[HN Gopher] Will any crap we put into graphene increase its elec...
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       Will any crap we put into graphene increase its electrocatalytic
       effect? (2020)
        
       Author : stereoabuse
       Score  : 131 points
       Date   : 2024-04-01 08:17 UTC (14 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (pubs.acs.org)
 (TXT) w3m dump (pubs.acs.org)
        
       | due-rr wrote:
       | Love the title!
        
         | amelius wrote:
         | I don't. Science already has a credibility problem, and click-
         | baity titles only make it worse.
        
           | lanternfish wrote:
           | On the other hand, the sanitized titles of scientific
           | discourse can mask uncredibility and obscure the actual core
           | thrust of a piece.
        
           | blegr wrote:
           | As opposed to inscrutable two-line titles full of the field's
           | buzzwords on top of papers that you have to parse for hours
           | to realize the idea and results could have been written in
           | one sentence?
           | 
           | Maybe I've read too many applied machine learning papers. As
           | long as the funny title isn't dishonest, I'm all for it.
        
             | blegr wrote:
             | Actually, "clickbait" doesn't really apply here, the paper
             | supports the title.
        
               | SAI_Peregrinus wrote:
               | They tested bird crap, but not other sorts if crap. And
               | which birds? Does species matter?
        
           | nottorp wrote:
           | That is actually a humorous title.
           | 
           | Note that the title accurately describes what the article is
           | about. As opposed to clickbait. Clickbait would have been
           | "You would never believe what we put into graphene!".
        
             | mindcrime wrote:
             | That or "STOP putting THIS into Graphene now!!!"
        
               | luqtas wrote:
               | plzzz like & subscribe *-*
        
           | mort96 wrote:
           | Has the word click-bait lost all its meaning now
        
             | gorjusborg wrote:
             | No. It now means 'content that offends my refined
             | sensibilities'.
             | 
             | (But I'm with you, words matter, and I loved your comment).
        
           | atoav wrote:
           | And there we got the problem, a papers title not _sounding_
           | serious doesn 't mean it isn't -- and more importantly: the
           | opposite is true as well.
           | 
           | The credibility problems science has is because instead of
           | replicating the contents of a paper people have seveloped and
           | over-reliance on other peripheral metrics like which papers
           | it has been published in, p-values and such. Relying on the
           | seriousness of titles is just another of those distractions.
        
           | xandrius wrote:
           | Cannot be clickbaity if the title precisely explains what the
           | paper is about.
           | 
           | The problem with science dissemination is not that it's too
           | accessible but rather the polar opposite: even experts find
           | reading some (many? Most?) papers truly dreadful because of
           | the terse and dryness but one does it for the knowledge; on
           | the other hand everyone else absolutely needs to rely on
           | "science popularisers" to even half-understand half of what a
           | paper is about. And that's the problem: the general
           | scientific understanding is as good as the scientific rigor
           | of the most understandable/entertaining science populariser
           | out there.
           | 
           | To clarify: if person A is extremely diligent and precise but
           | not too enjoyable to watch, they will get X views and maybe a
           | limited (but positive) impact, on the other hand person B is
           | not very diligent, cuts corners or even outright lies but is
           | very easy and fun to watch, they reach N more people than
           | person A, having an absolute huge (albeit negative) impact.
           | 
           | If the authors had a way to write both for experts and,
           | somehow, have control on how that knowledge is available to
           | the rest, the delta between the two methods of dissemination
           | would be minimal (or at least controlled).
        
             | amelius wrote:
             | Do you think this paper would be on HN if it had a regular
             | kind of title?
             | 
             | At this point, there are more comments about the title than
             | about its contents.
        
               | passwordoops wrote:
               | Yes it would have. And the problem with science
               | dissemination isn't click-baity titles, it's a
               | combination of poorly executed science (hence the
               | reproducibility and retraction crisis in many field), the
               | abject, shameless hyperbole spewed by PR departments, and
               | a lack of genuine scientific education
        
               | naasking wrote:
               | Would feces-doped graphene have gathered attention on HN?
               | I dare say "yes"!
        
