Platonic but not quite

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If you've ever felt you've been followed by some colours, numbers, names, phrases, you know exactly what I mean. These days, I've been under the constant impression that Plato is after me. Yes, Plato (which, surprisingly, is not my guinea pig). How have I reached this outrageous conclusion? Well, my best friend recommended me a book called The Plato Papers, by Peter Ackroyd ( do read it, it's magnificently unexpected). So right now, it's stalking me from my night stand, begging for a bit of my time. And yesterday, my frantic web browsing led me to buckminsterfullerene (for friends, bucky). And what do you know, it's somehow connected to Plato ( and no, the scientist that discovered it was not named Buckminster). The shape of bucky (for scientists, C60 and also a hollow sphere composed of carbon atoms) is that of a geodesic dome (resembling the structures built by Richard Buckminster Fuller). Although some of you might expect a geographical globe with a daisy on top, it is a structure based on what are usually called the Platonic solids (don't worry, I completely ignored their existence until now as well). The fancifully named bodies above are actually regular polyhedra (amongst them, the cube and other well-known acquaintances).
As the world is the small, viruses are also linked to Plato (I'm sure Plato wouldn't have liked that): the shape of some viruses resembles that of some Platonic bodies. But about viruses, and how they make their beautiful envelopes, in a future post.

Platonic but not quite

Bloody 7 AM...and No Coffee

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Have you ever had one of those mornings when you feel you've been dragged to a distant point of the multiverse inhabited by fluffy things that are not your fluffy toys? Well, for me the fluffy place today was located in a universe named No Coffee. Although at this hour I am not sure I can exactly spell it,  No Coffee is the place to be for every masochistic being out there. My landing here is not caused by a kitchen-appliance rebellion, but merely by an unfortunate happening. Last week, my GP announced me that iron doesn't like me. It kind of dislikes my body and runs away as fast as a metal can. But, what iron apparently likes are the polyphenols from coffee, tea and other marvelous beverages (and not my proteins). And yes, although polyphenol antioxidants have been shown to decrease risk of heart disease or to delay certain types of cancer, they do no good thing for my anaemia . Iron from the food I am eating would rather form complexes with the polyphenols from coffee (or tea) than stick to my haem proteins. As iron-polyphenol complexes are nice and big, they cannot enter my bloodstream.
And this is why I have to sacrifice coffee in the mornings(at least for now) for the sake of coordinative chemistry ... Now, the culprits:

Bloody 7 AM...and No Coffee