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The proceedings of 18 Cancun symposia (B1, B2, F2, F3, H6, P1, P3, P6, P7, Q3, Q7, Q1, Q2, Q5, Q6, Q8, Q9, and Q10) from the 2014 ECS and SMEQ Joint International Meeting will be published in ECS Transactions (ECST) in late September, just before the meeting in Cancun.
Make sure to order your copies now with your early-bird registration!
Check out previous proceedings in the meantime.
Or … Better living through working with more stuff.
This is from the Summer 2014 edition of Interface which should have just arrived in your real-world mailbox. It’s Petr Vanysek’s “From the Editor” piece.
I think that I will need to change what I do. No, I am not thinking of quitting electrochemistry and opening a kennel for German shepherds. I like chemistry and I do not see eliminating it from my life, but the college freshmen students would probably prefer to see it, at least in the name, all gone. Now, it seems, that even the analytical chemistry specialty is in peril.
You see, I am going to give a recruitment talk at a chemistry department at one of the Wisconsin universities. This is how it works: our department sends neighboring schools fliers describing our PhD program and offers to send a professor to give a seminar presentation. The host department gets a free seminar out of it and our department may entice some students to apply to our graduate program. Even if nobody applies right there and then, the departments keep in touch, which is always nice. In preparation for the trip I offered a few topics I could discuss, all electrochemical, and I asked which would be the most appreciated by the students. The guidance I got was frank and disheartening. “For some reason,” the instructor in charge wrote, “the word ‘Analytical’ seems to cause student aversion – thus I’d counsel against its use in a title.”
Electrochemistry at U.S. chemistry departments is traditionally part of the analytical chemistry curriculum, so how long can I hide the fact that I am a chemist and an analytical one at that? The more pressing question is, what can we do about it? There are possibly two reasons why the present student population does not care much for chemistry. One goes back to their parents and grandparents. Larry Faulkner in his tribute to Bard and Goodenough, pointed out how the DuPont slogan “Better Living Through Chemistry,” adopted in 1935, lost the “through chemistry” in 1982.
Electric bacteria connect to form wires.
Here a fascinating piece from NewScientist.com being passed around the home office at the moment.
Stick an electrode in the ground, pump electrons down it, and they will come: living cells that eat electricity. We have known bacteria to survive on a variety of energy sources, but none as weird as this. Think of Frankenstein’s monster, brought to life by galvanic energy, except these “electric bacteria” are very real and are popping up all over the place.
I love this quote near the end:
The discovery of electric bacteria shows that some very basic forms of life can do away with sugary middlemen and handle the energy in its purest form – electrons, harvested from the surface of minerals. “It is truly foreign, you know,” says Professor Kenneth Nealson. “In a sense, alien.”
There’s a video with the piece that shows the bacteria lassoing food. Watch and read.
Professor Nealson, the focus of this story, has published with us in the past. Read some of his work in The ECS Digital Library.
My first ECS meeting ever was this past May in Orlando. It was a wonderful experience. Although a bit like getting pushed into the deep end. While we were there we created this video (first of two coming your way) about ECS meetings. I was forced to start talking to people — not just talk, but convince them to be on camera and answer my questions. No better way to make friends!
In the end it was simple enough, just ask the scientists and researchers why they come to the meetings.
Speaking of meetings, we just opened EARLY BIRD registration for our next one in Cancun.
That’s this:
The 2014 ECS and SMEQ Joint International Meeting will be held from October 5-9, 2014 in Cancun, Mexico at the all-inclusive Moon Palace Resort. This major international conference offers a unique blend of electrochemical and solid state science and technology; and serves as a major forum for the discussion of interdisciplinary research from around the world through a variety of formats, such as oral presentations, poster sessions, exhibits, and tutorial sessions.
Workshop on Defects in Wide Band Gap Semiconductors
September 23, 2014
University of Maryland, College Park
Call for abstracts.
CALL FOR ABSTRACTS
Abstracts accepted in the following categories:
GALLIUM NITRIDE AND SILICON CARBIDE AND RELATED COMPOUNDS
WIDE BANDGAP POWER DEVICES
Instructions and submission template.
DEADLINE JULY 28
20 bromine atoms were positioned on a sodium chloride surface using the tip of an atomic force microscope at room temperature.
In the early days of this blog, Annie Goedkoop, Director of Publications for ECS, has been a great source for posts. Her latest from Engineering and Technology Magazine is about a discovery ECS member and past meeting attendee, Ernst Meyer, and his team are working on:
The first successful systematic atomic manipulation on an insulating surface at room temperatures has been achieved and presented by international researchers at the University of Basel, thereby taking the manipulation of atoms to a new level.
Below is a question raised in a discussion going on in our LinkedIn group. Consider joining.
I am looking for pressure sensor monitoring in a battery pack so that I can track the volume expansion of polymer or prismatic cells in a battery pack. Is anyone aware of any vendors that can provide samples of such sensors in consumer applications?
We have over 3,600 members in the group, ready to discuss.
If you have the answer to the above question, feel free to enter in the comments here. I’ll get it to the right place.
Find out more about our divisions, including the Batteries, Fuel Cells, and Energy Conversion Division.
Easy-to-search, high-tech platform ensuring a progressive atmosphere for the exchange of knowledge and ideas.
As of today, 205 Open Access papers have been submitted to ECS journals of which 87 were published to the ECS Digital Library. Here are the three latest:
NPR take several talks that fit into the episode’s theme, replay parts of them, and often interview the speakers to get more insight.
The Ted Radio Hour is an NPR show that features TedTalks (shame on you if you have never listened). NPR take several talks that fit into the episode’s theme, replay parts of them, and often interview the speakers to get more insight.
A recent episode caught my ear —What is Original?
When is copying flattery, when is it thievery, and when is it sheer genius? In this hour, TED speakers explore how sampling, borrowing, and riffing make all of us innovators.
In particular was the section with writer Steven Johnson’s TedTalk — Where Do Good Ideas Come From?
Earlier this year, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk decided to give away his company’s patents for free. It might seem like a strange business move, but Musk said he wanted to inspire creativity and accelerate innovation. Writer Steven Johnson says this is the way great ideas have been born throughout history.
ECS blogger Dan Fatton commended Tesla recently. Turns out people are seeing that Open Access, a concept ECS is dedicated to, is where good ideas come from.
What are people talking about?
Here’s something you might not have considered — Reddit. It calls itself a “platform for internet communities where your votes shape what the world is talking about.” There are a range of topics on Reddit, some not for the faint of heart. But you can find some science sub-Reddits. Here’s the general science one to get you started. It has close to 6 million subscribers. That’s a lot of power.
You also might be interested in the AMAs (Ask Me Anything) in the right column. They’re Q&As with scientists.
It’s just for fun, but be warned, it can be a deep rabbit hole once you start.