             | araes wrote:
             | The title appears to work in the context of ACS Nano. Has
             | 200+ citations, and cited by several other 200+ papers.
             | Maybe double the average ACS Nano citations of 87 (Exaly
             | says 1.5 million citations on 17,200 papers
             | https://exaly.com/journal/12906/acs-nano) If other authors
             | found it click baity, they found it click bait in a way
             | that deserved inclusion in their own work above the norm of
             | ACS Nano.
        
           | Maken wrote:
           | If the paper is accurate, it's actilly making fun of all the
           | serious-sounding papers adding whatever to graphene and
           | publishing it as noteworthy results. After reading way more
           | papers that I wish I had to, I can say I would prefer if all
           | paper titles were this accessible and honest.
        
         | meltea wrote:
         | Czechs trying to be funny...
        
           | stavros wrote:
           | Funniness check passed!
        
       | Terr_ wrote:
       | > We demonstrate in the following text the meaninglessness of the
       | never-ending co-doping of graphene. We decided to follow the
       | hyperbole of ever multiplying dopants; however, instead of using
       | expensive and toxic chemicals such as ammonia, fluorine,
       | chlorine, boranes, etc., we took a page from the pre-Haber-Bosch
       | era and sought natural materials for the fertilization of
       | graphene and used guano as a dopant.
       | 
       | What a wonderfully bat-shit paper.
       | 
       | > In summary, we demonstrated that bird dropping-treated
       | graphenes indeed make graphene more electrocatalytic than
       | nondoped graphene.
       | 
       | Oh, never mind, just bird-shit, dang.
        
         | jon_richards wrote:
         | Reminds me of the salmon study
         | https://www.scientificamerican.com/blog/scicurious-brain/ign...
         | 
         | > the salmon was shown images of people in social situations,
         | either socially inclusive situations or socially exclusive
         | situations. The salmon was asked to respond, saying how the
         | person in the situation must be feeling. The salmon, as far as
         | I can tell from the paper, did not comply with instructions.
        
           | joatmon-snoo wrote:
           | That's a fabulous one. Thanks for sharing.
        
       | perihelions wrote:
       | - _"...societal impact not only in clean energy production and a
       | cleaner environment but also on rural economies as guano once
       | again becomes a valuable and highly sought-after product. "_
       | 
       | Apropos of nothing, the Guano Islands Act of 1856 is still,
       | apparently, standing US law [0]. This research is an _exciting_
       | opportunity for any who 'd like to serve as mercenary privateers
       | under the flag of the United States, while advancing science.
       | 
       | [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guano_Islands_Act
        
         | throwup238 wrote:
         | Are there any unclaimed islands left?
         | 
         | Sadly this wouldn't apply to new islands since it takes a long
         | time for bats to establish themselves.
        
           | dr_dshiv wrote:
           | My family actually claimed Howland island back in the early
           | days of the guano act (they pivoted from clipper shipyards to
           | guano shityards when international trade collapsed at the
           | beginning of the civil war) [1]. I'd love to go there and,
           | you know, live out my dreams, but WOW is transportation an
           | issue. That place is FAR away.
           | 
           | Also, check out the super secret spy base on the west side of
           | the island, loosely hidden by google maps treachery. What's
           | happening there?? [2]
           | 
           | [1] http://christophersetterlund.blogspot.com/2020/05/in-
           | their-f...
           | 
           | [2] https://maps.app.goo.gl/Ly8W9M2fqdap7Mzc7?g_st=ic
        
             | ttfkam wrote:
             | Better hurry. At only 6m above sea level at its highest
             | point, it may sink below the waves before long.
        
               | dr_dshiv wrote:
               | True that. But the whole potential is leveraging that
               | huge dormant volcano under the water.
        
               | pfdietz wrote:
               | Villain lair!
        
               | concordDance wrote:
               | > before long
               | 
               | Specifically, 1600 years at current rate.
               | 
               | (I have a personal bugbear about people worrying about
               | sea level rise)
        
               | dv_dt wrote:
               | You can't ignore that the variance and the sea level
               | increases with climate change, especially at only 6m
               | above.
        
