Tag Archives: Chemistry

Stupid Astronomer Tricks #17: Input/Output

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 17 of 18 in the series Stupid astronomer

Almost over! We’re running a membership drive this month – our goal is 150 new members – and as a part of it we’re including this blatant clickbait series… Besides, it’s a chance to tell some of the funny stories that come up during cloudy nights at the VATT! The old astronomer tells the tale… Yesterday we talked about the problems of getting rid of the gas in the absorption tube after its spectrum had been measured. Just piping it outdoors left a telltale red spot, so for the next gas the lab personnel decided to be more clever. Along with inorganic chemicals like the ones mentioned yesterday as possible constituents of Jupiter’s atmosphere, there were many organic molecules that might exist there; most of them presumably derived from broken-up and reassembled bits of simpler, more basic compounds such as HCN, better known as hydrogen cyanide. So the tube was dutifully filled with cyanide and the spectrum measured. Now, to get rid … Continue reading →

Stupid Astronomer Tricks #16: The Great Red Spot

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 16 of 18 in the series Stupid astronomer

Down to our last few entries! We’re running a membership drive this month – our goal is 150 new members – and as a part of it we’re including this blatant clickbait series… Besides, it’s a chance to tell some of the funny stories that come up during cloudy nights at the VATT! The old astronomer tells the tale… These past few days, we’ve been talking about the gas tube that used to run through the Lunar Lab, a meter wide and hundreds of meters long, filled with various hideous gases that were thought to be found in planetary atmospheres; the idea was to run sunlight through the gas and measure the wavelengths that each gas would absorb. One gas in particular, thought to be responsible for the color of Jupiter’s Red Spot, was phosphine. Phosphine is one phosphorus atom surrounded by three hydrogen atoms; if you look at the periodic table of the elements you see that P is just … Continue reading →

Religious Scientists: Sr. Miriam Michael Stimson O.P. (1913-2002); Structure of DNA

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 9 of 15 in the series Religious Scientists of the Catholic Church

In 1962, Francis Crick, James Watson, and Maurice Wilkins received the Nobel Prize for discovering the double-helix structure of the DNA molecule.  This work could not have been done without the discoveries of numerous other scientists, many of whose contributions have gone unrecognized. One such unsung hero in the quest for the building blocks of life was a Catholic nun at a humble Michigan university: Sr. Miriam Michael Stimson, O.P. Biographical Sketch: Marian Emma Stimson was born into a devout Catholic family in Chicago on December 14, 1913. She attended Sienna Heights College in Adrian, Michigan. In 1935, she joined the Adrian Dominican Sisters, taking the name Miriam Michael. She received a B.S. in Chemistry from Siena Heights College in 1936. She continued her studies at the Institutum Divi Thomae in Cincinnatti, where she received her M.S. in 1939. She then joined the chemistry faculty at Siena Heights College, simultaneously working toward her Ph.D. at Institutum Divi Thomae, which she … Continue reading →

Religious Scientists: Abbess St. Hildegard of Bingen OSB (1098-1179), Doctor of the Church

Sacred Space Astronomy avatarPosted on by
This entry is part 6 of 15 in the series Religious Scientists of the Catholic Church

For this entry in the series, we go back in time almost a thousand years, to a period where modern science as we know it had not yet been established. How can we talk about a “religious scientist” before the age of modern science? In this case, by holding up an exemplar who, though not formally a scientist, made significant contributions to our knowledge based on the systematic experimental study of the natural world. The exemplar I have in mind is Hildegard of Bingen, a Benedictine abbess who recorded, preserved, and disseminated much knowledge about medicine, pharmacology, and plants and animals that served as sources for medicines and remedies. Biographical Sketch Hildegard was born in 1098, the 10th child in a large wealthy family. At an early age (somewhere between ages 8-12, depending on sources) she was tithed to the Benedictine monastery at Disibodenberg.  There, Hildegard received her education. It is possible that she served as either infirmarian or pigmentarius … Continue reading →