The Future is Here

Hey Coroneneketeers,

That didn't have a very good ring to it, did it? Oh well. We're moving to our own domain! Check out the new CBC here!

The Blogger blog will stay here as an archive for all these old posts, but we're going to start posting over at the new site from now on... unless we decide to move all the posts over there (read: fat chance).

Enjoy! Feedback is encouraged!

Friday Potpourri

Just a few things to sate your appetite for the ol' CBC this weekend:

• James Watson, as it turns out, is a complete prick. Shocking. Given his treatment of Rosalind Franklin in The Double Helix, frankly nothing that comes out of this man's mouth surprises me- he's always had a lack of tact. The concept of "race" is a purely socioeconomic one, which has a long, sordid, awful history in this country. No amount of science is going to fix that. If Watson has his way, such science would only make things worse.


I think this is a point worth repeating. There are some things that science can't fix. Race discrimination is undoubtedly one of those things.


• Roger Kornberg does chemistry! Who knew? *epic lulz* In an incredible paper that came out in Science this week, the Kornberg group isolated and got a crystal structure of a gold nanoparticle with 102 Au atoms capped by 58 mercaptobenzoic acid ligands. Given the difficulty of generating sufficiently monodisperse nanoparticles to even make crysals, this is quite an achievement. A great read! (thanks to anonymous for the tip, whoever you are.)



• Another cool paper from Advanced Materials, aka that one journal with the awesome research and no supporting information: the Japanese have succeeded in fabricating a gel that walks. On its own. Using metal redox chemistry and no biologicals. I, for one, submit to our walking jelly overlords, which I suspect will take over Japan, and soon the world, in the next twenty years.



• In the "yet another paper on carbon nanotubes" department, a Nano Letters paper from the Burke group at UCI, where they made a carbon nanotube radio. The nanotube acts as the AM demodulator of the radio source, and they even made a video demonstrating how it works with those newfangled iPods all the kids have nowadays. The music choice is pretty dumb (it was like muzak or something- why not some real music?), but the concept is cool.


EDIT: The video is on YouTube! woot



• And finally, in the self-congatulatory deparment, an article in this week's Science about this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry going to Gerhard Ertl has the following quip:
  
  "In an earlier phone interview with Science, Ertl was quick to offer credit to fellow researchers. His field, he says, was propelled by the parallel development of many surface characterization techniques. And, he adds, many scientists were adept at applying them--including Gabor Somorjai of the University of California, Berkeley, with whom he shared the 1998 Wolf Prize in Chemistry for their work in surface science. "I was a little bit disappointed he didn't share [the Nobel Prize] with me," Ertl says. Last week, several chemistry bloggers went further, arguing that Somorjai deserved recognition for his vital role in laying the foundations of surface science."
  
  So basically 1. Gerhard Ertl is a nice guy; 2. Ertl also thinks Somorjai should have won; 3. Apparently the chemblagosphere whined loud enough about this that Science took notice and felt it necessary to add that last part in. I feel partly responsible. Yay me!

There, that should keep you occupied for the weekend. See you Monday!

Nobody Cares Who I Think Should Get A Nobel

EDIT: Gerhard Ertl won the Prize for Chemsitry this year. Well-deserved on his part, and I'm glad surface chemistry is being recognized this year, but the fact that Somorjai and Whitesides didn't win is, in my professional opinion, 'tarded. Oh well. Like Kyle said, the Nobel is a silly thing anyway.

First off, suck it Bush. Suck it long and suck it hard. I say that a lot, but why this time? Because pioneering work in embryonic stem cell research and its impact on gene therapy was awarded with a Nobel Prize in Medicine today. Bush's veto of the embryonic stem-cell research bill last year and today's Nobel announcement further illustrates the divide between scientific progress and the Bush Administration's policies. While the Nobel was for research on mice, and the ban on human stem cells, the announcement still shows the importance of stem cells in gene research.

