2022 World Science Festival Brisbane

 World Science Festival Brisbane 9-13 March 2022. 

https://www.worldsciencefestival.com.au/

Slim pickings for chemistry (yet again this year), unless you are a tiny child who thinks making slime is the highlight of your day. 

With Australia moving towards battery storage for electricity, why are isn't there an "event" discussing big lithium-ion batteries, or the proposed next-gen alternatives? 

Or fuel cells? 

Queensland Government has a strategy for the "hydrogen industry", so where is the "event" discussing the production and use of hydrogen in a so-called "hydrogen economy"? 

How about an "event" that discusses water treatment? desalination? 

An "event" that discusses the "effectiveness" of home water filters (and dare I suggest face masks)? 

What about an "event" to talk about "food fraud", what it is, how it is detected, what we can do about it. 

Recycling plastics? Compostable polymers? Soluble polymers? 

It's not hard to think of relevant chemistry topics for a "science festival". 

 

South Australia sets a poor example

 I've always admired South Australia for its innovative and interesting chemistry syllabi, and it's great that females are being featured in chemistry labs, but the current image on their website is a big fail in terms of chemistry education.

 

https://www.sace.sa.edu.au/web/chemistry

 

Can you see any problems with this photo?

(revise "Safety in the Lab" at https://www.ausetute.com.au/safety.html)

Shapes of Melting Ice

 What shape is submerged ice as it melts?

That depends on temperature apparently ..

 Which suggests that we can infer water temperature in nature by observing the shape of its melting ice.

Scott Weady, Joshua Tong, Alexandra Zidovska, and Leif Ristroph (2022); Anomalous Convective Flows Carve Pinnacles and Scallops in Melting Ice. Phys. Rev. Lett 128(4)  https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.128.044502