What I'm Reading: The Disappearing Spoon, Sam Kean

I'm just a hair away from being halfway finished with Sam Kean's pop-chemistry book The Disappearing Spoon.  I borrowed it from a friend this past Saturday, but that's not my only reason for booking it (hah, hah) through this one: it's an interesting look both at the science of chemistry as well as the history, personalities, and applications involved with the recent history of chemistry, all framed through the periodic table.

Modern Bright Periodic Table by Penny Luxe Sales

Kean has a background in science and knows his stuff. He also provides a refreshingly thorough look at the birth of the elements, going back to the Big Bang, protons, and neutrons. (Alas, no quarks or antimatter, but that's not particularly relevant to his project.)

The good: As I mentioned earlier, there's a wide breadth of information in this book, clearly and engagingly presented. Also, the paperback book club edition comes with recommended reading (from Kean himself) and his top five favorite elements. The appendix also includes a copy of the periodic table for reference.

The bad: I hate endnotes, and unfortunately that's how this book does supplemental information. Why do people hate footnotes? Why?

One interesting fact: All of the earliest recorded incidents of induced fission were observed by women. (And of course they were promptly overlooked...)

Would recommend? Yes! I would especially recommend it in conjunction with Just Six Numbers, as they touch on a lot of the same things. Review of that one coming soon.

Music Monday

This one is going around the Internet like wildfire, but it's totally justified. I have many fond memories of Mr. Rogers growing up; if I catch him on PBS when I'm aimlessly channel surfing, I'll sit down and watch.

Science Saturday: Extinct: The Horizon Guide to Dinosaurs

I came across this gem on YouTube last weekend and watched it to wind down my Sunday night: Extinct: The Horizon Guide to Dinosaurs.

The good: It moves at a snappy pace and a lot of new (to me) information about dinosaurs. Paleontology isn't exactly my strong suit, after all. Also, the occasional melodrama is much more tolerable and tongue-in-cheek than in some other BBC productions.

The bad: If you're familiar with Horizon's series on the BBC, there's not really a whole lot that's new here. You know how Kid Rock's "All Summer Long" is unashamedly, unabashedly "Sweet Home Alabama" with some nostalgic lyrics thrown on top? This is like the "All Summer Long" of dinosaur documentaries. There's a whole lot of old footage that pads this one out. A whole lot.

One interesting fact: Some dinosaurs may have been warm-blooded!

Would recommend? If you have an hour to kill and like dinosaurs, sure. If you're a dino-nerd, or already familiar with Horizon's BBC series, I imagine there's not a whole that's new to you.

Geo-Shopping: Aventurine

First of all, spell it with me now: A-V-E-N-T-U-R-I-N-E. Even if Merriam-Webster lists "adventurine," I am a linguistic purist and a pedant: there is just one way to spell this particular word, as far as I'm concerned. It comes from the Latin "a(v) ventura," or "by chance." The story dates only back to 17th century Italian glassmakers who accidentally discovered a new style of glass-making; the glass and the stone do resemble each other, I suppose, but that's pure speculation on my part. The information on the Internet ends there, and alas I don't have my minerals and gemstones guidebook with me.

Aventurine is yet another silicate (SiO₂ aka quartz or quartzite) polymorph, this time of the macrocrystalline variety. That means you can see the crystals with your naked eye. It's a metamorph of sandstone, a sedimentary rock.  The mineral impurities in sedimentary rock determine how the quartz looks during and after the metamorphosis; green aventurine comes from chromium present in the original sandstone, while "red" aventurine contains hematite (Fe₂O₃) or goethite (FeO(OH))—in other words, iron-bearing minerals.


Green is the most common, but "red" is easy to find as well. And I have both!

Red aventurine

Green aventurine

Both aventurines made it into the Mad Scientists of Etsy's April/May challenge piece, which was a science news story about the discovery of the world's tinest vertebrate: a frog in New Guinea that grows to seven millimeters in length. Those beads you're looking at up there are eight millimeters  in diameter, the perfect size for such a tiny frog to perch upon! They are also both colors I think of when I think of frogs and toads: green, brown, orange, and so forth.

