Scientific Instruments

Making ambitious New Year's resolutions is a favorite January activity. Another common activity is breaking or forgetting those same resolutions come February. Psychologists suggest that by lowering our ambitions we stand a better chance of keeping our resolutions. What do you think: should we lower our standards to improve our chances to make a humble but positive change, or is the loftiness of our goals part of the grandeur that attracts us to make New Year's resolutions?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Scientific Instruments, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Scientific Instruments today.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, many advances were the work of individuals with the leisure to pursue science as a hobby. Now, a blogging chemist is developing not only a home-made scanning tunnelling microscope, but an open source one. With increasing interest in building electronics and equipment by hobbyists, are we looking at a return to the age of amateur scientists? As big-science projects are cut by both governments and corporations, will dedicated fans garner a larger share of the intellectual conversation in the sciences?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Scientific Instruments, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Scientific Instruments today.

Blogger Chemjobber is gathering accounts of experiences from chemists who have been laid off. The process tends to be traumatic and people tend not to talk about it. Chemjobber is offering anonymity to sources. Do you think gathering these stories is useful for facing the reality head-on? Or is it just sharing misery, and unlikely to do any good besides allowing people to vent?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Scientific Instruments, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Scientific Instruments today.

All but one of the seven fundamental metric units (the kilogram, meter, second, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela) depend on universal constants, and while there may be a campaign to define Boltzmann's constant more precisely (which could alter the kelvin), at least there is a definition that should be the same around the world. The kilogram is the lone holdout, defined as the mass of a hunk of metal in France. Is that good enough? Or should mass also be tied to a constant? And if so, what that should be?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Scientific Instruments, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Scientific Instruments today.

Are knobs and dials obsolete? These days, you can't even buy a washing machine without a screen display, and some lack any physical buttons or dials at all, in favor of a touchscreen. Do you see instrument interfaces following suit? When (if ever) would you prefer physical buttons and dials? Do you ever want a remote-controlled instrument, or a smartphone app that lets you control and read out your instruments?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Scientific Instruments, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Scientific Instruments today.

Are agencies assuring the safety of public drinking water? It has been said some fell down on the job both in establishing criteria for identifying contaminants of greatest public health concern, and in testing unregulated contaminants in ways that provide useful data for making regulatory decisions. What would an ideal regulatory system look like? With a nation full of aging water supply equipment, can we afford to make drinking water safer? What chemicals are you concerned about finding in your water? And, finally, do you drink water from the faucet?

The preceding article is a "sneak peek" from Scientific Instruments, a newsletter from GlobalSpec. To stay up-to-date and informed on industry trends, products, and technologies, subscribe to Scientific Instruments today.