Endangered elements, grain boundaries and crossing the chasm
Surface Ventures
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Hello all,
It’s Friday once again and I’m looking forward to the weekend for a small respite. It’s been a busy week with many disparate things to focus on and as much as enjoy my work and being busy sometimes we all need a breather. In times like this, I have to remind myself to keep my focus on one task at once. Often this requires some creativity on my part and I have always found that timetabling myself gives me the space to be creative. I can free up blocks of time where I don’t need to think about other tasks and let my mind work. This is still a new revelation for me and I love taking on new opportunities but I know I need to be more realistic with my available time. Yet another challenge to embrace!
Research highlights: Highly cited
In surface engineering, I think we can sometimes focus on specific methods to the detriment of others. Coatings receive a lot of attention (and rightly so!) but there are other methodologies that should receive more attention. Grain boundary engineering is one of these. In Unraveling the origin of twin related domains and grain boundary evolution during grain boundary engineering, Barr et al. explore the mechanisms behind grain boundary engineering achieved through thermomechanical processing.
Interesting Infographics
The 118 elements of the periodic table make up everything from consumer products to highly specialised electronics. The American Chemical Society has identified that 44 of these elements will face supply limitations in the future. The infographic below shows which of the elements will face issues whether it be supply problems to serious threats and shortages. More information can be viewed on the ACS page on Endangered Elements.
Publishing Resources: From the web
Other methods are emerging for the publication of scientific work. Science Octopus is one of these. This is an online-focused publication system where your work is instantly viewable on the web and with an open peer-review process. Science Octopus aims to encourage meritocracy, collaboration and a faster scientific process. Time will tell whether this is the best approach but it’s worth checking out.
The latest and upcoming from Surface Ventures
Notable and quotable
“When we think we're multitasking we're actually multiswitching. That is what the brain is very good at doing - quickly diverting its attention from one place to the next. We think we're being productive. We are, indeed, being busy. But in reality we're simply giving ourselves extra work.”― Michael Harris
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What we’re reading
In Crossing the Chasm, Geoffrey Moore outlines the Technology Adoption Lifecycle beginning with innovators and early adopters all the way to the late majority and laggards. Moore identifies the figurative chasm between early adaptors and the early majority and highlights the challenges for innovators and marketers to accelerate product adoption. An excellent read for anyone working in technology or marketing.
An app a day
Open Access is being promoted both from the side of publishers and from Universities allowing more people to view the hard work and read the latest advances than ever before but for many papers, there are author uploaded versions or other free access versions available. Unpaywall allows you to quickly locate these to increase your literature database for free.
The lighter side of the internet
Writing academic articles and successfully having them published is quite a feat but I think we all wished that publishers gave us a little extra in return as Dr Glaucomflecken satirises in this video.
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Curated By Dr Samuel McMaster
Event Manager – Surface Ventures