Chemistry
jstemwedel | October 19, 2006Things have been busy here, but there are some interesting stories I've been watching that I thought I should mention (as well as the usual fodder for rants, and a cartoon series that might be funny, if it's not just seriously twisted):
A few atoms of element 118 have been created and detected by Russian scientists and scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Labs -- without any fabrication this time, which is good. However, the unofficial name of the new element (ununoctium, which is Latin for "one-one-eight"), needs some work. Yeah, the atoms of 118 lasted less than a microsecond, but…
retrospectacle | October 17, 2006CNN reports a new element, Element 118 as it is tentatively called, has been made using Californium. It is the heaviest element ever recorded, and was only in existence for 1,000 of a second.
The element was created last year in Russia using a minuscule amount of Californium provided by the Americans. After a millisecond, it decayed into element 114, then into element 112 and then split in half, Moody said.
Creating a new element "is sort of the Holy Grail of nuclear physics," said Konrad Gelbke, a scientist who was not on the team but directs the National Superconducting Cyclotron…
jstemwedel | October 4, 2006Following up on my earlier post on Roger D. Kornberg's Nobel Prize in Chemistry, I want to call your attention to this comment from the esteemed Pinko Punko:
Well, in the press conf. Dr. Kornberg stated he absolutely and first and formost views himself as a chemist, and his training (Ph.D.) was under a world famous chemist. He considers himself a physical scientist whose goal is to understand the mechanism at the molecular level of a protein machine. Now, perhaps this is somewhat simple chemistry as many of the steps boil down to hydrogen bonding and electrostatic interactions. You will…
jstemwedel | October 4, 2006As Bora noted, this year's Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Roger D. Kornberg for a piece of research (the molecular basis of eukaryotic transcription) that strikes lots of folks as being within the bounds of biology rather than chemistry.
I can't do an elaborate discourse on this (as I have sprog-related errands I must do this afternoon), but I want to get some initial responses to this on the table:
There is no Nobel Prize in Biology, although there is one in Medicine or Physiology. Do the biologists think Kornberg's research would be a better fit for the Medicine or Physiology…
scientificactivist | October 4, 2006After Monday's announcement of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Medicine or Physiology, followed yesterday by the announcement of the Prize in Physics, the Oscars of the sciences continue today with the awarding of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Chemistry to Roger Kornberg for his work on elucidating the molecular basis of transcription in eukaryotes. This decision is interesting for several reasons. First of all, Kornberg received the full Nobel Prize, not shared with any others, something that is fairly rare and further indicates the importance and breadth of the work he has done. Interestingly,…
terrasig | September 26, 2006Dr Bruce Alberts, recently departed president of the US National Academy of Sciences and Professor of Biochemistry and Biophysics at UCSF, just spoke this morning at a symposium celebrating the 75th anniversary of the Duke University School of Medicine. The overall program is incredible, with four Nobel laureates in three days, plus a number of Lasker Award winners including one of this year's (Linda Grieder).
I'm compelled to put up this quick post on Dr Alberts' talk because of his ambitious plan for improving scientific literacy of the US and the scientific prospects for grad students and…
terrasig | September 12, 2006I have to admit to feeling a bit unnerved by smelling fire all day yesterday, the anniversary of the US terrorist attacks.
Little did I know that we've got a little case of overzealous municipal composting gone awry:
A massive pile of leaves and wood at a city of Durham composting facility ignited over the weekend...Durham officials said in a media release issued Monday that the giant pile of rotting organic matter is thought to have spontaneously caught fire.
I was just reminded over the weekend that alligators make compost piles to generate the heat necessary to incubate their eggs.…
jstemwedel | September 12, 2006I actually have a longish post I'm working on (about whistleblowing), plus a bazillion submissions for the upcoming Skeptics' Circle to sort through, but between teaching and grading and coaching and making lunches, well, there are a bunch of important tidbits that will fall through the cracks unless I give you a random bullets post:
*DonorsChoose is in the middle of a California Back to School Challenge, a drive to raise $250,000 to fund teachers' proposals for California classrooms by September 30 -- and they've lined up matches to double contributions. If you're so inclined, toss them a…
retrospectacle | September 6, 2006For many years, psychiatry has relied on the pharmacological usage of lithium (Li+), alone or in combination with other anti-depressants, as a treatment for bipolar disorder, depression, mania, etc. This, despite the fact that very little is known WHY Lithium works, let alone HOW.
The actual prescribed "dose" of lithium is not a pure metal, but rather as lithium "salts": lithium carbonate, lithium oxybutyrate, lithium sulfate, among others. In 1949, Australian physician John Cade discovered that the administration of lithium salts (lithium urate) in animals resulted in a tranquilizing effect…
retrospectacle | August 26, 2006According to a recent CNN article, a federal judge recently stuck down the Bush administration's request that the laws surrounding pesticide use be relaxed. Yes, they want MORE pesticides and more liberal use of them. I usually stop myself short when I'm tempted to say that the Bush admin hurts America, but this is clear cut. This request would have directly hurt the health of Americans, and the health of endangered species such as wild salmon.