Anyway. They're announcing the Nobel Prize in Chemistry on Wednesday, which means it's time for speculation- one can debate the usefulness of such speculation (ok whatever it's a worthless waste of time), but it sure is fun. I'm not banking on a prize in materials chemistry or organic chemistry, based on the chemistry selection committee, a hodgepodge of p-chemists and biologists with umlauts in their names. However, most of the work I do, and the work of many people who do work on novel materials, is centered around the truly pioneering work of three chemists who, in my opinion (and, after five minutes of discusion with Ψ*Ψ, her opinion as well) are highly deserving of the Nobel Prize. This is meant on no way to predict who the winner will be on Wednesday. I am neither Swedish nor broadly knowledgeable in all areas of chemistry (especially the molecular biology aspects), but go here if you wanna place your bets.

George Whitesides and Ralph Nuzzo. I call Whitesides the world's smartest chromedome. He might object to that, but I have yet to find evidence to the contrary. If they do get the Nobel, it will be for their research on self-assembled monolayers. (That paper, according to Web of Science, has been cited over 2,100 times.) However, Whitesides has been a pioneer in nearly everything he's had his hand in, from his early work on C-H activation in metals to soft lithography to, more recently, multi-ligand interactions in enzymes (well, I thought it was neat). But his work on self-assembled monolayers is Nobel-worthy. It's had a large impact on the miniaturization of electronic devices as well as simply being a simple method for creating ordered monolayers on conductive substrates. Another pioneer in surface chemistry has been Gabor Somorjai, whose work on studying surface metal-metal interactions and metal-organic interactions on the atomic level has also had a huge impact on surface chemistry.

Richard Heck. Heck's work needs no introduction to organic chemists. Most noted for the reaction that bears his name, Heck's work on palladium catalysis preceded pretty much everyone else's at the time. The Suzuki reaction? Heck's work set the stage for that. The Sonogashira reaction? Heck did it first (without the copper). Seeing as both academia and industry have benefitted from palladium-catalyzed organic reactions, Heck certainly deserves a Nobel for this early work that led to some of the most important reactions of the late 20th century. (Metathesis was honored two years ago, which, while important, hasn't had half the impact palladium has.) Plus, Heck's getting up there in age, so they need to get it to him quickly.

So that's what I think. In my professional (?) opinion, neither of them will win the Nobel, and it'll be given to people whose research I don't really care about (I has an idea lets give it to another biologists lol).

I'm like a fly Malcom X, buy any jeans necessary

For a limited time (ie. right up until the first cease-and-desist letter), I'll make my seminar presentation available as a, I dunno, service to the chemical community? The names, as well as some of the layouts (for those of you who were there) are different, to protect the innocent (and guilty) and because I had a bunch of very tasteful animations that needed to be deconvoluted for this handout. Otherwise, it's pretty much the same thing.

As I've mentioned before, my seminar was a brief survey on cruciform pi-systems, focusing on three systems and their applications to nonlinear optics and ion sensing. The three systems don't have much in common with one another (I got creamed on that by some profs), but it's an interesting structural motif. Hopefully it serves as a gateway into the study of these compounds, which might prove interesting to some of you. There's isn't much in the way of review articles for this structural motif, so think of it as a gateway.

Enjoy! (If there are errors, mistakes, you hate it, etc.- please leave a comment. You will be judged accordingly. Harshly.)

happy birthday!

...to CBC. We started on September 30, 2006--well, I started, Excimer wasn't around until November or so--and somewhat miraculously, a year and 170 posts later, people actually read this. If you want, you can go back to teh archive and look at the beginnings...but I'd rather you not because this "writing" thing didn't go so smoothly until CBC picked up a coauthor.
Is a year too early to ask for you to buy us iPods, readers? (Kidding.)

if i go too long without posting i feel lazy

...so here's a picture. Yes, it's a rather boring yellow-brown color, which means, in my lab, it must be a synthetic intermediate of some sort and not a final product. I've never seen anything that gave the little swirlies like you see here, though, which is why it deserved a picture. Unfortunately, I don't know exactly what this IS yet, but it should hopefully get shot into the GC/MS tomorrow.

It's always nice when something crystallizes on the rotavap--lets you know it's squeaky clean. I know someone here who was extremely lucky and got single x-rayable crystals from the rotavap. Wish I had awesome crystal karma like that.

