This year marks the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table of Elements, whose inventor is Dmitrii Mendeleev, a Russian physicist who is famous for that achievement but who actually gave enormous contributions to Physics in a number of different areas of experimental research. It is also well known, but actually a misconception, that Mendeleev "invented" the correct recipe for the Russian national drink, vodka. In fact, he studied the mixture of water and alcohol in detail, discovering several of its interesting properties, but vodka was appreciated before him, as it did after.

Scholars analyzing the performance at a large technology firm examined the productivity in a 25-foot radius around their best performers and found that these workers did inspire better performance in coworkers - by 15 percent.

Poor workers impacted their neighbors also, and even more. While “positive spillover” translated into an estimated $1 million in additional annual profits, "negative spillover" from so-called toxic workers was even more pronounced—sometimes having twice the magnitude of impact on profits as positive spillover.

And toxic spillover happens fast. The good news for your team as that its effect dissipates almost immediately once that worker is either fired or relegated to the far physical reaches of the company.

When the FBI first conceived of DNA Technical Leaders as a requirement for CODIS eligibility, it sought to ensure that forensic DNA operations were overseen by individuals with sufficient training, education, and experience.

It also knew that many current supervisors of forensic biology units did not have sufficient credentials.

The emergence of technical leaders in forensic DNA units across the United States created one of the most challenging and complex HR problems in the history of forensic science.

Many unit supervisors who did not qualify as technical leaders no longer had full authority over their own units. Leadership was now shared, if you will, between a supervisor and a technical leader, creating ambiguities in authority.

A fascinating development has emerged in the forensic testing of controlled substances. A "white box" study aimed at establishing error rates for this commonly-practiced forensic discipline is currently underway. Below is my interview with the man who conceived the study, Jeremy Triplett.

Jeremy, you are a former President of the American Society of Crime Laboratory Directors (ASCLD), so you've played an important leadership role in forensic science.  Can you tell us a bit about the white box study recently announced by ASCLD?

First, I want to thank you, John, for inviting me to talk about the study. I’m very excited about it and I appreciate the opportunity to share what we’re doing with your readers.

It’s so good to see some climate scientists at last starting to speak up about the awful over the top things Extinction Rebellion activists are saying, though I wish more would speak up and speak up more strongly.

Here is a meme that may help with sharing:

Yes XR activists, climate change is a serious issue BUT “Please STOP telling kids they may not grow up”

IPCC author Dr Tamsin Edwards

Background image: Smiling child at school by Shlok Nikhil

In the novella The Death of Ivan Ilyich (1886), Leo Tolstoy presents a man who is shocked by suddenly realising that his death is inevitable. While we can easily appreciate that the diagnosis of a terminal illness came as an unpleasant surprise, how could he only then discover the fact of his mortality? But that is Ivan’s situation. Not only is it news to him, but he can’t fully take it in:

Writers are going to find a way to make their work topical. The most important article I ever wrote (in my estimation), in the Wall Street Journal, came out about five weeks after I wrote it, and with a different lede.

The news cycle had kept pushing it back but then a new event occurred which made it compelling and the editor saw the hook and had me redoo it, but the rest was evergreen facts.

Last month, Indonesia’s previous Minister of Research and Technology boasted that in 2019, Indonesia had overtaken Malaysia and Singapore in the number of published academic articles.

This is not a high quality paper, it's riddled with errors. It should never have been on mainstream news or on TV. Those 11,000 scientists are not authors - they are just signatories and one of them is the illustrious professor Micky Mouse of the Micky Mouse Institute of the Blind in Namibia. Of course they removed those names once they were discovered, but this shows how easy it was to add signatures to it.

Climate change is a serious issue but it does no good to promote things like this as if they were on a par with the IPCC reports.

The only section number cite to the IPCC is mistaken, says that it says we need carbon taxes much higher than $15.25 - the actual figure in that section for an example carbon tax together with other measures is $7.

Exercise is recommended for people who are overweight or obese as a way to reduce their risk of developing type 2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But people don’t always have time to exercise as much as they would like, so finding ways to increase the health benefits of exercise is important. Our latest research has found a way to do just that, and it’s to do with timing. This means you might be able to get away with doing less exercise if other commitments, such as family and work, always seem to get in the way.