It was the second time in recent years that U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour chastised federal agencies for failing to follow the Endangered…
retrospectacle | August 24, 2006Water is good for a lot of things, from quenching your thirst to reducing the BO levels of your scuzzy roommate. But recent work from the University of Michigan, to be published next week in PNAS, shows that water is also an essential part of a type of cell enzyme called a ribozyme. Ribozymes accelerate chemical reactions inside cells, and are able to change their physical conformation between an 'active' and 'inactive' state.
Previous work in the lab of Dr. Nils Walter has shown that changes which occur anywhere on the ribozyme, even far away from the site of the reaction, change the rate…
jstemwedel | August 15, 2006Walking outside with a well-known local blogger:
WKLB: I never did take a chemistry course.
Me: Why not?
WKLB: I'm not good at memorizing stuff, and there's that whole big periodic table ...
Me: Hey, my memorization skills are pretty worthless, too. But in chemistry, you don't need them as much as you do in a field like biology.
WKLB: Really? You don't ever have to, like, write out the periodic table from memory?
Me: Hell no! The idea is to learn how to turn the periodic table into a device for predicting stuff about the different elements -- like a secret decoder ring. They always…
jstemwedel | August 3, 2006At the request of femalechemist, I'm going to revisit the Sames/Sezen controversy. You'll recall that Dalibor Sames, a professor at Columbia University, retracted seven papers on which he was senior author. Bengu Sezen, also an author on each of the retracted papers and a graduate of the Sames lab, performed the experiments in question.
Sames says he retracted the papers because the current members of his lab could not reproduce the original findings. Sezen says that the experiments reported worked for her and for other experimenters in the Sames lab. Moreover, she says that Sames did not…
retrospectacle | August 2, 2006One only has to turn on a TV, or browse through any news site, to read the story of disgraced Tour de France winner Flloyd Landis. Landis, an American, was reported to have an abnormally high testosterone to epitestosterone ratio in one of his urine samples given right before the end of of the race. Landis has vehemently denied the allegations, and a secondary "backup" test is being conducted; those results will be released this Saturday. If the test again comes up positive, Landis must relinquish his winner's jersey and title (he would be the second to do so). But, what is testosterone…
jstemwedel | August 2, 2006Another dispatch from the BCCE:
The Journal of Chemical Education (or J Chem Ed, as we call it in the biz), is, in fact, targeted to an audience of chemical educators. Its website has the online version of the journal, plus some resources for teachers of chemistry at the ChemEd Resource Shelf. If the full array is too overwhelming, you can check out Hal's Picks monthly recommendations for what to read. You may be surprised at how many of the picks are not officially chemistry (or even science) books, but each of them has some interesting, useful, or funny connection to matters scientific.…
jstemwedel | August 1, 2006It was another full day at the BCCE, starting with an excellent plenary address by Peter Atkins (who wrote my p-chem text, plus dozens of other books) and David Harpp (of the Office of Science and Society). Each of them spoke about the best ways to talk about science with people who are not scientists, science teachers, or science students. Some highlights after the jump.
Atkins, it turns out, is not just a scientist and author, but also an accomplished artist. So, it's probably not surprising that he sees the most promising route for spreading chemical understanding as a visual route. A…
jstemwedel | July 31, 2006I'm blogging again from the lovely Vienna Cafe in West Lafayette, Indiana, at the end of Day 2 of the BCCE. I gave my own talk this afternoon as part of symposium session on incorporating ethics in the chemistry curriculum (along with 5 other very interesting talks). I think it went well, but I always enjoy conferences more when I've finished my presenting and can be an undistracted audience for the other presentations.
Below the fold, some of the things I learned in today's various talks and events:
People who do their research in chemical education are often marginalized or ignored by…
jstemwedel | July 30, 2006Greetings from the BCCE! Well, actually from a cafe down the street from the BCCE, since the wireless accounts that were supposed to be set up for conference goers are not currently functional. (The lengths to which I'm willing to go to satisfy my readers!) The immediate result of this situation is it will take comments a bit longer to go up.
But, I have gathered (from the talks on how to convey the "nature of science" to students) some fun facts about famous chemists.
Mendeleev (who came up with the periodic table) liked cowboy novels and hated Dostoyevsky. He never believed in electrons…
scientificactivist | July 28, 2006From the archives:
(19 March 2006) Genetic engineering holds a great deal of promise, from potentially curing a variety of human ailments to addressing nutritional deficiencies through transgenic crops. One project even aims to engineer into bacteria the ability to generate a variety of alternative fuels. When it comes to genetic engineering and its emerging potential, it seems that the only real limit to the field is that it can only be used to design or improve something that is actually alive.
Despite this "limitation," some scientists have found that the raw material used in genetic…
jstemwedel | July 26, 2006This morning, I finished making the slides for a talk I'm giving at the BCCE at Purdue next week. (Any of you chemists or chemical educators in the audience planning on being there?) I feel very proud of myself for having the slides written and ready to use days before I even board the plane. I'm even sufficiently enthusiastic that I may just start writing a paper-version of the content I'll be giving in my talk.
That brings me to my question for academics and others who work in the media of "paper" and "presentation":
Which do you typically write first?
Do you write a paper first and…