Polymers: long chains of molecules, like beads strung together into a necklace. The twentieth century was the era of the synthetic polymer – acrylics, polystyrene, epoxies and synthetic rubbers; Bakelite, Teflon, Nylon and Neoprene – it’s hard to imagine our world without them. However, there are thousands of naturally-occurring polymers, or biopolymers. Proteins and carbohydrates… [Read more…]
May 1, 2012
The ever-helpful Wikipedia describes nanotechnology as “the study of manipulating matter on an atomic and molecular scale”, or “engineering of functional systems at the molecular scale”. How big is this atomic/molecular scale? Nanotechnology generally refers to something in the realm of 1-100 nanometres. (A nanometer is one billionth of a metre). This, apparently, is the… [Read more…]
April 30, 2012
It’s hard to define selfish behaviour, when it comes to books. If you go into a library and steal a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Thing, you deny your fellow citizens access to that book. Also, the library then has to go and buy another copy and libraries as a general rule don’t… [Read more…]
April 27, 2012
Rarely is light completely responsible for a book’s destruction. If entropy had a gang and ordered a hit on a guy, light would feed the victim hamburgers until he died of organ failure. Thus the autopsy report would read “organ failure” and light could stand by looking all innocent. There are three main symptoms of… [Read more…]
April 26, 2012
Books are not really as flammable as they may seem. A book is a dense thing, layer upon layer of pulped wood stacked and pressed together. Air does not circulate easily within a book, and a flame needs air to survive. Hold a match to a book and the edge of the text block will… [Read more…]
April 25, 2012
Look, I know it’s not a biggie, ok, there are no academic papers with titles like “Mitigation of deleterious effects on library collections from Helix aspera” but seriously, look at that picture. Don’t leave your books where snails can get at them.
April 24, 2012
“I am allergic to old books which give me sneezes and watery eyes”.(1) Mould is bad for people. It’s an allergen, live or dead. It can cause flu-like symptoms and eczema. In cases of long-term exposure, it can make you chronically unwell. Unfortunately it sometimes grows on books. Mould is bad for books. In fact,… [Read more…]
April 23, 2012
Earlier this year I got all excited because I thought it was World Book Day. I was in error – I think I saw an out-of-date tweet that was retweeted (you know how it is) and in any case referred to the UK’s “World Book Day” (??), held on March 1. But April 23 really… [Read more…]
April 23, 2012
When I lived in Adelaide, each winter the books in my room would develop a gentle ripple through their respective text blocks. Adelaide is not known for being damp – quite the contrary, in summer the sun blasts everything and the relative humidity can plummet to the single digits. But winter is Adelaide’s wet season,… [Read more…]
April 20, 2012
I know I own a copy of The Hobbit, a nicely illustrated copy at that. My sister wants to borrow it for book club. I can’t find it. I group my non-fiction books loosely thematically or by genre – myths & legends, humour, history. My fiction is even less organised but I try and keep… [Read more…]
May 2, 2012
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