Video of the Moment: Big Oobleck Experiment

The boys from The Big Bang Theory play with a non-Newtonian fluid and a bass speaker.

Audio of the Moment: A New Pitch

Many people, including John, have reported that the Australian pitch experiment is about to drip for the 9th time.  I enjoyed this presentation from Radiolab.  It will take 9 minutes of your time.

Link of the Moment: Tattoo Emporium

If you've got some spare time, head on over to the Tattoo Emporium at Discover magazine's Loom Blog and examine some of the creative ways that scientists and engineers decorate their bodies.

Link of the Moment: Silly Putty Info

If you want to know more about Silly Putty, head on over to HowStuffWorks.com to read their article on the history and properties of the "solid liquid™."

Webinar of the Moment: Extensional Rheology

A few months ago, I viewed this webinar on extensional rheology.  The first part of the webinar is one of the best summaries of extensional properties and terms that I've seen.  Highly recommended.

Link of the Moment: Deadly Fluids II

The Soft Matter Blog highlights a paper from MIT that discussed the rheological behavior of the fluid from carnivorous plants.  The paper is available for free download until November 18, 2011.  Registration is required at RSC to download the paper.

Link of the Moment: Deborah's Number

At the beginning of the month, The Dayside at Physics Today talked about the Deborah number, as it's one of two dimensionless numbers not named after a man.  (If you want to know what the other one is, you'll have to click on the link.)

Hat tip: Physics Today online editor's picks email

3 for the price of 1!

The folks who organize the triennial International Symposium on Food Rheology would like you to be careful with your travel funds in 2012.  Instead of going to the Food Colloid conference in Copenhagen AND the Food Oral Proceesing Conference in Baune (France) AND the Rheology Congress in Lisbon, you can attend their conference in Zurich.

June in Montreal

The Canadian Society of Rheology is presenting two short courses on rheology in June.

• Current Topics and Trends in Rheology (June 6-7, 2011)
• Rheology and Processing of Polymers (June 2-3, 2011)

The second item does not have a link on the CSR web site.  I will post information when it becomes available.

Links of the Moment: What I Did This Semester

My employer, ConAgra Foods, and Michigan State University set up a 400 level course to introduce undergrads to industrial research.  I am referenced obliquely in some of the stories--

• Press release from MSU.
• Detroit Free Press Article
• WXYZ Channel 7
• Detroit News, which was interested in identifying corporate corruption of academia

Quotation of the Moment: Flowing Like a River

And so, like water, we flow. Or, let's try to imagine ourselves flowing. We may not realize it when we're in the flow, but take a look at these pictures from St. Petersburg. Russian photographer Alexey Titarenko sees city crowds as a stream of hands, heads and coats rushing along stairs and streets, in and out of buildings...rushing like water...
--Robert Krulwich, reflecting on the photographs of Titarenko

I have to admit, when I saw the pictures, I thought of the smoke monster from Lost.

Link of the Moment: Soft Matter Blog

While doing one of my Google searches for other rheology blogs, I came across the Soft Matter Blog, which comes from RSC Publishing.  They summarize articles from the journal Soft Matter and provide articles and previews for free [1].  I've added them to the Science & Engineering blogs.

[1]  John put up a link to the rheology of peanut butter.  I swear I found Soft Matter independently the same day he put up his post.

Ask Doc Rheo: Paper Coatings Companies

Dear Doc Rheo:
Can you give me the names of some paper coatings companies?
A Student (again)

Dear Student:
Here are some companies that I know make paper coatings--

• Stora Enso
• Dow Chemical
• PPG

Commenters--do you have any other names?

Here are some other coatings links--

• http://www.coatingsconference.com/
• http://www.pcimag.com/
• http://www.paint.org/meetings/coatings_tech.cfm

Good luck,

Doc Rheo

 

News from the Rheology Bulletin

Three bullet items from the Rheology Bulletin

• The official SOR report from Santa Fe is on page 4 of the Bulletin.
• The next SOR meeting will be in Cleveland.  As of this posting, the meeting page has not been updated.
• The short course at this fall's meeting will be on the rheology of high-interface systems.  The course will be added to the list once I have an appropriate link.

Link of the Moment

Chemjobber runs some numbers on materials science jobs at Materials Views.

Link of the Moment: Slime Time

Last Saturday, the University of Nebraska at Omaha hosted an event teaching local Girl Scouts about the chemistry and physics of polymers.
Hat tip: The Omaha World-Herald

Link of the Moment: Sid discovers elasticity

Those of you with small kids have probably heard of Sid the Science Kid.  It's a computer-animated show aimed at pre-schoolers that introduces scientific concepts and methods.  This fall's new shows are centered around physics topics like friction and inertia.  Here's a link to the parents review site on elasticity.  In the show, Sid discovers the concept of elasticity when his clay ball doesn't bounce the way he expects.

Link of the Moment

According to an email from SOR, the web site for the XVIth (that's 16th, for those who don't know Latin) Congress of Rheology is now live.  The Congress will take place August 5-10, 2012 in Lisbon, Portugal.

Link of the Moment: Chemjobber Blog

Today's link is the Chemjobber blog, which I learned about when John was interviewed about polymer chemistry.  The blog is a continual analysis of the chemistry job market, and is similar to my monthly job reports.  I added the Careerbuilder searches in this month's jobs report after a quick check of the links at Chemjobber.  I recall using Careerbuilder in previous job searches, but I hadn't checked the site recently.

SF Prep Index

• Forward (official sites suggested by SOR)
• #1 -- Welcome to Santa Fe
• #2 -- Sites to See
• #3 -- It's Spelled "Chile"
• #4 -- Getting to Santa Fe
• #5 -- Book Recommendation

Update: Answer to the trivia question posed in #1, after the jump

Update #2: If you enjoyed the series, and know someone going to SOR, feel free to send them this post.

Update #3: Fixed the broken links.