... and gnashing of teeth in the UK about the lack of?students taking?sciences, particularly physics. But ICIS offspring are bucking the trend in a truly cavalier fashion.? ? After this summer's exam?successes, we ... We have the son of ICIS Houston's Allison F studying in Colorado, and here in England, the son of ICIS boss Jim M, and the Blog's own son and Number One Niece. I must ask all these clever ...

Creative people/artists go through three stages as they develop their art:1. trite appropriation stage: Everybody?s got to start somewhere, and invariably it?s by being a bad copycat. It?s OK, everyone does it, and only the most elite of hipsters will fault you for it. If you?re lucky, you can burn all the evidence when you move on.2. creative ingenuity: Hey, you found your voice, you?re doing ...

The US is on track to deliver the country's second biggest ever corn crop, according to numbers from the US department of agriculture and reported on ICIS news.(Disclosure: I work for ICIS: About ICIS)My pal William Lemos' report says:The USDA said in its monthly report it expects 12.07bn bushels of corn in the 2008/09 crop year. That ...

Here's a nice interesting insight from my colleague John Richardson about China's fast track towards becoming the world's leader in clean technologies. If you're an ICIS subscriber (about ICIS), you can access the whole article in this link. Or you can also read the unedited somewhat similar version on his blog. Otherwise (that is if you don't have the time or just plain lazy to click links), here ...

Merde: are you a merde girl?Originally uploaded by icis machineYes, it?s a hybrid dance mag and catalog.The website merdegirl.com just cracks me up. At least the initial photowork is industrial.For the record the mag is right when it explains that ballet dancers saymerde to say good luck, plus a knee in the bootie.--icis, sk3

Essar's petrochemical plans are slowly taking shape with the company having identified technologies for its cracker and polyolefin units at Jamnagar, Gujarat. ICIS news reported last week that the cracker would be set up in technical collaboration with Lummus And earlier this month, the company was reported to have selected technology from Ineos for its 400,000 tonnes/year hdPE and 400,000 tonnes/ ...