Oh, and speaking of lazy, where are your entries for the lolnano contest??? We've received a few, and they're pretty funny, but they're terribly lonely and would like more friends. Yes. We require more submissions! Mwahaha!

My Dog and Pony Show

...is over. My seminar was tonight and it went over very well, both profs and students were complimentary. I'll do a post on cruciform pi-systems (my seminar topic) later, but just to give you an idea of what my seminar was on... remember this pic?



Yeah, that thing in front of the lolcats? That's a cruciform pi-system developed by Mike Haley's group. They do some interesting things- high optical nonlinearities, really fluorescent... but more importantly, they're PURTY-COLORED. But that post will have to wait for another time, as I just cleared the second-biggest hurdle for o-chem grad students here (after third-year prelims) and, quite frankly, I'm going to spend a night or three not giving a shit about this topic, as I've been preparing for this talk for the past month. I'll see you guys then. (also I might need to get back to doing research... I hear that's why you go to grad school, but I keep hearing mixed reviews.)

If you guys want a copy of my seminar slides, I'd be more than happy to oblige, but gimme a week or so to fix them up (lots o' animations and such made the printouts funky). Just email me. Cruciforms are a really interesting set of molecules, even if they're not terribly useful. Yet.

ChemComm: The Organic Materials Journal

ψ*ψ won't post it, so I will:

A new functionalization strategy for pentacene

Enjoy. Do pay close attention to the authors. ;)


(so the score is now: ψ*ψ 1, Excimer 0. I'd like to say I'm working on that, but... seminar... *gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaag*)

lolnano contest!

Following one of our last posts, one of the commenters (thanks, Russ!) had an idea. We're stealing it! CBC is hosting a lolnano-themed Chemdraw (or ISIS, or whatever you use) contest.

Rules:
1. All entries must be the original work of the person who submits them. (On the honor system, of course.)
2. Structures must be reasonable. (If we see five bonds to carbon, we'll send the ninjas after you.) Vetoed by Excimer. The following would be acceptable:

3. Must have a caption (lolcats-style).
4. Send entries (gif, jpg, png, bmp, tif attachment, or a link) to jes dot carbon at gmail dot com with only LOLNANO in the subject line. Include your real name or an alias of some sort so we can identify you.
5. No more entries after September 21st. We'll argue over the entries and pick a few winners. These will get posted. (We might also post the others, but there's no guarantee.)

Here's an example (from the Holland group at Rochester) to get you started. Have fun!

Putting molecules on lolcats

Check out Kutti's screencast on playing with chemdraw structures with Photoshop. With his easy instructions, how to turn a regular, boring old lolcat picture into an exciting one with a glowing molecule, like I did here:



I can has cruciform? LOLZ!!!11oneone11!1!11eleven


(real post coming tomorrow...)

return to organicland

Apologies for the hiatus--I've been busy packing and flying home.[1] I have no pictures and no content for this post, but since I'm back in the land of brightly colored aromatic things, you can expect a nice picture within the next few days. There's something I'm working on that glows a bright green colour (oops, the green glow is from a byproduct, but it's still pretty when it's crude). If I am very lucky, you may also see some shiny red crystals. Everything I am working on is red. It's not intentional.

[1] I have no idea what Excimer is doing, but I suspect that the subject of the last post might have caused his head to asplode.

Some Things Are Just Better Without Context

Um

I, uh... what? Last time I checked, something that's 102% pure... isn't pure. Rookie mistake, guys. (Yes, I'm sure there's a perfectly reasonable explanation for this, but c'mon. Citric acid doesn't have 102% of itself anywhere. Ever.)

Also, we hit (half of a tenth of) A MILLION visitors this week! Thanks for reading our blog, guys.

another post devoid of content

I'm not in the mood to write a lit post, possibly because I'm headed off to San Francisco this weekend. (Readers in the area, if you're free on Saturday and comment with a place and a time before we head out, my friend and I will try to meet you there for coffee.) So, in lieu of anything serious (something serious is planned, incidentally), you get a picture instead.




This is from an SEM image taken last week. All I did was add color. The SEM is, by far, my favorite toy this summer. Enjoy the icebergs and the lack of content.

you know you miss synthetic chemistry when...