               | thfuran wrote:
               | And an island is, for practical purposes, gone well
               | before its very highest point is below local mean sea
               | level.
        
               | margalabargala wrote:
               | There are different sorts of rise to worry about.
               | 
               | There's "everything is always underwater" rise, whichbis
               | 1600 years off. Then there's "average highwater mark
               | during a storm at high tide", which will exceed those 6m
               | a lot sooner and is the point at which the island ceases
               | to become at all inhabitable.
        
         | rukuu001 wrote:
         | Solid Neal Stephenson subplot material
        
         | pfdietz wrote:
         | I can imagine a SF story where the act is applied to an
         | abandoned, but still bird infested, space colony.
        
           | jonathankoren wrote:
           | I now want a Star Wars story that involves a harvesting
           | mynock guano from various astroids, perhaps with a crime
           | lord.
           | 
           | "You think you can come here and disrespect me, by stealing
           | MY shit?"
        
         | airstrike wrote:
         | That was an interesting read only topped by the wild ride that
         | was the linked article on "New Atlantis":
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Atlantis_(micronation)
         | 
         |  _> New Atlantis was a micronation formed by Leicester
         | Hemingway, the brother of Ernest Hemingway. The  "island", a
         | 240 sq ft (22 m2) bamboo raft off the coast of Jamaica, was
         | established as a constitutional republic on July 4, 1964._
        
           | jshaqaw wrote:
           | My grandfather somehow assisted Hemingway in setting up New
           | Atlantis and the documents declaring him and my grandmother
           | Sir and Lady hang proudly in my living room. As far as I know
           | my family is the sole remaining royal line of New Atlantis.
           | Hilarious that this keeps coming up.
        
             | autoexecbat wrote:
             | Say if you wanted to issue passports for New Atlantis, how
             | do you go about doing that, is there some passport
             | production machine that is purchasable off the shelf?
        
               | whydoineedthis wrote:
               | you could print a passport however you like, but that
               | doesn't mean any other country will recognize it and
               | allow you entry.
        
               | jshaqaw wrote:
               | I can't say this has topic has come up in any recent New
               | Atlantean Royal Council meetings but we would welcome you
               | to make a presentation on the matter.
        
       | photochemsyn wrote:
       | I guess they were trying for an IgNobel Prize? However, they
       | don't report anything on the stability of the catalyst under
       | reaction conditions, that is how many reaction cycles it goes
       | through before losing catalytic effect.
       | 
       | If they don't report the lifetime, it's usually because the
       | lifetime is crap, and all they have is a laboratory curiousity -
       | which might, with futher diligent effort (and please, another
       | research grant!), become industrially useful... maybe.
        
         | VygmraMGVl wrote:
         | There isn't any difference between the guano graphene and the
         | non-guano graphene in terms of structure -- look at figures 1
         | and 2. Figure 2A is clearly 4 of the same spectra because
         | thermal exfoliation in the presence of guano doesn't create a
         | materially different graphene than not in the presence of
         | guano.
         | 
         | The rest of the paper is poking fun at all of the referenced
         | papers that just have inconsistent electrochemical experimental
         | setups that produce apparently increased electrocatalytic
         | effects.
        
       | georgeburdell wrote:
       | Related: graphene grown _from_ crap
       | 
       | https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/nn202625c
        
       | pfdietz wrote:
       | The paper did not answer the question in the title, since it used
       | only one kind of crap. A broader study is called for.
        
         | araes wrote:
         | Using @georgeburdell suggestion below of:
         | https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/nn202625c we need an extensive
         | study of crap grown on crap. 2x2, deuce on deuce. Bull, horse,
         | chicken, swine, goat, sheep, sewer trout. Patty, nugget, loaf,
         | steamer, log, and gravy configurations also need to be
         | explored. Possibly also naturally sourced, like swimming pools,
         | and the River Thames.
        
           | naasking wrote:
           | The age deucine has begun!
        
       | MisterDizzy wrote:
       | I adore that I live in a time where scientific articles have
       | headlines with the word "crap".
        
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