@michellefrancl.bsky.social
Latest book Steeped: The Chemistry of Tea https://books.rsc.org/books/monograph/2162/SteepedThe-Chemistry-of-Tea Professor of Chemistry, Bryn Mawr College & Adjunct Scholar, Vatican Observatory.
College depictions strike me about as realistic as the HS settings in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
When someone says „Scientists do not want you to know“ you can dismiss everything from there on. Scientists want you to know. They are desperate that you know. They can’t shut up about what they found out and want you to know.
I'm constantly trying (/failing) to get this point across.
If you're a trained expert in a field, then it may be worthwhile to question the scientific consensus of your peers.
If you're not, the scientific consensus is absolutely the best you can do and it's arbitrary foolishness to disregard it.
So far my institution hasn’t called it. Lecture in person tomorrow (already prepped) or something more suitable for a virtual class?
It can be exhausting to navigate the need for accommodations, and it can feel as if you are simultaneously far too visible and entirely invisible thewalrus.ca/how-universi...
Tea, too! Both caffeinated beverages also appear to be linked to a lower risk of Parkinson’s disease. Caffeine, not just fueling my students‘ late night study sessions. wapo.st/4rUaxwW
Qapla' (success!)...I think. We'll see what the copy editor has to say about a standfirst in Klingon!
naturally - L-theanine must speak Sanskrit? and caffeine just bellows -- a total molecular bully!
But can you do all the voices in the tea book?? 😂 Are the Chet Gecko books still around? I enjoyed the double meanings that only the parents would get -- and I love a good mystery...
Dankon!
Today is the #InternationalDayOfWomenAndGirlsInScience 👩🔬 This graphic highlights women of the periodic table, the elements they discovered, and the two elements named after women.
Plenty more graphics on women in chemistry here: www.compoundchem.com/category/wom...
#ChemSky 🧪
As long as it leaves the caffeine molecule untouched (which it does)…
I think it helped sell the book, so no real regrets! But I did learn how microwaving affects the molecular composition of tea when writing the book…so the never microwaving crowd isn’t wrong (though I admit to being in the microwaved tea is better than no tea at all or cold tea).
But nothing like the international incident salt in tea provoked!
There’s an interesting paper about why it tastes sweet www.nature.com/articles/s42...
I have tasted it. It is sweet! cultureofchemistry.fieldofscience.com/2019/03/the-...
Would tell the deacon that as soon as you open the bottle the D2O is exchanging with H2O in the air, so it's already a mix.
It's all around a deep question, what makes water, water, at least as far as the sacramentals go?
Somehow I don't think the blessing gets attached to individual molecules?
People are radioactive and we bless them? Not sure that's a downcheck.
I had almost forgotten this existed..and I guess it doesn't anymore!
TIL about Ostwald, his Nobel, and constructed languages - and his fight with van 't Hoff over the language his Zeitschrift für Physikalische Chemie should use for abstracts. Spoiler, it wasn't German. Also lots of chemists with skin in this game in the early 20th century. Who knew? #chemSky
Thanks - there were a couple of things on there I hadn’t run across yet!
Do you know if there is any of it extant?
Not that I’ve found!
Nothing in Klingon so far, Hamlet yes, but no science.
To be fair it wasn’t exactly a decade. More like 14 years! Which I also don’t believe.
..that is the question!!
Absolutely! "Se'vIr lIngDI' tamlertej, tlhIngan Hol QaQ law' DIvI' Hol QaQ puS." Right??