After an uneventful first few weeks here, I almost started two fires today. While it isn't very difficult to do that in an organic lab, it is not an easy task when working on the physical-chem side of materials.

It will definitely be the highlight of my entire summer.

In the future, everyone will be famous for five minutes

Excimer is on the Nature Chemistry Podcast!!! You know you want to listen...

The part about chemistry blogging starts about five minutes in, and also features the sultry voices of Kyle from The Chem Blog, and Josh Finkelstein, senior editor of Nature.

This might be the only post where the pic is bigger than the post. That's ok though.

i <3 chemglass

All apologies for the lack of posts lately. Excimer is on vacation, and I've been packing in preparation for a summer research program.[1] More than likely you'll see a barrage of lit posts over the next few weeks as I familiarize myself with (yet another) a new lab and a new research area (well, sorta new).

In the meantime, this is all I can post for now. It's what happens if you meet a really nice exhibitor at a conference. The people behind the tables appear to be very bored most of the time (my own experiences with tabling confirm this observation). You should talk to them. Most of the time, they have free toys to give out, but usually it's limited to magnets and pens and maybe candy. Some people, of course, have better toys than others.

Yay for Chemglass. I'm hiding this so no one steals it.

[1] I know I have readers in the Santa Barbara area. Guess what? One of you gets to teach me how to surf. :)

is it can be open thread time?

Final exams are almost over for both of us at CBC, which means less fluff posts and more chemistry in the near future.[1] Until then, though, I have a few questions for anyone who might be reading this.

Unlike many other chemistry bloggers, I'm still an undergrad. There are about 2.25 years between me and starting grad school. Unlike most undergrads, I'm in the position of having about 200 people per day, most of them chemists, read what I write.[2] These unfortunate souls These super-awesome readers also happen to be familiar with my research interests. While I already have a list compiled of literature stalking victims potential advisors, it's going to get longer before it gets shorter. (I should probably take my stalking to the next level start emailing a few people in the near future as well.)

So I'm seeking your advice in finding a few people I might be overlooking. If you know of anyone who is doing wonderful things in an interesting field, you should definitely start throwing names in my direction.[3] Alternatively, if you had a beyond-awesome graduate advisor, I'd be interested in hearing who they are as well. (Of course, if you had a terrible advisor, you're really better off not saying anything. At least not here.)

Even if you should choose to be unhelpful, here is an open thread. Do with it what you will...

[1] This is fortunate. If we got any more desperate, we would have to resort to the death match. (Of course, the ninja would win anyway. Right?)
[2] Probably most of them are here to read Excimer's stuff and not mine. I know I am...
[3] Interesting to me. This means materials-related work in organic or physical chemistry.

Bad news

Looks like I didn't get that C&EN internship. Oh well. Better luck next year, I guess. I'm sure whoever did get it doesn't deserve it (kidding!). Anyway, if anyone has any fun science writing internships/opportunities/stories/nightmares they'd like to share, please do. But, if you're worried Excimer's feelings of elitist dejection are past him with this losing battle, not to worry! He also applied for an NSF graduate fellowship which he'll be finding out he didn't get at some point in the next couple of weeks. Stay tuned!

Happier post planned for tomorrow.

EDIT: I didn't get NSF funding either. But neither do a lot of people.

She'll probably get mad at me but...

It's ψ*ψ's birthday. Happy birthday, you complex conjugate.

Here's a kitty



And another one just cause

What do you want from us???

News flash: This little blog has been around for a little over five months and has seen a few over 10,000 visitors. Writing was a little more easy in the beginning, since no one was actually reading it. Now we're having a little trouble. It's not easy to keep coming up with things to write about, you know. Some input, maybe?

Free polls from Pollhost.com

CBC needs post topics! What sounds interesting? (Pick ALL that apply...)

Quick & easy reactions Colourful solutions Kinky glassware Interesting papers Devices Crystallography Nano___ Supramolecular design Polymers Icky metals Cork ring! Kittens Death match between psi-star-psi and Excimer

There won't REALLY be a death match. But you can vote for it anyway. Kittens remain a possibility, though.