🇺🇦🇺🇦 Born at 318 ppm CO2, UCL Prof, chemistry, climate change, energy waste, chemical weapons, #ClassicKit, bicycles, Lab_14, #UCLChemAirPoll. Timeblind and tired. Ask about my heat pump. @SellaTheChemist.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy.
Public Key
npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny Profile Code
nprofile1qqsr9zzwfft0nmuul55c4r53r20sc0qfunguahkzyasus685ca2xa2spz4mhxue69uhhyetvv9ujumt0wd68ytnsw43q7lm795
Show more details
Published at
2026-07-27T16:35:39Z Event JSON
{
"id": "07d45afd63cae07e9b6bc639a45ff4db41004a938468b9c328e6cc333783c7c2" ,
"pubkey": "32884e4a56f9ef9cfd298a8e911a9f0c3c09e4d1cedec22761c868f4c7546eaa" ,
"created_at": 1785170139 ,
"kind": 0 ,
"tags": [
[
"proxy",
"https://mastodon.social/users/sellathechemist",
"activitypub"
],
[
"client",
"Mostr",
"31990:6be38f8c63df7dbf84db7ec4a6e6fbbd8d19dca3b980efad18585c46f04b26f9:mostr",
"wss://relay.ditto.pub"
]
],
"content": "{\"name\":\"SellaTheChemist\",\"about\":\"🇺🇦🇺🇦 Born at 318 ppm CO2, UCL Prof, chemistry, climate change, energy waste, chemical weapons, #ClassicKit, bicycles, Lab_14, #UCLChemAirPoll. Timeblind and tired. Ask about my heat pump. @SellaTheChemist.mastodon.social.ap.brid.gy.\",\"picture\":\"https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/avatars/109/253/103/044/770/842/original/4bb715258bbd9eb6.jpg\",\"banner\":\"https://files.mastodon.social/accounts/headers/109/253/103/044/770/842/original/77a608a95c726bf8.jpg\",\"nip05\":\"[email protected] \",\"fields\":[[\"“Real” name\",\"Andrea Sella\"],[\"Official webpage\",\"https://profiles.ucl.ac.uk/4658-andrea-sella\"],[\"LinkedIn\",\"https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrea-sella-26ba44b/\"],[\"Current status\",\"Tired and stressed. But learning.\"]]}" ,
"sig": "e10ca0fc38d077f0eded3c825dae6ea6ac8f6339462cc5d0fb63dcf2f40a37de45877e8c517ba748b38f34bfa785a30e7d507fddbf29065e0f2d9d2a0ec889dd"
}
Last Notes npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist As one UK university after an other goes into “restructuring”, a euphemism for hollowing out by administrators, you never hear the phrase “fiduciary duty”. It is clear that these people see the university primarily as a business that they can leave behind. Lost is the idea that they are entrusted with a physical, intellectual, and societal endowment and community built over decades, sometimes centuries, that needs to be nurtured cautiously for the next generation much like a pension fund? npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Beware. If you are looking for Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor's film "Naza" based on interviews with 24 Israeli soldiers, that is currently in film festivals and cinemas, you won't find it online. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Have just had both 'flu and COVID jabs this morning, one per arm. The COVID jab was half a ml… npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Message for the day – Commit a random act of maintenance! npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…5lr4 Extraordinary. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Remember that this man is STILL a Fellow of the Royal Society! npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…79nn Why have you left out the Greens? they have said they won't stand either. #Binface for the win! npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Hello London! npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist If I d it extraordinary that Starmer, a fundamentally decent and honourable man, is being treated worse than both Johnson and Truss. And people are talking about Streeting! Seriously??? npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…m5mz You win the internet! npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Every so often there is a hilarious detail amid the never ending car-crash that is the Trump “administration”. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist As I listen to @nprofile…0shf talking about soil I am very struck by the builders’ rubble being used in UCL’s new planters in Gordon Street. There is “structure” there. Apparently the areno plans to add an organic component. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…x9tq Simon Wren-Lewis has an excellent post about taxation and state benefits as insurance that is a reminder of why state services are so important. https://mainlymacro.blogspot.com/2026/04/taxation-as-insurance-welfare-and.html?m=1 npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist A unnamed Iranian official quoted by the Tasnim news agency in Tehran sums up the state of play. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…zpa3 @nprofile…hyz2 Helium for balloons is, yes, a frivolous use, but is nothing compared to the tanks of liquid helium that we trundle around to keep our university’s magnets cold. 1 litre of liquid helium is enough for 500 balloons. That said a lot of low temp physics uses “dysplexes”, low temperature fridges that use the closed circuit Gifford-McMahon cycle - an amazing sound that I can’t post. Sorry. