For many people, chemical reactions may mean tedious laboratory work and complex equations. But Liang Yan, creator of the award-winning series Beautiful Chemistry and Envisioning Chemistry, has made them fall in love with chemistry.
Liang Yan/online photo
online photo
Liang's videos reveal stunning details that are sometimes invisible to human eyes. Under the microscope, people see metals, such as magnesium, lithium, and iron powders burn like trees and flowers.
The videos were highly recommended by Time.com, which says that "even though chemistry is not your subject and you are asleep for the whole class, you'll still fall in love with it after watching Beautiful Chemistry."
online photo
online photo
The goal is to let more people know that chemistry is a very beautiful subject, said Liang, a scientist with a background in chemistry. Liang graduated from Tsinghua University and got a doctorate degree in chemistry from the University of Minnesota in the United States.
He wants more people to feel the same wonder and excitement he felt when he first witnessed the magnificent reaction between a drop of silver nitrate and sodium chloride.
online photo
online photo
Taking advantage of his proficiency in photography, Liang started making videos.
A cuvette was used to hold the chemical reactions, because its surface is smooth, and could vividly display the visual effects of the reactions, Liang said.
online photo
online photo
Before Liang, a lot of people had videotaped similar chemical reactions. But by letting the process happen in test tubes, it was hard to see the beauty of the reactions with the naked eye, due to distractions caused by reflections or distortions.
Liang and his colleagues didn't add special effects to the videos in order to honestly reflect the chemical reactions.
DENVER (AP) — Colorado’s Democrat governor said Thursday that he is providing state aircraft and vehicles to help with changing voting system passwords that were accidentally leaked on a state website.
The mistake comes amid skepticism of voting systems, even though U.S. election nationwide remain fair and reliable.
The passwords were left on a spreadsheet online for months, Colorado Secretary of State Jena Griswold announced on Tuesday. Now, local, state and federal agencies are working together to change the passwords by Thursday evening, and analyze logs to ensure there hasn’t been any tampering.
The Colorado County Clerks Association said in a statement that because Colorado's voting systems have layers of safeguards, and with the remediation plan already in motion, “county clerks can say with confidence that Colorado elections are secure."
Former President Donald Trump’s campaign sent a letter to Griswold to express concern, which followed a similar letter from the chairman of the Colorado GOP. Griswold responded in a letter Thursday evening, saying that because of the many security levels, “no single error can compromise the integrity of the system,” and reiterated that the leak presents “no immediate threat.”
Griswold has called Colorado the gold standard for election security, though the leaked spreadsheet follows a hiccup in 2022.
Colorado's other voting security measures include around-the-clock surveillance, badge-guarded access, and multiple passwords that must be used in-person and in secured areas — the access to which is tracked. Colorado voters fill out paper ballots, which are audited after the election.
The voting system was "built with many layers of security to protect against just this type of occurrence,” said Matt Crane, the association's executive director and a former Republican county clerk. “Every clerk is taking this issue seriously and is staying laser-focused on delivering the safe and accurate elections that Coloradans have come to expect from us."
Those tasked with changing the compromised passwords are working in pairs, under direct observation from local election officials, according to a statement from Colorado Gov. Jared Polis’ office.
“We want to be able to provide assurances that all votes are counted fairly and accurately for this election and all elections,” Polis said.
“Colorado has countless layers of security to ensure voter’s voices are heard. I’m thankful to the governor for his support to quickly resolve this unfortunate mistake,” Griswold said.
Stickers for voters sit in a roll on a ballot box at a voting drop-off location Friday, Oct. 25, 2024, in Washington Park in Denver. (AP Photo/David Zalubowski)
