Emma Van Burns

The worst charts I've ever seen at work

The chemistry community should ban drawing chemical structures with generative AI, chemists warn AIs like Microsoft's Copilot, Google's Gemini and OpenAI's ChatGPT still make serious errors rendering structural formulae

Can generative AI be trusted to draw chemical structures? Not yet, according to two chemists who want to see the community take a tough stance against its use.

Hexanitrogen

A new nitrogen allotrope is news, and a neutral one that can be studied spectroscopically is even more so. Does it blow up? Well, sure. But that’s not its whole personality;

Recalled Anker A1263 power bank

#RECALL: Anker recalls more than one million power banks. The lithium-ion battery in the power bank can overheat, posing fire and burn hazards to consumers. Get a free replacement. CONTACT: 800-988-7973 or www.anker.com/product-reca...

Details: cpsc.gov/Recalls/2025...

How climate risks are driving up insurance premiums around the US – visualized ‘Tight correlation’ between premium rises and counties deemed most at risk from climate crisis, experts say

The financial costs of the #ClimateCrisis “are now starkly apparent to Americans in the form of soaring home insurance premiums – with those in the riskiest areas for floods, storms and wildfires suffering the steepest rises of all.”

“A climate crisis is starting to stir an insurance crisis.”

‘It felt very icky’: This scientist’s name was used to write fake peer reviews Elsevier retracts dozens of journal articles that were published based on “fictitious” reviews

Earlier this year, I received news that fake peer reviews were allegedly being submitted impersonating me and approximately six others

I shared my story with Science to, hopefully, reduce the chance of this kind of breach happening again

www.science.org/content/arti...

Tesla has the highest rate of fatal accidents among all car brands, report shows A new analysis of National Highway Transportation and Safety Administration auto crash data shows that Tesla has the highest rate of fatal accidents...

"While the total rate of fatal accidents per billion miles driven by all vehicles was 2.8, Tesla vehicles overall had a rate of 5.6. Tesla’s Model Y SUV had fatal accident rate of 10.6, more than double the average for SUVs, which was 4.8."

sherwood.news/business/tes...

We found the weather machines.

From "Half of US population exposed to adverse lead levels in early childhood" "Changes in the distribution of childhood BLLs by age (A and C) and over time (B and D). The absolute distribution of BLLs experienced in childhood for US adults in 2015 (A) and the relative distribution (C). The absolute distribution of BLLs (B) and the relative distribution for the entire population over time for the period 1940 to 2100 (D). More than 90% of those born between 1950 and 1980 experienced BLLs in excess of 5 µg/dL, the threshold considered “safe” for children. The legacy of early life lead exposure will stay in the United States for decades to come."

Gen X, NOT 'Boomers', are the generation with the highest lead levels in childhood & the highest IQ loss as a result.

On average, someone born between 1966 and 1970 lost 5.9 IQ points due to lead exposure, 1970-1975, 5.1 points.

Half of children tested in 1976 were 4X the CDC's 'action threshold'.

Pop Culture A week and a half ago, Goldman Sachs put out a 31-page-report (titled "Gen AI: Too Much Spend, Too Little Benefit?”) that includes some of the most damning literature on generative AI I've ever seen. ...

Newsletter: Goldman Sachs has called BS on Generative AI, and I believe that it's time that everybody follows suit - generative AI is unreliable, unsustainable, requires an entire rebuild of America's power grid, and is most decidedly not the future.
www.wheresyoured.at/pop-culture/

ChatGPT hallucinating Material Safety Data Sheets is a nightmare scenario for lab safety: www.funraniumlabs.com/2024/04/phil...

you guys we talked about this

A bottle of some organic solvent (ether would be my guest) has probably had the solvent spill or come into contact with the inked label containing chemical safety information, resulting in the letters sliding apart into a chaotic mess of distinct letters in no particular shape or alignment. Sigma-Aldrich makes most of these types of bottles, but the homonym "Sigma-Eldritch" suggests Cthulu type horrors and madness.

The new chaotropic solvent arrived from Sigma-Eldritch.

(from Reddit.com/r/labrats)

Thanks to their weight and torque, electric vehicles make this problem worse. Teslas have some of the fastest tire wear ever seen. I've only ever heard of one small UK startup (The Tyre Collective) working on a solution to this issue.

An infographic titled "WALK THIS WAY - Pedestrian Safety Tips" with six panels, each featuring an icon and a safety tip: Unplug (don’t be distracted), Make eye contact (wait until traffic stops), Be bright (wear reflective clothing at night), and the nonsense goes on.

Instead of fixing the gun problem, we have active shooter drills.

Instead of fixing infrastructure and car bloat, we have this 👇.

Men's Health How Repeat Covid Infections Can Harm Your Health They might push up your risk for diabetes and other chronic problems.

Why You Still Need to Take Covid Precautions You’ve likely stopped masking and might not think about Covid as much as you used to, but it remains a major cause of death and disease, Dr. Friedberg says. Still, Covid seems to have joined the ranks of other respiratory and infectious diseases, like the flu, that are here to stay, Dr. Loafman says. However, Covid isn’t necessarily following a seasonal cycle, like the flu—instead, it keeps hanging around with new variants emerging and periodic spikes happening. So, it’s crucial to keep following all the guidelines we’ve learned over the past four years to protect yourself and others. Stay up to date on vaccines, Dr. Loafman says, and if you do get sick, wear a mask and stay away from others. “Each infection is like taking a chance at the lottery,” Dr. Friedberg says. “The odds are a bit better than they were three years ago, but there is still a chance you could end up with serious illness..."

I think it's a positive sign that such a large consumer-focused outlet like Men's Health is warning its readers about COVID reinfections, Long COVID, and is recommending masking in 2024. More of this, please!

Did the head lice write this?

it’s foolish to imagine yourself as immune to scams, but my strategy of never answering the phone for any purpose is pretty much rock solid