Naturally, I had to represent such a small animal with a number equally small. What better than the radius of an electron?

"Tiny Frog" electron radius cuff bracelet

"Tiny Frog" electron radius necklace

Imagine a whole string of frogs around your neck like that!

Music Monday: KMFDM

This one brought to you by putting Audacious (my media player) on random and being pleasantly surprised about what comes up, with special guest star "high school nostalgia." This album was part of a whole library of music my boyfriend gave to me way back when we started dating, and this particular song made it on to one of the myriad number of CDs I burned to listen to while driving.

Plant Mom Post

Lacey's pulled out of it; I know have one more to keep her company. (Or well, two more, but they're in one pot.)

In the white pot are Persephone and Demeter, who you know from Greek mythology. Some Internet sleuthing has revealed that snake plants prefer to be watered every seven to ten days, which is more than I was watering them before, hence Lacey's pot partner's wilted condition:

And five things I'm thankful for today!

1. Air conditioner!
2. A free music performance downtown in the cool night weather.
3. Using up veggies and cheese before they went bad! Cooking for one isn't really difficult, but produce shopping for one is nearly impossible.
4. MST3K
5. A clean apartment (which took some effort on my part, but there you have it).

Philosophy, Revisited

One of my friends is studying for the LSAT. After I botched a sample logic question he shared with me (though at least we both screwed up), I went on a hunt for more sample LSAT logic questions and thus wasted the rest of my night. Below are some of my favorite/most fiendish of questions. So why is philosophy important, again? Because it helps you solve these!

Testifying before the Senate committee investigating charges that cigarette manufacturers had manipulated nicotine levels in cigarettes in order to addict consumers to their products, tobacco executives argued that cigarette smoking is not addictive. The primary reason they gave in support of this claim was that cigarette smoking was not regulated by the Federal Drug Administration. 

For the tobacco executives' argument to be logically correct, which of the following must be assumed? 

A.) Substances that are not addictive are not regulated by ...........the Federal Drug Administration.

B.) The tobacco executives lied when they claimed that ...........cigarette smoking was not addictive.

C.) Some addictive substances are not regulated by the ...........Federal Drug Administration. 

D.) There is no scientific proof that cigarette smoking is ...........addictive. 

E.) Substances that are not regulated by the Federal Drug ...........Administration are not addictive.

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 People should be held accountable for their own behavior, and if holding people accountable for their own behavior entails capital punishment, then so be it. However, no person should be held accountable for behavior over which he or she had no control. 

Which of the following is the most logical conclusion of the argument above? 

A.) People should not be held accountable for the ...........behavior of other people. 

B.) People have control over their own behavior. 

C.) People cannot control the behavior of other people. 

D.) Behavior that cannot be controlled should not be ...........punished. 

E.) People have control over behavior that is subject ...........to capital punishment.

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Beautiful beaches attract people, no doubt about it. Just look at this city's beautiful beaches, which are among the most overcrowded beaches in the state.

Which of the following exhibits a pattern of reasoning most similar to the one exhibited in the argument above? 

A.) Moose and bear usually appear at the same drinking ...........hole at the same time of day. Therefore, moose and ...........bear must grow thirsty at about the same time. 

B.) Children who are scolded severely tend to misbehave ...........more often than other children. Hence if a child is ...........not scolded severely that child is less likely to ...........misbehave. 

C.) This software program helps increase the work ...........efficiency of its users. As a result, these users ...........have more free time for other activities. 

D.) During warm weather my dog suffers from fleas ...........more so than during cooler weather. Therefore, ...........fleas must thrive in a warm environment. 

E.) Pesticides are known to cause anemia in some people. ...........However, most anemic people live in regions where ...........pesticides are not commonly used.

If you want to know the answers, you can find them on the LSAT sample questions homepage.