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Does anyone out there have access to the "Journal of Chemical Health and Safety". I'm looking for volume 14 (2007) page 25-30 which might have a useful reference or two. UCL doesn't subscribe. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist I’ll be talking about the very serious helium shortage that is looming (actually, it’s already upon us) and risks crippling semiconductor chip production and diagnostic instruments like MRI scanners, not to mention low temperature science.. It’s maddening because we’ve known that helium is very limited but it’s cheap so no one recovers it. It’ll be on BBC World Service Newshour around 13:45 BST. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Wow. The UK grid's carbon intensity dropped to 39 g CO2e/kWh. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…l70y I'm old enough to remember people with steel frames around their shoes. But ten years ago I discovered that the reason my uncle-in-law had a limp was because he'd had polio as a boy. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…zpa3 Let's not be over-dramatic. There are plenty of problems but we're not talking Haiti, Eastern Congo or Somalia, which are long-term tragedies. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Public institutions having to grovel to under-taxed rich dudes is how you end up with Epstein scenarios. Discuss. Use both sides of page if necessary. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Ok #repair experts. Can you help me? What is the name for that white connector called? I’m ready to swap the battery on this bike light but I don’t know enough about small and infuriatingly fiddly connectors. And I probably need to order one or two. In the old days there was Radio Shack and Maplins where might browse but without them I’m lost. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Went to an event at the Houses of Parliament tonight. And was unable to get my folded #Brompton #bicycle to fit through the X-ray machine, so had to go home. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Very grim to talk to the Head of Department at Leicester - they face a staff cut of 1/3, merger with several others… Grim stuff. Sheffield in a similar position. And rumours of other closures or massive cuts. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Does anyone remember Letraset, the scratch and print sheets that could be used to apply professional lettering to sheets of paper? They were part of the pain of writing a scientific thesis before the arrival of the Macintosh and the democratization of (admittedly often second-rate) graphic design. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Two factor authentication is brilliant until you phone gets soaked in the rain and packs up… npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…h0q4 @nprofile…0p0d My feeling is that for now it beats most of the competition. What do you use? npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Holy moley! Careful oxidation of an azide at very low temps gives rise to an absolutely bonkers bonkers bonkers molecule: N6!! npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…60lz Decimalising…. 😍 and not before time!!! npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…rrhg Life expectancy is so widely misunderstood. It’s life expectancy at birth that is usually quoted. Life expectancy at 15 is a whole different thing. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist A little more about why I returned the #RoyalSociety Faraday Prize, with a question for everyone to ponder. #Musk npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist It is with great sadness that I am doing what I would once have thought unthinkable. Following Salim Abdool Karim's superb Faraday Lecture 10 days ago, i have decided to return my own Faraday prize, awarded in 2014. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist It is the end of the Age of #Mercury in our Department. To celebrate this, I give you the story of how John T Way (the "father of soil science") built a mercury light so brilliant that he sailed with it across the Solent, in the darkness, hoping to catch the eye of the Prince Albert. As he did so, he conducted the first mass demonstration of #fluorescence, causing all the #mauve ribbons on the ladies' dresses and bonnets to light up in the darkness. #ClassicKit npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Today is the anniversary of the D-day invasion across the Channel in 1944. With news that newly released papers suggest that Churchill was worried about supplies of penicillin, you might want to learn some of the backstory to that supply chain. Walter and Władzia Podbielniak developed revolutionary separation methods that made the scale-up of the purification of penicillin by solvent extraction, all based on a rapidly spinning rotor. It's #ClassicKit. https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/podbielniaks-contactor/4014234.article npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Want to come and work/play with us here at UCL? Our Department is looking for someone to come and expand our inorg/mat chem research and teaching portfolio. It's a fun place, dead central in London (which ain't cheap but has compensations), with lots of smart people, endless fun conversations, cheap tea and beer. Great NMR, microscopy, Raman, X-ray, XPS, and more, with access to more facilities in physics, life science and engineering just round the corner. