|  |  |  | | | | | Edunomia | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | La revista Journal of Chemical Education publica a la seva versió ASAP un article titulat Kitchen Chemistry que aprofondeix en la idea que darrerament hem anat impulsant des del nostre grup, que és la de veure la cuina com a una laboratori químic “bo”. De fet, aquest article del JCE parla de “laboratori personal”. I és que la cuina, malgrat que pot comportar un treball d’equip, és també un lloc d’experimentació, un lloc de prova-i-error, un lloc ple de satisfaccions resultant de múltiples reaccions químiques i canvis físics. 
I began to bake, appreciating the alchemy that can turn flour, water, chocolate, and butter into devil's food cake and make it disappear in a flash Aquesta és una de les cites de l’article, que barreja la màgia de l’alquímica amb el seny (i a vegades la rauxa) de la bona cuina, de la qual tan bons exemples en tenim darrerament a casa nostra. L’article també esmenta com fer caramels amb enzims, i fins i tot un review de l’obra de teatre “Oxigen”. Però sobretot l’article del JCE parla d’un treball d’un professor de grau de química, que impulsa el treball a la cuina com si fos una recerca estàndard: Students personally conceive a hypothesis, design and implement experiments, and collect data…. All food items are treated as chemicals and appliances are treated as laboratory equipment when the students present their findings in a professionally written manuscript I en què consisteix? Doncs Encouraging students to take a different look at something they eat or drink as a possibility for a self-designed experiment with variables that can be changed is limited only by one's imagination (and perhaps his or her pantry). What will they come up with? Even a young student could take the simple recipe for a pitcher of Kool-Aid: a cup of sugar, an envelope of unsweetened powdered drink mix, and water, and consider the parts that could be changed, for a link with the idea of concentration, and at a more advanced level, molarity. What if I change the amount of sugar? What if I change the amount of water? How does it taste when I change one of them? Do I like it better? Does the Kool-Aid look different? que es pot trobar a The Kitchen Is Your Laboratory: A Research-Based Term-Paper Assignment in a Science Writing Course: A term-paper assignment that encompasses the full scientific method has been developed and implemented in an undergraduate science writing and communication course with no laboratory component. Students are required to develop their own hypotheses, design experiments to test their hypotheses, and collect empirical data as independent scientists in their personal laboratories—their kitchens. Motivating students to use food preparation as a chemical experiment does more than just provide them with adequate data for their term papers. Students develop a new awareness for experimental variables, acquire experimental planning and development expertise, and gain an enhanced set of independent thinking skills. This inquiry-based assignment requires students to treat edible ingredients as a chemicals and kitchen equipment as scientific instrumentation. Students are required to provide correctly formatted scientific terms for all consumables and equipment, and they are encouraged to bring experimental results into the classroom to gather statistical taste-test data. Students submit their term papers as communication-type manuscripts, formatted using the communication-style template for The Journal of the American Chemical Society. The details and outcomes of this assignment are described along with sample excerpts from student papers over the past few years. El treball a la cuina, sigui per fer pastissets o sigui per fer una esferificació, ha de resultar dons en un treball en forma de publicació acceptable al Journal of the American Chemical Society. Molt bona idea! I s’aprèn a cuinar, tot treballant el mètode científic. Potser podrem aplicar-ho als nostres laboratoris. Perquè tot és química. I la cuina és el nostre futur també. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 
Sembla que el grafè està força de moda. Aquests dies el Chemistry World, el web de la Royal Society of Chemistry, porta un reportatge titulat Graphene Goes 3D on descriu nous avenços per fer grafè per part de científics xinesos, amb l’objectiu de fer-lo més útil per a supercondensadors, emmagatzemament d’hidrogen, i suport a catalitzadors. Scientists in China have developed a quick and easy procedure for preparing 3D graphene in water, enhancing graphene’s properties so that it can be used in supercapacitors, to store hydrogen and as a catalyst support. El grafè que es sol preparar és petit (de fet és una monocapa d’àtoms de carboni, una espècie de tela metàl.lica de gàbia de pollastres però a escala nanomètrica): Graphene, a single sheet of carbon atoms patterned in a honeycomb lattice can, via self-assembly, form 1D and 2D structures that have many potential applications. However, the graphene obtained is usually small, which limits its use as a functional material. 3D microporous and mesoporous carbon materials (hydrogels and aerogels) are lightweight; have high porosities and storage capacities; large surface areas; high electrical conductivity and thermal stability. Preparing such structures is challenging under mild conditions and current methods are not scalable or cost efficient. Diferents grafens han estat sintetitzats per autoensamblatge a partir d’òxid de grafè, a 95 graus centígrads i pressió atmosfèrica. Amb això s’aconsegueixen formes cilíndriques, esfèriques i en forma de pera. Aquestes estructures tenen alta conductivitat elèctrica i presentat elevada estabilitat mecànica i tèrmica. Biosensors, composites, materials multiporosos… són conceptes associats a les estructures 3D formades a partir de monocapes de grafè. Ciència de materials, física, química… una rica interfase de la ciència. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | Una de les preguntes que a vegades ens hem formulat és la de si és possible transformar una foto desenfocada en una foto enfocada. Deu ser difícil, i potser impossible, no m’hi he parat pas gaire a pensar-ho. Però ara una notícia proporciona esperança als fotògrafs mediocres com jo, o a quin vol una foto que pugui enfocar diversos punts a voluntat: Slashdot ho diu a un post titulat Camera Lets You Shift Focus After Shooting Light field cameras could be to today’s digital cameras, what digital was to film. Among other things, they allow users to selectively shift focus between various objects in a picture, after it’s been taken. While the technology has so far been inaccessible to most of us, that is set to change, with the upcoming release of Lytro’s consumer light field camera. 
Slashdot es refereix al postLytro Launches to Transform Photography with $50M in Venture Funds (TCTV) de TechCrunch. Hi ha opinions per a tots els gustos als comentaris, des de la mala qualitat fins a que serà car, fins a què molta gent no li interessarà. Rather than just capturing one plane of light, it captures the entire light field around a picture, all in one shot taken on a single device. A light field includes every beam of light in every direction at every point in time. Experimentation in this field started in the mid-1990s at Stanford with 100 cameras in one room. Lytro's innovation is making it small enough to fit in your pocket. Really. As a result you can refocus photos after the fact, wiggle around the orientation, and even show the photos in 3D La tecnologia ja fa temps que existeix, però és el primer cop que la càmara resultant és prou petita i que pot comercialitzar-se amb l’esperança de fer rendible el producte. A l’entrada de TechCrunch hi ha una foto manipulable que permet (o això sembla…) modificar el focus de cada part de la foto a voluntat. Em sembla interessant, aquest tema. Valdrà la pena seguir-li la pista. Tan perquè les fotos no sortiran desenfocades, com perquè podran enforcar-se sobre els punts que es consideri més interessants. | | | | | | | | | |  | |  | |  |
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