The search for a room temperature superconducter continues. And physicists have found one that works at 44° F. Yes, really. Lanthanum Hydride, LaH10 superconducts at beer temperatures. There’s a catch, of course, as the asterisk in the title suggests. LaH10 is a superconducter at 44° F – actually, it only exists – if it’s at about…
Lithium is dangerous stuff. The nucleus of lithium, consisting of three protons and three or four neutrons, verges on instability; it has the lowest binding energies holding the nucleus together of all the stable elements. That’s why lithium deuteride is the fusion fuel in some thermonuclear bombs. Lithium salts are used to treat bipolat disorder.…
It seems increasingly likely that humanity’s inaction in the face of the existential threat of anthropogenic climate change means we are going to have more than than the 2° Celsius of global temperature increase that climatologists regarded as manageable. So, without in any way conceding that humanity’s CO2 emissions must be reduced, it’s time to…
Geology went through a Kuhnian revolution in the 1960s and 1970s, with the emergence of plate tectonics as an explanation, as a mechanism, driving what geologists were observing in the field. Plate tectonics has settled in as a credible, definitive and confirmable explanation of everything from vulcanism to oceanic trenches. But it’s also an incomplete…
You say you’ve got enough stuff to worry about already? Trump? Climate change? Volcanoes? Health care? But don’t you get tired of the same old crises and threats? Wouldn’t you like something new to worry about? Of course you would! And WC is happy to share. You need to worry about solar superstorms. True, we…
WC’s sixth grade teacher, the late Jerry Norum, had the class perform an experiment after a classmate, Jeannette, said the classroom was too cold. He placed three plastic trays of water in the front of the class. One had hot water, almost too hot to put your hand in, but not hot enough to scald.…
Does it seem to you that this White-faced Ibis is smiling? It isn’t, of course. At the physical level a semi-rigid bill, four times the length of your head, doesn’t lend itself to the human rictus we call a smile. And that tiny head doesn’t have a lot of room for much intellect, let alone…
