Happy New Year!

We, physicists, will never understand the logic of chemists. But, che fare - che fare, the forthcoming year is going to be yours:

Be happy, and remember that if two cesium atoms are bound together by only 0.000000004 kJ/mol - we call it "the Cs₂ molecule". Because... this is a molecule.  :-P


Take care,

Misha

8-year old kids publish an article

That's so-o-o sweet: Blackawton et al. "Blackawton bees", Biol. Lett. (2010).

via1, via2


Lev Landau was used to count the age of a scientist from the year he published the first article. Landau himself published his first one at the age of 18, so these kids have at least 10 years of a head start.


Take care,

Misha

Referees' quotes

That's awesome: referees's quotes 2010 from the journal of Enviromental Biology.


"This paper is desperate. Please reject it completely and then block the author’s email ID so they can’t use the online system in future." 

"The biggest problem with this manuscript, which has nearly sucked the will to live out of me, is the terrible writing style."

"Merry X-mas! First, my recommendation was reject with new submission, because it is necessary to investigate further, but reading a well written manuscript before X-mas makes me feel like Santa Claus."


Take care,

Misha

The shortest research paper ever

This one is really the shortest. :-) There is also a referee comment...

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1311997/pdf/jaba00061-0143a.pdf

via Daniel Lemire

Misha