linkstream2 microblog

Thermodynamic sinks: oxides, alkaline cation + molecular anion, fluorides, dissolved salts
https://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-thermodynamic-sinks-of-this-world #chemistry
by Nobel Laureate Roald Hoffmann

QT:”
Let’s use some simple chemistry to get a feeling for the thermodynamic sinks of this world. …. Here is the first principle of stability, one we have already seen in the reaction forming water: Form oxides. ….The prescription is obvious: Form oxides, form solid state, ionic compounds. The elements don’t stand a chance, except for the early noble gases …. one finds that all carbonates are very stable, as are most salts containing nitrate (NO3-), sulfate (SO42-), phosphate (PO43-) and silicate ions…..
There is a pattern emerging in the nature of the more stable compounds: It’s not simply ionic bonding (Na+Cl-, Li+H-), but ionic bonding between an alkali or alkaline earth cation and a molecular anion (CO32-, SiO44-). Of course, within each molecular ion there lurks ionicity… Ions within ions!
But there are compounds more stable than oxides, and these are fluorides—for example, CaF2, fluorite, or Na3AlF3, cryolite. In these even more ionicity is provided than in oxides. ….
Also, in the temperature range where water is a liquid, a good number of salts, hardly all, dissolve in water with a negative Gibbs energy of solution….
So my tentative answer to the question posed at the beginning is not romantic. The final product (at P = 1 atmosphere and 298 kelvin) will be a messy soup of cations of the less electronegative elements (including the transition metals) with molecular anions, in water. “

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/09/the-scientific-7-minute-workout MT @herstoryhere The Scientific 7-Minute Workout http://bit.ly/11XePRj But how long to warmup and cooldown? #exercise

QT:”
But there was the potentially politically explosive matter of privacy. Unlike Facebook, where users were at least giving the campaign explicit permission to collect personal data even if they had not read the fine print, television watchers were making no such agreement. To address this, the campaign and Rentrak hired a third party to “anonymize” the data so that they would only know that the information was coming from a set-top box of somebody on the persuadable list; identifying information would be stripped away.
”
What if they didn’t hire a 3rd party ? Is this something the government can do ?

Determine who the swing voters are & what they’re watching, so you can target pol ads. Impressive mining but a little scary from privacy perspective

Find swing voters & what they watch to target pol ads. Impressive #mining but a little #privacy scary
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-digital-masterminds-cash-in.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/magazine/the-obama-campaigns-digital-masterminds-cash-in.html

Can IT staff be trusted ? MT @nytimes: N.S.A. Leak Puts Focus on System Administrators

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/24/technology/nsa-leak-puts-focus-on-system-administrators.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0&pagewanted=all

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/19/magazine/say-hello-to-the-100-trillion-bacteria-that-make-up-your-microbiome.html?emc=eta1&pagewanted=all Say Hello to the 100 Trillion Bacteria That Make Up Your Microbiome BY MICHAEL POLLAN
Medicine used to be obsessed with eradicating the tiny bugs that live within us. Now we?re beginning to understand all the ways they keep us healthy.
Our processed-food diets just feed the upper GI via @kellynicola: M POLLAN on the microbiome #health http://bit.ly/11QmmS3

http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/leave-the-driving-to-it Sketches an incredible future of computer-aided driving where the daily commute includes a nap! #driving

Accounting for mutational heterogeneity in identifying cancer genes… MutSigCV by @broadinstitute via @notSoJunkDNA: http://bit.ly/14EPvVx http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12213.html doi:10.1038/nature12213

Great primer on network theory MT @russskinner PRISM… analysis: Paul Revere identified by his connections to others http://bit.ly/11DK8R9
http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/prism_metadata_analysis_paul_revere_identified_by_his_connections_to_other.single.html

Amazing #photo of what the night sky should look like MT @TheAtlantic: whole-sky time-lapse of the galactic center http://bit.ly/14BUQwD

http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/06/you-are-here-a-whole-sky-time-lapse-of-the-galactic-center/276891/

The elasticity of vocal cords, the difficulty of operating on them & the story of a surgeon doing this
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/03/04/130304fa_fact_colapinto #medicine