Periodic Tabloid

I ran across a paper analyzing common expressions intended to convey fuzzy quantitative meaning. At first I wondered if the work was a hoax similar to the famous Sokal Affair: the prose is off-puttingly dense and the text filled with odd equations. But the title conveys the gist of the study: "Bags of Talent, A Touch of Panic, and a Bit of Luck: The Case of Non-numerical Vague Quantifiers."

Summertime, and the living is easy…or so it has been sung. In celebration of the dog days of August, today Periodic Tabloid offers you a pop soundtrack with a science flair for your summertime adventures.

Yesterday the New York Times invited readers to take a multiple-choice quiz to identify famous scientists based solely on their portraits. Many CHF staff members were shocked to see their abysmal scores. What does that say for the rest of the population?

The most recent weight-loss fad being pitched in the news turns out to be as medically questionable as the rest. Why do we keep falling for scientifically-dubious diets?

Today we remember Luigi Galvani and Alessandro Volta through such words as “galvanized” and “volt.” But the curious (and somewhat creepy) experiments connected to their work ought not to be forgotten.

Many of science's geratest achievements once seemed unimaginable lunacy. If we can make objects invisible, is it so unreasonable to imagine we might be able to travel in time some day?

Researchers are working hard to lower the cost of DNA sequencing. What are the benefits and why does this matter? CHF oral history interviewee George Church weighs in.

On the First Friday of the month, CHF’s museum joins other Old City Philadelphia galleries, museums, and shops in hosting a community-wide open house. Take a look at last month's event!

“Linking the destinies of an individual and a molecule, chemistry defines very specific relationships between man and matter: neither domination nor submission, but a perpetual negotiation—through alliances or hand-to-hand struggles—among individual materials and human demands," explain Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Isabel Stengers in their history of chemistry. Some of the most beautiful reflections on such negotiations were penned by Italian chemist Primo Levi.

What happens when truly false information is offered in a public forum and perhaps is even repeated over and over again? A research study from Australia attempts to answer this question and the results seem especially pertinent in an age when misinformation swirls constantly through our many channels of communication.