Dorky Poll: Halogens

We’ll keep up the chemical theme that we’ve been following lately with another Dorky Poll to pass the time while I’m in lab all morning. We’re not going to do all of the columns of the periodic table (does anybody really have a favorite transition metal?), but a couple more demand opinions. So, what’s your… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Halogens

Dorky Poll: Explosive Elements

We did the far right column of the periodic table, so here’s one for the left: the coolest-chemistry-demo-ever column, the alkali metals: What’s your favorite alkali metal?(surveys) While you can make heteronuclear alkali dimers, at least in a transient way, we’re talking atoms here, not molecules. Choose only one.

Historical Physicist Smackdown: Minor Quantum Edition

SteelyKid’s day care is closed today, meaning that I will be spending the day chasing her in circles in a variety of different places. this doesn’t allow a lot of blogging time, so you get a poll to pass the time. We’ll go back to the historical physics thing for this one. The following poll… Continue reading Historical Physicist Smackdown: Minor Quantum Edition

User Poll: What Should ScienceBlogs Add?

The Corporate Masters are considering some steps to take ScienceBlogs more in a community/ social network/ Web 3.14/ whatever direction, and have asked us our opinions of various potential features. I have opinions on the subject, but they’re ultimately less important than the opinions of you, the readers. So here’s an attempt to generate some… Continue reading User Poll: What Should ScienceBlogs Add?

The Importance of Distraction

Kate recently signed up for Facebook, and I was talking to her earlier about some of the options for wasting tons of time entertaining yourself with Facebook, and mentioned the ever-popular trivia quizzes and “personality tests” and the like. Of course, I had to caution her that most of the quizzes are really lame, because… Continue reading The Importance of Distraction

Dorky Poll: Maxwell’s Equations

One of the blogs I hyped at the science blogging panel at Worldcon was Built on Facts, Matt Springer’s blog explaining introductory physics concepts. You might not think that you want to read a blog that goes through freshman physics problems in detail– I would’ve been dubious on the concept, had you explained it to… Continue reading Dorky Poll: Maxwell’s Equations