(Roughly) Daily

“Matter is energy waiting to happen”*…

 

matter abstractions-a-442

 

Chad Mirkin didn’t set out to discover a new property in matter. But when you’re inventing an alternative to atom-based chemistry, something strange is bound to happen…

While studying materials made from DNA-coated nanoparticles, researchers found a new form of matter– lattices in which smaller particles roam like electrons in metallic bonds: “Strange Metal-like Bonds Discovered in Customized Crystals.”

* Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

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As we muse on matter, we might send irradiated birthday greetings to Irène Joliot-Curie; she was born on this date in 1897.  The daughter of Marie Curie and Pierre Curie and the wife of Frédéric Joliot-Curie, she shared a Nobel Prize with her husband for their joint discovery of artificial radioactivity (making the Curies the family with the most Nobel laureates to date).  Both children of the Joliot-Curies, Hélène and Pierre, are also esteemed scientists.

Like her mother, Irène died of leukemia, likely resulting from radiation exposure during her research.

220px-Irène_Joliot-Curie_Harcourt source

 

Written by (Roughly) Daily

September 12, 2019 at 1:01 am

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