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…60lz And Thames Water looms large. The news that they say they have to pay bonuses out of “rescue” money in order to “retain talent” is beyond tone deaf. But USS and others are silent, as far as I know . npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…60lz Spot on, Prof! This sentence: "Ofwat argues that there are measures in place to protect customers and that the creation of separate privately financed vehicles will lower costs." npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Sheesh. Is there some kind of match tonight? Cricket? Hurling? #Arsenal npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…wjfe "Musk has come under investor pressure to address his absence from Tesla as well as the perceived brand damage from his close relationship with US President Donald Trump " https://www.ft.com/content/5128df45-8595-41e5-84f1-695adba053a7 npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Performative bike racks installed by someone who has never actually seen a bicycle,let alone two. Beside them is parking for about 100 cars. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…j3rp @nprofile…qz4x and rubella is waiting in the wings. I’m old enough to remember the children born to mothers exposed to rubella aka German measles, back in the 60s. Not pretty. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…c5n8 You are doing God's work, Jon. But it's a reminder that the status quo is always pretty deeply embedded and new thinking is hard to bring into the open and getting people to act on it, even when it might be in their best interest, is just as hard. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…gd2c @nprofile…mr93 I'm there. When is it out in the UK? npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist I know that it is probably the last thing you want to watch at the moment, but #BBCiPlayer has just available "Shoah" the great mid-1980s Holocaust documentary. Slow, quiet and relentless - based on interviews and recollections from those in the middle of it - it builds up the appalling picture of the slaughter of millions and millions. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist It is hard to imagine a more spectacular way to bring US science to its knees. Two threads explaining the implications of the announcement of the US govt's decision to cap overheads on research funding to 15%. It's not technical. You cannot do research without buildings, services, computer networks, administrators and support staff to maintain them. Research funds only cover salary and kit. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Another day, another big schools lecture today. Heading to Apollo Victoria after lunch for #GCSEScienceLive . npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…rxh2 @nprofile…ey0w And to do that the day before Auschwitz Liberation day… It just underscores the awfulness of the statement. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Had a long chat with one of my personal tutees (students for whom I have pastoral care). Very smart, articulate, and funny young woman who is ASD and has a modest physical disability. She told me about an automated interview where the AI gave her some kind of feedback at the end. Apparently it "concluded" that she is not a team player and is anti-social. This could not be more wrong. I wonder whether she will get a rejection tomorrow… I'm pretty outraged. #AI #bias #risk #disability npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Utterly baffled. Bought a split ticket to Bradford, swhich is split into KingsCross - Wakefield and Wakefield to Bradford. It saves me £50 compared to a “direct” ticket. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…s06p @nprofile…76t8 @nprofile…60l8 Not this one… #sigh npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…76t8 @nprofile…60l8 Because university management and comms teams are very conservative and indicator-driven. Wider questions like civics and ethics are generally discounted. There are worries that FOSS solutions don’t have “reach”. And they worry that they will have the burden of moderation and potential legal challenges. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…eqw3 So glad to feel validated. 😀 npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…eqw3 One might ask “What would Jimmy Carter do?” npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Are rösti countable? Surely this is a single rösto. I will cook a second panful and then we’ll have had two rösti. In other words do rösti come in number or amount? I think we should be told. #English #Swiss #cooking #mysteries npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…2uaj There is another family with whom I speak "da Ponte". My mother is the only person in my family left who still speaks it. