This is cool - the first time ever that an individual molecule has been photographed. OK, maybe it's more correct to say it was "imaged", as it wasn't done by collecting photons....
[link]
That B&W structure is an actual image of a molecule and its atomic bonds. The first of its kind, in fact, and a breakthrough for the crazy IBM scientists in Zurich who spent 20 straight hours staring at the "specimen"--which in this case was a 1.4 nanometer-long pentacene molecule comprised of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms.
You can actually make out each of those atoms and their bonds, and it's thanks to this: An atomic force microscope.
Info on how it was done: [link]
Fun!
I'm impatiently waiting for Mystery! & Inspector Lynley because I miss certain accents. Damn.
Wow! That's deeply nifty, tommyrot.
I'm reading the article about Memorial Hospital after Katrina. I'm not sure I'm quite in a strong enough mindframe to read this right now.
I'm glad that article was so long, because that helped me not read the whole thing. How horrific.
I finished the article. That was truly horrifying.
Sorry, Hil. That was what sent me in search of more statistics the other night. I would have told you not to read it.
Being stuck in a dorm in New Orleans during a much less severe storm was pretty damn scary. I cannot imagine how terrifying it must have been to be in that hospital.
Fuck. Crying.
There's another article in the Times Magazine this week that at least shows that something is going right and getting better. [link]
