The New York Times asked Jimmy Wales, a co-founder of Wikipedia, for his help when David Rohde was kidnapped and the news was being posted.

Exclusive: Bill Nye the Science Guy was gracious enough to elbow Matt out of the way and write a Giz Explains column, in which he tackles the science of "oleophobia," and its relation to the new iPhone screen.

The new 3GS iPhone has a coating that helps you leave no, well hardly any, prints–-fingerprints. The glass screen is coated with a polymer, a plastic that human skin oil doesn't adhere to very well. People in the chemical bonding business like to call the finished surface "oleophobic."

Such a lovely Greek cognate may sound like it means "afraid of oil." And, it does, but it also connotes (or carries with) "aversion" or "not-like-to-be-around-tivity," if I may. Instead of sticking to the bonded-plastic surface of your new phone, the oil from you fingers or cheekbone or tip of your nose stays more or less together as its own smooshed droplet.

The Applers were able to do this by bonding this oleophobic polymer to glass. The polymer is an organic (from organisms) compound, carbon-based. The glass is nominally inorganic, silicon-based… solid rock. The trick is getting the one to stick to the other. Although it is nominally proprietary, this is probably done with a third molecule that sticks to silicon on one side and to carbon-based polymers on the other side. Chemical engineers get it to stay stuck by inducing compounds to diffuse or "inter-penetrate" into the polymer. The intermediate chemical is a "silane," a molecule that has silicon and alkanes (chains of carbon atoms).

If you'd like—and I hope you will—take a moment and think about droplets, like water droplets, on a surface. Deep in the droplet, water molecules stick to each other. On the surface though, they stick to each other as well, but they also have to opportunity to stick or not to stick to the surface they're resting on. When they stick, say to the nylon fibers in a bikini strap, the swimsuit feels wet (or so I'm told). When they don't stick to the surface they're resting on, they bead up, like in the car wax commercials.

Well, the polymer that the 3GS iPhone screen is coated with doesn't let the oil of your skin stick to it very much. So, you don't leave fingerprints. The key is in the intermediate compounds, the silanes that hold the plastic to the glass.

So grab a hold of one, and for a change, watch almost nothing happen. It's chemistry.

Thanks so much, Bill! Written for Gizmodo - Copyright 23 June 2009 - Bill Nye The Science Guy®

What's next, a tax on each sip of office coffee?

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it's guest week, which means tons of dinosaur comics by cartoonists I admire! woo!

Project Wonderful - Your ad here, right now, for as low as $0.00

June 8th, 2009: This week is a GUEST WEEK! It's where I went up to some cartoonists I admire and said "Hey would you like to do a Dinosaur Comic? You can do whatever you want, HONEST" and they said "YES, [WE] WILL!" and here we are! I am excited for these. Here's how it's going to go down!

Monday: Carly Monardo of Whirring Blender!
Tuesday: Ben Driscoll of Daisy Owl!
Wednesday: Zach Weiner of Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal!
Thursday: Michael Firman of Moe!
Friday: Andrew Hussie of MS Paint Adventures!

this is gonna be awesome guys i can FEEL IT

A prototype device converts ambient electromagnetic radiation into energy.

The Red Sox got some positive news on the injury front Monday, learning that Jacoby Ellsbury has no structural damage in his right shoulder and that David Ortiz's vision is fine.

To determine who would play center field and who would play right field after Jacoby Ellsbury left Sunday's game, Red Sox outfielders Rocco Baldelli and Mark Kotsay tried a unique and fun method, engaging in a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.

I just invented a new holiday. It's called Negative Christmas. On this day, rather than giving gifts, you can force a family member or friend to discard one item that he or she already owns. The selected item might be a hideous shirt that you consider an abomination, or that pair of bedroom slippers that are an insult to all footwear. The idea is that the unrecipient should be better off without the item you ungift.

For example, let's say you have a single friend who has a collection of Star Wars memorabilia and also complains that he can't get a woman to stay the night. You could help by making him give away the full-sized wookie that he keeps next to his dresser. When the next Negative Christmas rolls around you could go after the collection of light sabers he keeps over his mantle. It might take you a few years to make any difference in his love life, but think of it as a project.

For real Christmas, people often give gifts of clothing or accessories so the recipient will look attractive. For Negative Christmas you could pay a crazy guy with tattoos to punch your friend in his soft tissue every time he eats a Big Mac or skips going to the gym. In the long run it will help your friend more than a new necktie.

During Negative Christmas there will be no need for vacuous greeting cards or festive salutations. For the entire month leading up to Negative Christmas you are expected to avoid eye contact and mumble insults about everyone you encounter. Ask yourself what would make you happier: 1. Getting a cheap greeting card or, 2. Calling someone a trout-faced bastard under your breath.

Negative Christmas would be every June 25^th, on the opposite side of the calendar from Christmas. You would celebrate by planting a tree instead of killing one, and saving your money for yourself instead of blowing it on worthless crap for others.

Who's with me?

Even ugly rock stars have groupies. Kid Rock comes to mind. It's the same with famous actors and powerful politicians. The usual explanation for this phenomenon is that evolution predisposes women to seek alpha males who can produce excellent children and then protect them.

But that doesn't explain the occasional ugly guy with no job, and no ambition, who has inexplicable success with women. My hypothesis is that the common factor is a lack of fear. When women see a man who is apparently not afraid, in a situation where most people would be, that triggers the "must have your child" reaction.

If I asked you what a rock star and a cop have in common, you might say they both have power, and that is the part that attracts women. But how do you explain the appeal of firemen? Fire fighters aren't particularly powerful in society, yet they are like catnip to women. I think it has to do with their lack of fear.

Likewise, while the appeal of "bad boys" might have something to do with the fact that elevated testosterone levels are implicated in both bad behavior and sexual attraction, bad boys are also relatively unafraid of consequences. I think that is part of it.

To trigger sex appeal, being unafraid isn't limited to physical risks. Rock stars and business executives perform in front of crowds and risk only embarrassment and financial consequences. My hypothesis is that any man who has a high tolerance for risk of any sort is naturally attractive to women.

Lack of fear should not be confused with confidence. A man who is confident about things unimportant, such as his rightness of opinion, isn't exhibiting a lack of fear. Confidence only attracts women when it is applied to situations where real risk is involved.

You might wonder why evolution would favor those who take risks. Risk takers tend to die young. But when they don't die, they accomplish more for the tribe than all the cautious people combined. So I can see why nature encourages risk.

This hypothesis seems quite testable.