xkcd Quiz in the New Yorker

Source: Randall Munroe, for the New Yorker

If you haven't taken Randall Munroe's Thing Explainer quiz in the New Yorker, click on over for 5 minutes of fun.

I'm sure anyone reading this blog'll get a perfect score, but it's an interesting approach to scientific outreach all the same.

Click here to try your luck!

A Brief Interlude

No, I haven't found a new job yet. But, I wanted to take a brief respite from watching a small start-up company crumble all around me, in order to point you to this:

Credit: Randall Munroe | Science Magazine
(Here's the full comic)

Yes, that's the Randall behind xkcd, drawing an Open Access journals infographic in last week's special "Communicating Science" section in, well, Science (!!!). He now joins Jorge Cham (PhD Comics) in the pantheon of cartoonists-cum-science-communicators to grace its hallowed pages in the past few years. It perhaps does not surprise regular readers that I'm an ardent fan of both artists.

I figured that, given recent calls for greater public understanding of science, and even chatter of drawing total synthesis cartoons, these early sci-comic trailblazers should be widely recognized and praised for their efforts. I certainly enjoyed it!

[Back to the hunt...Resume radio silence]

On Jargon

While reading Gary Stix's interview with Breaking Bad scientific advisor Prof. Donna Nelson, I stumbled upon a very telling chunk of text (emphasis mine):

"...the reduction step [for methamphetamine production] can vary from one synthesis to another, and there's a lot of differences in the reducing agents. And so I said, I don't know what reagent you want. They said to send them a list, and they liked the one that was aluminum-mercury because it would be easier for the actors to say those words.

That's another example of where I let [the producers] be boss. I wouldn't go back to them and suggest another reagent because it might be safer, cheaper, or have a higher yield. I just said, 'yes, sir.'"

"Sodium cyanoborohydride? No way am I saying that!"
Credit: AMC

Food for thought, especially for those of us trying to package chemistry in a more palatable format for folks outside the lab. But, the more I scratched my head over this situation, the more I wondered...are reducing agents that tough to pronounce?

Over at xkcd, Randall Munroe cheekily trounced our current cultural fixation on trochees, spoken words with a two-syllable stressed / unstressed pattern (ninja, pizza, Wal-Mart, Ke$ha, Xbox, etc.). "Aluminum-mercury," though taken right from the periodic table, hardly rolls off the tongue: seven* syllables!

"Classic" reagents for the reaction in question, like sodium cyanoborohydride (10 syllables) or sodium tris-acetoxyborohydride (12) certainly won't get by the writers without a grumble. But what about formic acid (4, with two trochees)? Raney nickel (4, two trochees) should also pass muster. Even better, maybe you could just fold the first two reductants into the generic "borane" (2, trochee) category?

Hey, AMC: Let's do lunch.

*And, of course, 8 if you live in the UK, and add that extra "i" to aluminium!

Hey WIRED, Why No Chemistry Love?

101 Signals, WIRED Magazine's latest compilation of "...best reporters, writers, and thinkers on the Internet" just went live. They've broken down the list, which includes blogs, Twitter, and Tumblr feeds, into chunks: Business, Design, Consumer Tech, Gov't & Security, Culture, and Science.

Here's the Science group. A distinguished bunch, but guess what?
Not a chemist among them!!!

Sure, we've got great, well-known personalities like Ed Yong (Not Exactly Rocket Science) and Randall Munroe (xkcd), Phil Plait and Robert Krulwich. I see plenty of physicists, biologists, astronomers, geneticists, and science writers, but no chemists.
And yet, two Tumblr accounts with the word "f*ck" sprinkled in (Classy, WIRED, classy).

I suppose Maggie Koerth-Baker, who has written about chemistry several times, is the closest we get to full representation. But she's plugged as the BoingBoing science editor / NYT columnist, with nary a mention of chemistry to be found.

So, what gives? Folks on Twitter have suggested a few issues with the chemblogosphere, from "in-reach" in place of outreach, to a tendency to "punch-down," or even (gasp!) that our stuff just doesn't appeal to a mainstream audience.

All valid points. Well, allow me to retort: An aspect of chicken-and-the-egg surely works behind these listicles. Although we haven't fully ironed out all of chemistry bloggers' quirks yet, not featuring our blogs in mainstream offerings just exacerbates the problem!

How can we be part of the solution,* if we can't even get in the door?

In case a WIRED staffer happens upon this post, please consider the following widely-followed, high-quality chemistry blogs to include in your next collection:

In the Pipeline
ChemBark
Elemental
The Curious Wavefunction

*Please don't say, "If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate." We've all heard that one.

Tell Job With Window

A friend pointed me towards Splasho's "Up-Goer Five Text Editor." Riffing on a theme from a recent xkcd comic, it challenges users to describe their (no-doubt highly intellectual) fields using only the 1,000 most commonly-used English words.

I tried for about 10 minutes - do you know how hard it is to describe organic synthesis when you can't say "chemistry," "stir," or "product?" Here's what I came up with, at long last:

Credit: xkcd.com

"In my job we make things from other things. When you want to get a new thing, you think a lot, get some books, and look things up. If your thing comes from rocks or trees, great! Order it. If not, try lots of bad runs, and something will eventually work out. When you get that one good run, try to make it even better. Now you can do what I do!"

Far cry from something you'd find in Scientific American, but a fun challenge nonetheless!

Readers, go have some fun, and report back: does your explanation work better?

Update (1/18/13) - The internet is an amazing place. Theo and Tom have already created the "Up-Goer Six" text editor, which evaluates your grammatical choices to tell you how far your writing deviates from "ten hundred words." Pretty colors, too!

Friday Fun: Chem Swords

As Stuart Cantrill pointed out on Twitter this morning, today's xkcd comic hits all the right receptors for chemistry geeks:

xkcd #1114, c. Randall Munroe

So, in four short panels, we have jokes about Sb and Ac, role-playing games, LoTR, even an olde tyme word for "spooky." Perfect!

Here are my humble attempts*

- I forged a blade from iron oxide, but it just rusted away.

Lion-O
Source: Ted Wolf / Rankin-Bass

- Next, I made a silicon dioxide scimitar; it shattered like glass.

- My 'Einsteinium Excalibur' shrunk every three weeks.

-  I have high hopes for my Osmium Sword of Omens; it roars, and dihydroxylates everything it touches!

- Magnesium Masamune: Victor Grignard's house blade.

- The neon lightsaber? Went over like a Pb balloon.

*I tossed some of these on Twitter before I sketched out the post. Please don't "Lehrerize" me for it! (Sounded better than "Breslowize")

Comic Homage

I've been a bit under the weather, so I've turned to an old stand-by: digging through the archives of my favorite webcomics. Bonus, when they contain scientific or chemical references.


So far today, I've made it through most of xkcd, and happened to finish Deborah Blum's Poisoner's Handbook last night. With some time on my hands, I figured a "mash-up" of the two might be in order.
(Cheat Sheet: check out this story about biochemistry, NASA, and "alien life" found here on Earth)

MESSAGE FROM THE FUTURE: BEWARE THE SUPER-TOXINS!