Have said it before, and am saying it again: In the Pipeline is a damned good science blog. Why? Because Derek Lowe (a bench chemist in a pharma company) tells us about laboratory practice in a way that makes you feel you understand what the craft is really about. The posts almost smell and sound like a lab itself.
Take, for example, today’s post about why chemists use vacuum devices so much and what havoc a wrongly applied water aspirator can create. Science studies people — not to mention science communicators and us science museum folks — have something to learn here. Science communication is very much about immediacy. That’s the skill Derek brings to his posts.