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…2ryr And meanwhile there’s this. Because we know that it will work, right? npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist I cannot tell you the joy I feel this morning listening to the news not just of the fall of the monstrously cruel #Assad regime, but also the fact that for the moment things are calm, peaceful and joyful. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist In case you've not seen it yet, there's a petition to Parliament going round here in the UK asking for a ban on advertising fossil fuels and sponsorship by such companies. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…kna6 Ah, the innocence of youth! 😜 npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…kna6 Do you remember the legendary internet site "Manbeef.com"? Back in the heady days when you could order free range organic manbeef… npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…nl6d May I use that image in my #StrangeIce talk for schools tomorrow afternoon? npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Interesting @nprofile…rrhg tonight with Tamas David-Barrett presenting his view of the origin of patriarchy. A thought-provoking talk that linked climate, economics, megafauna, cooking, domestication of plants and more. Particularly intriguing to me coming to this cold was the idea that men, rather than women, hunt big animals because men are societally more expendable. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Masterful talk @nprofile…rrhg tonight by Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum giving an update on where we stand on the evolution of our species. My God it's astonishingly complicated with morphology, genetic, archeological and proteomic data all playing a role in the story. The richness of the data is just jaw-dropping and cladistic trees with dozens of seemingly separate branches/species, before you even start to consider interbreeding. And hints of Denisovans 30k years ago. Wow! npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…3k3w Absolutely. It's integral to the performance itself. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @nprofile…3k3w On LP you can heard his sighs and muttering a lot better. 😜 npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist No, BBC. Please. RFK Junior is not a "sceptic". He's a rabid disinformer and denier. Don't use euphemisms. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist At the Royal Institution for David Clary’s talk about science in the Second World War. “The lost scientists of WW2”. A talk about the Avademic Assistance Council that helped scientists and scholars escape. 1000 scientists were helped by this programme. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub17vj…g088 Is the one on the left Victor Horta? I dream of going back to Brussels to drool over his staircases… npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Just spotted a jaw-dropping statistic about the Russian advance in #Ukraine ,reported by deputy head of Ukrainian mission to the OCSE. The Russians have lost 1 man for every 2.5 m2 of territory gained. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1uw8…88kr How long have you got in Milan? Go to Marchesi, the pastry shop in Corso Magenta 7 mins from Duomo. Pay at till "un cappuccio e una pasta mignon". It's an old-school pastry shop - go to the counter on the left side with your receipt (scontrino) and select a cannoncino - a miniature cannon of millefeuilles pastry filled with creme patissiere. A single mouthful (or two, if you have moral fibre). Then to the bar and ask for a "cappuccio". Theirs is exquisite. [NB it'll be dairy…] npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1scr…teus Nepotism! npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Reality check. if an EV in the UK gets about 3 miles/kWh of electricity, assuming 200 gCO2e/kWh, then 300 miles of driving works out at 18 kgCO2e, right? Which compares with about 90 kgCO2e for an ICE vehicle. In other words, about 1/5th. It's not zero, but it's better than a poke in the eye. And actually lower than three people on a train. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1u3t…c6ug Or in the immortal words of Ali G "Is it because I is black?" npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Just Stop Oil protestors are jailed for four years for talking about blocking roads. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist KLAXON! Calling primary schools across London. #UCLChemAirPoll rides again.[email protected] npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist How dare scientists question the dogma of poor people being feckless drunkards and addicts? https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-02097-y npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1jq9…jqnl I know that very MP. He's a good guy. Very solid and very committed to social justice. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub14k2…ed68 I’d prefer transferable second preference… npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Martin Wolf bleak in FT npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Just been sent a copy of The Sixth Element - How Carbon Shapes our World to review. Flipped through it casually and found this superb graphic which is worth the price of the book alone. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Colleague comes running into my office and says "Have you got the 1962 edition of Wells Structural Inorganic Chemistry". I look on the shelf and I have that and the two earlier ones too. He grabs the one he wants, opens it to the page he needs and gurgles with delight. He then kisses me on the cheek and runs out. #academiclife npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1khx…geyg Tristram Shandy. A book for life. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1jq9…jqnl Well, with a painting like that, their artistic and credentials are assured. Move over Caravaggio and Georges de la Tour. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1scr…teus I want full contact tackle ordinary bicycle polo. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Very good to see an article on #flooding risk in London. This is a really serious issue and one that we need to take very seriously, and all the more so if we have expensive scientific equipment in basements. For those saying "nah I'm upstairs so I'll be fine" you might ask the questions of where the main electrical incomer and all the switchgear, metering and fuses are. They may well be lower than you think. #climatechange npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1scr…teus Don't you think it would get a bigger audience if they made it a contact sport? npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1xwc…ze8u I will leave that to you young people. It exceeds my risk thermostat. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Of gizzards and osculators. The story of the man who made an alloy that would remain the same, while being reinvented into multipe high tech applications: nichrome aka chromel. #ClassicKit https://www.chemistryworld.com/opinion/marshs-wires-and-the-birth-of-the-toaster/4019457.article npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1nr8…rj65 It's not even a fanciful idea. It's not for nothing that the Catholic Church set up the Index Librorum Prohibitorum that persisted until Paul VI finally stopped it in the 60s. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1ks7…eg5u There's a great article by CJ van der Veen that is probably not open access (#curses) which summarises how Fourier argued the case, given that so little was understood about the physics or radiation. It was a very cunning argument about heat and although it was ultimately wrong in detail it set the scene for Pouillet to do it rather better. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10889370009377693 npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1ks7…eg5u And let's not forget that Fourier also proposed that the atmosphere had a role in determining the surface temperature of our planet, though he never used the phrase "greenhouse effect". 25 years later John Tyndall would show that carbon dioxide (and water vapour) absorbed "radiant heat" (infrared light), laying the foundation for our understanding of global warming and climate change. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1scr…teus But thrilling for spectators. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist If anyone wants to hear about poisons and what some of them taste like, I got to spend time with Katherine Harkup and Hugh Dennis on the Infinite Monkey Cage a while back. I almost got into trouble because I turned up with samples. As you do, right? #chemistry @npub1g7h…2jau https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0hbmm0p?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist My God. Another heat pump programme hijacked by the fossil fuel industry, this time on @npub1g7h…2jau . Disgusted of North London is going to have to write in. Nonsense, misinformation, and lazy tropes recycled. Were the producers asleep? npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1nn8…8sed Ping @npub1g45…0ka3 😝 npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1scr…teus A glorious hangout and heaving with enthusiasts. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1uw8…88kr @npub19yn…06qv It’s ironic that the Van Allen belts were discovered in IGY just as the satellite era started. we’ve deorbited a lot of stuff over the last 60 years. Is there any evidence for changes in charged particles over that time? npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1nn8…8sed You can’t “bottom” without a trigger warning. npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist Today I join the #UCL Energy Management Working Group which has be reconfigured in the hope of getting more done. I hope this will give me more leverage in trying to cut our vast energy usage and waste, as the progress in the areas I've been addressing has been pretty minuscule in the overall scheme of things. It feels Sysyphean as the inertia in the system is vast. #energymanagement #UCLChemLivingLab npub1x2yyujjkl8heelff328fzx5lps7qnex3em0vyfmpep50f365d64qltsdny SellaTheChemist @npub1nn8…8sed I cannot express to you the collective rage of millions of Italians when someone talks about a single panini…
