That video above isn't the real thing I'm posting today, and this isn't really a chemistry post at all. It's a general scientific method post.
That video tells the popularly-understood and oft retold story of how Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin in 1929.
The actual link I'm sharing today - from Asimov Press - is titled "The Penicillin Myth" looks at Fleming's story of the discovery and posits "maybe he didn't."
See, the article details some flaws in the discovery story - namely that a plate initially inoculated with staphylococci and subsequently contaminated with penicillium would not actually kill the staph bacteria since penicillin only affects growing - not mature - colonies.
In the article, Kevin Blake recounts two other theories of how Fleming might have actually discovered the effectiveness of penicillin with slight differences from Fleming's story.
The article is a great exploration of the scientific method - of the importance of record keeping, the ability of other scientists to replicate experiments, and what effect historical inaccuracies in how a discovery was made have on the importance of the discovery itself.
Alan Wiseman's The World Without Us has a chapter titled "Hot Legacy" that explores our efforts to create warnings that will last at least 10,000 years into the future and will tell future archeologists that the interesting stuff they've found at some of our nuclear waste repositories should not be explored.
Much of the research is being done at the Waste Isolation Pilot Project is New Mexico, USA, and it's that work that SciShow details in today's video.
I remember that the Wiseman chapter also mentioned the placement of various magnets around the site as a warning that something was at least weird in this location. The video doesn't mention that, and I'm surprised because I found that one of the more interesting ideas.
I've found something new that I want to own...
These would be a great demonstration for when we're talking about electron transitions in chemistry class. I do wish, however, that I knew what the glow powder chemistry was so I could at least talk about the various colors and which compounds were making which colors.
For now, though, check out the ring manufacturer's website where the rings are selling for $59 (with a black Friday discount as I'm typing this)
 |
| Source - https://xkcd.com/3131/ |
See, it's funny because...honestly, I'm not sure that it really is all that funny.
Yes, there was an actual 2025 incident in which a shipments of frozen shrimp was found to contain cesium-137 contamination.
I read through the Wikipedia and explainxkcd articles about the incident, and I can't really figure out how the contamination of the Cikanda Modern Industrial Area got into the shrimp.
I do know, however, that the novelty of new ways to screwing up can be both interesting and a bit of terrifying.
J Kenji Lopez-Alt is a chef who leans into the science side of things (check out his The Food Lab if you want to find some science-based recipes).
In this video - one I'm presenting as a companion piece to yesterday's Adam Ragusea's video - Kenji presents a method of cooking eggs that are easiest to peel and a chart that shows the exact cooking time necessary for whatever quality of egg yolk you want.
 |
| Source - boingboing |
At some point the tediousness of a cooking method outweighs the value of the cooking method.
A thirty-two minute egg that involves mostly thirty-two minutes of active cooking seems to push that tediousness too far for my tastes, especially since I'm not desperate to eat 'perfectly' cooked eggs.
Along the way, however, Adam Raguesea uses some of that thirty-two minutes to explain why egg prices spiked within the last couple of years and the value and decreased funding of public science under the Trump administration.
I don't know Adam's political viewpoints, but I'm pretty sure his views on the values of science align with mine.
His views on egg cooking also seem to agree with mine, because he's not sure all this egg time is worth the trouble.
