Sandwich compounds are the colloquial term used for molecules where a metal atom such as an iron dication is “sandwiched” between two carbon-based rings as ligands, most commonly cyclopentadienyl anion (the “bread”) as in e.g. Ferrocene – a molecule first discovered in 1951.
Do it yourself. I don’t mean that as a descriptive phrase. It’s a complete sentence, in the imperative. Do it yourself. Pick up the pencil, pen, stylus, paintbrush, airbrush, mouse, keyboard, scissors, rolling pin, hammer, drill, wrench, saw, welding torch, sewing needle, instrument, guitar pick, pickaxe, shovel, dumbbell, jump rope, paddle, piton, hiking pole.
Part 3 in a series of posts going back 14 years
Appalachian History Series – The Appalachian Trail and the Making of Appalachia On a clear morning on any high ridge from Georgia to Maine, the Appalachian Trail feels simple. White blazes on tree trunks. A narrow ribbon of dirt. The soft scrape of boots on rock. Step back a little, though, and that narrow path turns out to be something much bigger.
The York Brothers, George and Leslie “Les” York, grew up in a musical family in Lawrence County, Kentucky. From an early age, they learned to play guitar and harmonize and began performing locally. George left school after the eighth grade and briefly worked in the coal mines. Even while mining, he continued to play music on the side.
2025 is gone, bringing with it another opportunity to share some highlights from a warehouse worker’s swing at studying our living history a sheaf of genome graphs and shelves full of protein-forms at a time.
This year marks 10 years since development of Citation.js started! Horvathiolus superbus , observed November 18th, 2025, Colares, Portugal.
Micro-reviews of the first 12 books I read in 2025 My annual round-up of the books I read in 2025 was pre-empted by a request from Research Professional News (RPN) to write 250 words on my favourite reads of the past year.
On finding joy in slow, imperfect code in an age of copilots, agents, and chatbots. 1.2k words, 5 min reading time.
There’s an old parable about a drunk searching for his keys under a streetlamp. A passerby stops to help, and after some fruitless searching asks, “Are you sure you lost them here?” The drunk replies, “No, I lost them in the alley. But the light’s better here.” I think about this story a lot when I read AI predictions.
Three weeks ago, I wrote a the post Rescuing Scholia: will we make it in time?, where I sketched a future without Scholia. Scholia, started almost 10 years ago and I think it is worth keeping around longer.