Free Republic

Enlarge ImageBetter angle. Computer-simulated molecules crystallize faster in the more comfy 70-degree groove (left) than the cramped 45-degree wedge (right). Credit: A. J. Page and R. P. Sear, J. A. Chem. Soc., Online publication (11/13/2009) If you ever took a chemistry lab class in college, chances are you once stared desperately at a flask of liquid, crossing your fingers for tiny crystals to appear. Your lab instructor may have offered advice that sounded like voodoo: "Scratch the inside of the flask to make the crystal grow." But the trick worked--and now scientists have uncovered new details behind it. Compared...

Click here for updated storm photo galleries, computer simulations, NOAA website links and detailed information on the Kilauea flood as well as breaking information and event postponements... Recent Garden Island headlines... The Garden Island multi-media links...

Contact: David Terraso david.terraso@icpa.gatech.edu 404-385-2966 Georgia Institute of Technology Small is different Computer sims vital tools in exploring nanoworld -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Years ago, when Uzi Landman and his colleagues set out to uncover some of the rules that govern why a non-reactive metal like gold acts as a catalyst when it is in nanoclusters only a few atoms in size, they didn't sit down in a lab with the precious metal. Instead, they ran computer simulations and discovered that gold is a very effective catalyst when it is in clusters of eight to two dozen atoms. They also found that electrical...