Four Random Things

A Friday Hodgepodge1. From a news story about the "alien chemistry" found within a meteorite, here's what to do if a meteor strikes your home and you want to help scientific progress:He then immediately preserved and documented the entire scene using disposable gloves and aluminum foil to place the meteorite fragments in glass jars.The surviving rock weighed two pounds and was a rare, and especially interesting type.Well done! 2. At In the Pipeline, Derek Lowe notes that researchers looking to use filtration instead of distillation in parts of the oil refining process were able to make use of a problem inherent in choosing a pore size to filter a substance containing molecules with a wide range of sizes:... [O]ne thing that was noticed quickly was the the initial liquid coming through was still quite dark, but then lightened considerably for the rest of the run. It turns out that a thin layer of higher-boiling material coats the insides of the pores of the PAN membranes as the first…