Recently in hi-tech Category

Messaging via Yahoo Messenger (YM) is such an established part of petrochemical life, particularly trading and reporting, that it is already old hat to be messaging with someone on a desktop, laptop or mobile phone. The Blog can still be impressed, however, by innovation on a theme, and it was definitely impressive to get a message the other day from a trader on a plane. The chat connection was as good as normal, and the conversation only came to a halt when the plane was coming in to land.

I don't think I'll be following suit any time soon. With the cost of onboard internet still quite steep, it would have to be a very important item of information, or I'd have to be very bored, to want to go online mid-flight.

ICIS held its biggest-ever World Base Oils & Lubricants event in London recently and ICIS editor John Baker was on the spot to record interviews with keynote speakers.

The result can be found in the latest ICIS interactive online publication.

Stylish polymer Corian is the latest thing for trendy kitchens, the Blog reads in an article "Corian seduces with its curves" in the Times property supplement, Bricks & Mortar.

Increasingly popular in bespoke kitchens, particularly in glacier white, it allows for worktops and sinks to flow in one continuous unit. The non-porous Du Pont material, made of acrylic polymer and alumina trihydrate, is seen as more hygienic than wood in the kitchen, and with near-invisible joints can be made to look seamless.

(photo: Solidity)

Nigel Davis, Insight editor ICIS, spent an exciting evening with Bayer at London's Science Museum. The Blog was intrigued to hear about the bars and silent disco, so necessary to inform and educate about science. Nigel writes:

Award-winning design guru Professor Rob Holdway's enthusiasm for the power of innovation was infectious at the Science Museum last Wednesday. At a Bayer-sponsored reception, Holdway talked about how more environmentally-friendly closed loop manufacturing systems, lean production and dematerialisation as well as lease instead of buy concepts can be driven by clever design. He is a director of Giraffe Innovations which advises on how new production systems and product concepts can be optimised to please the consumer and bring real environmental benefit.

Bayer, no slouch itself when it comes to materials and product innovation timed the event to coincide with one of the London Science Museum's successful adults only 'Lates' evenings.

Who could resist the allure of the Lotto Lab where the generosity and attractiveness of the sexes were being investigated - with cocktails, the two bars, the Mars Rover driving challenge, speed dating or the silent disco, in the Computing and Maths gallery? A good time was had by all. The free Lates evenings are held on the last Wednesday of each month. The next is on 29 February, 18:45 to 22:00, on the theme of 'The Science of Surgery' with "live demonstrations"!

At my table at lunch on Wednesday we were discussing a particular slide in a presentation that morning. One delegate said that a year on, that would be the one thing we would remember of the conference.

It is true that visual images have an enduring quality, and that is what makes them so powerful in conveying messages.

The two pictures which will lodge in the Blog's memory from the conference were:

1)     Shell's shrink-wrapped cucumber, and

2)     Bayer's polycarbonate-glazed Bugatti Veyron.

The cucumber conveyed the message that clever plastic packaging can extend the life of fresh foods from three to 14 days, and really played into the current passion for preserving food quality and stopping the wasting of natural resources.

The Bugatti illustrated the theme that weight-saving plastics in cars conserve precious fuel, and can still create a thing of beauty (or fun, as the Bayer MaterialScience (BMS) speaker put it.)

Was it in the Blog's imagination, or was that photo of the Bugatti up on the screen for a very long time, lending a much-needed element of glamour and raciness to the proceedings?

We read so much about bioplastics, but now they are appearing on our tables. Coca-Cola took out a full page advert in the Times last week to trumpet the launch of its new PlantBottle ™ range in the UK. It consists of 22.5% bio-based material from renewable sources like sugarcane and up to 25% recycled PET, and is 100% recyclable.

At the same time, the Blog was surprised to find a tomato ketchup bottle on the table at the Forge in the Forest restaurant in Carmel, Ca with the message: "Guess what my bottle is made of?" It too was boasting of its bio credentials.

My fellow blogger Doris de Guzman has been writing at greater length on her Green Chemicals blog about the spread of bioplastics in fast-moving consumer goods.

A picture is worth a hundred words and it is good to enliven PowerPoint presentations with photos of chemical plants we have visited.

This week two of the Blog's colleagues have been on an editorial visit to the chemical heartland of the Amsterdam Rotterdam Antwerp (ARA) region, and one new reporter has come back with 100 pictures of pipelines, trains and chemical plant from various angles.

They really are good, and the Blog will be dipping into this collection to illustrate any plant-related postings, and using them to decorate the next set of ICIS training slides for the next course in London in December.

See also: Fabulous Chemical Plant Photos

Photo copyright Janos Gal

Scientific researchers have come up with a failsafe way to get you up in the morning, even if you're deaf.

The Ig Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded yesterday to a Japanese team at Shiga University of Medical Science, for their patented invention of an alarm that wakes people up by releasing a pungent wasabi spray.

Ig Nobel honours are given to science that "first makes people laugh then makes them think," and the awards were given out at Harvard University by seven genuine Nobel laureates. 

A plastic bottle filled with water can become a source of lighting for slum homes in the Philippines, according to this video article on the BBC.

Recycling empty polyethylene terephthalate (PET) bottles by filling them with water and a drop of bleach, to prevent algae, creating a metal collar and inserting them in the roof can provide as much daytime light as a 60 watt bulb. The water-filled bottle refracts the sunlight into the windowless shacks, at a cost of about one US dollar each.