格致

这是我在Nature Network博客上的一篇文章，最新得知已经被推荐到Nature.com主页上了。

UPDATE: The whole post was revised to avoid misunderstanding. Some parts are bolded.

The first line is the simplified Chinese of the phrase ‘experts and professors’, and the second line is a very popular homophonous variation of the phrase and the meaning changed to ‘rock owner and roaring creature’

Research shows that among several countries in the world China ranks very low in science literacy of the public, especially in understanding the methodology of science as well as the relationship between science and society.

Yes. If you start a poll (I mean a undisturbed, full democratic poll) among the people here, whether to dismiss the Chinese Academy of Sciences and that of Engineering, the answer is very likely to be positive.

Two committee members from Chongqing province proposed this idea to the ongoing 11th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference. This news on the web received thousands of comments supporting the proposal. (If you can read Chinese see how people applause to this idea. If you can’t, just notice the number of supporters.)

重读《高分子物理》，真是收获良多。今晚看到了关于SBS共聚物热塑性弹性体的段落时候，连系到近年来很火爆的软物质、嵌段共聚物自组装等研究，很有体会。

SBS是塑料链和橡胶链共聚产物，跟一务的塑料或橡胶相比，其显示出一种特有的应变软化现象，即所谓的“应变诱发塑料——橡胶转变”。其现象如下：
当其中的塑料相和橡胶相的组成比接近1:1时，材料室温下像塑料，其拉伸行为起先与一般塑料的冷拉现象相似。在应变约5%处发生屈服成颈，随后细颈逐渐发展，应力几乎不变而应变不断增加，直到细颈发展完成，此时应变约200%，进一步拉伸，细颈被均匀拉伸，应力可进一步升高，最大应变可高达500%，甚至更高。可是如果移去外力，这种大形变却能迅速基本回复，而不像一般塑料强迫高弹性需要加热到Tg或Tm附近才回复。而且，如果接着进行第二次拉伸，则开始发生大形变所需要的外力比第一次拉伸要小得多，试样也不再发生屈服和成颈过程，而与一般交联橡胶的拉伸过程相似，材料呈现高弹性。……更为奇特的是经拉伸变为橡胶的试样，如果在室温下放置较长的时间，又能恢复拉伸前的塑料性质。

今天还要赶着去做DSC，看到Yan的回复，赶紧打几个字……

我在Nature Network上的一篇文章介绍了在中国写博客的教授们，主要是在科学网上的那些，还有个别在其他地方开博的。Yan回复提醒我还有gezhi.org，我的确忘了提这个。在中国，写博客的研究生群体应该以gezhi.org为代表了。如果gezhi.org上写博的教授多一点就好了。

科学网的系统实在不感恭维。格致的系统显然成熟很多，但是我还是不想离开科学网。科学网的宝贵之处就在于它有一群由教授组成的社区，科学由他们口中说出，和由学生口中说出是不一样的。其次是在格致里博客的独立性太不突出，更像个有个人文集功能的论坛。

我还有写关于个人生活的博客，我不喜欢把这个博客放在一个社区化很严重的BSP上。我一直在Blogger.com写，现在转到了yo2.cn。但是科学博客就相反，很需要一个社区的存在，在中国通过论坛来建设社区也许是个好方法，但是它只能吸引目前的“网友”。而实际上，科学家们原本就上网“灌水”的很少，在中国可能更少。通过像科学网这样由“上面”主办的方式，也许能够把原来不习惯在网上灌水的科学家们拉到网上来。这是一个很好的方法。在国外，则要靠Nature这样的“德高望重”的出版商来牵头，其实道理是差不多的。

The world's astronomers, under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU), have concluded two years of work defining the lower end of the planet scale - what defines the difference between "planets" and "solar system bodies". If the definition is approved by the astronomers gathered 14-25 August 2006 at the IAU General Assembly in Prague, our Solar System will consist of 12 planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Ceres, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto, Charon and 2003 UB313. The three new proposed planets are Ceres, Charon (Pluto's companion) and 2003 UB313. There is no change in the planetary status of Pluto, whom the New York Times essay described as 'dodged a bullet' this time.

In the application where infinitely-variable lens without any moving parts is needed, liquid lenses are not a new thing to implement. Conventional liquid lenses use two immiscible fluids, each with a different refractive index, to create variable-focus lenses of high optical quality as small as 10 µm (microns). There are two ways to manipulate the two fluids, electrically and mechanically, but both methods take advantage of the surface tension of the liquid. The electric method uses a novel property called electrowetting (full review on electrowetting: J. Phys.: Condens. Matter, 2005, 17, R705-R774) to modify the surface tension, while the mechanical method takes advantage of surface tension to physically change the shape of the lens (more details of liquid lenses introduced by Alix Paultre).