible Plastic.
The two perpetrators were Gus Gray and Justin White, juniors at Bluestone High School, Virginia. They are now applying for a provisional patent for their substance. The plastic, created when an explosion combined slime in two separate flasks, apparently holds its colour and its flavour (just what that flavour is like we aren鈥檛 told), but not its shape鈥攊t curls up when you hold it in your hand.
The boys and their science teacher Holly Hash have received not only media coverage, but commercial interest from around the world, including an approach by the chemicals giant Du Pont.
ADAM QUANTRILL found this on the Internet. It is described as 鈥渢he ultimate disclaimer notice鈥�. It is quite long, so we reproduce only a flavour of it.
鈥淲arning: This product warps space and time in its vicinity.
鈥淲arning: This product attracts every other piece of matter in the universe, including the products of other manufacturers, with a force proportional to the product of the masses and inversely proportional to the distance between them.
鈥淐aution: The mass of this product contains the energy equivalent of 85 million tons of TNT per net ounce of weight.
鈥淗andle with extreme care: This product contains minute electrically charged particles moving at velocities in excess of five hundred million miles per hour.
鈥淭his is a 100 per cent matter product: In the unlikely event that this merchandise should contact antimatter in any form, a catastrophic explosion will result.
鈥淧ublic notice as required by law: Any use of this product, in any manner whatsoever, will increase the amount of disorder in the Universe. Although no liability is implied herein, the consumer is warned that this process will ultimately lead to the heat death of the Universe.
鈥淐onsumer notice: Because of the 鈥榰ncertainty principle鈥� it is impossible for the consumer to find out at the same time both precisely where this product is and how fast it is moving鈥︹��
And so on. Any guesses what the product is?