a blog by the NSF Center for Sustainable Nanotechnology
Hey Science Readers and Writers! We’ve launched a new survey about how readers respond to different text styles. We would appreciate any and all participation to help us understand what kind of texts are most engaging and effective for readers. Please CLICK HERE to take the survey! This will be us looking at your survey …
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Transcript & summary by Emma Bublitz Graduate school applications can be difficult to navigate under the best of circumstances. Each department, program, and institution often requires a different set of materials and has different, often unspoken, expectations for how students should navigate the system.1 However, for LGBTQ+ students there are additional challenges in the process. …
Continue reading "Applying to Graduate School: Advice for LGBTQ+ students from the community"
For our Halloween blog post back in 2017, I used chemistry to figure out how many moles of gas are in a Gastly, a gaseous ghost/poison-type Pokémon. (Because Pokémon are fantastical creatures, it’s no surprise than many are either inspired by chemistry or can be understood through the lens of chemistry.) Today, as the world’s foremost writer on …
Continue reading "Pokémon Carbon Chemistry: Carbink and Diancie"
Do you remember the first time you saw a dead body? I do, and it isn’t a very pleasant memory. I remember approaching a casket to view the body of a man I never actually knew. I was less than five years old and had been dragged along to the funeral of some family friend …
Continue reading "How science helped me overcome my fear of death"
Do you have a favorite color of M&M, or a favorite type of M&M? Personally, I’m partial to orange M&Ms and mini M&Ms. You might think that orange M&Ms taste the same as all the other colors, and minis taste the same as regular-size, but you’d only be half right! Although you might expect both …
Continue reading "Valentine’s Day Science: What do M&Ms have to do with nanotechnology?"
The first time I used a hand-held sparkler was just a year ago. As I watched small sparks fly off of it and waved it to leave different trails of light, I wondered, “What’s in a sparkler and does it have anything to do with nanoscience?” Fire and lights have captured the curiosity and imagination …
Continue reading "Bringing the Year in with a Bang!"
This year, Pokémon Go is celebrating the Halloween season with extra spooky Pokémon! As an avid fan of Pokémon as well as a chemist, I wondered, “Is there a connection between ghost Pokémon and chemistry?” With a little inspiration from last week's Mole Day, I was able to find one. (Mole Day is October 23 …
Continue reading "How many moles of gas are in a Pokémon Gastly?"
In the 1930s, microscope designer Royal Rife made a splash with reports that he had designed a new microscope that could view nanoscale objects such as viruses!1 The only problem was that it didn’t work. In fact, it couldn’t work, based on the basic physics of light. Rife was attempting to improve upon the optical …
Continue reading "Royal Rife’s Universal Microscope (and Why It Can’t Exist)"
Climbing ivy is a part of the everyday landscape. For some, it is a nuisance plant which is notoriously difficult to remove from the sides of buildings. For others, it is a welcome verdant addition to the landscape. For recent college graduates and grad students like myself, it is a symbol of the noble pursuits …
Continue reading "Ivy League Nanoparticles"
Sustainable Nano 