If Jim Henson Taught Chemistry

I’ve had a few people tell me about this video, and saw it on BoingBoing as well. It’s creative, if not terribly informative, I guess I don’t know what I should expect from something like this. I do know I thought that at least one fuzzy member of the cast might be of help when cleaning glassware.

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Meth and mirror images: errors in Nick Reding’s “Methland”

I recently picked up Nick Reding’s book Methland, which is about the blight of a small Iowa town due to methamphetamine use. I was interested in it because I had heard about it from NPR; I was interested in what Reding had to say about the chemistry of meth synthesis. What I found was pretty amusing.

I should pause to say that Reding was not focused on the chemistry at all — rather, his thesis was that meth was a mere symptom of the devastating effects of global economic forces on a small Iowa town. It’s well written and pretty gripping stuff.

I’m sure I’m not the only chemist who can get distracted by chemical explanations that’s just obviously wrong. But some of the explanations were just terribly, terribly wrong:

“Mirror imaging is a process whereby a chemical’s molecular structure is reversed, moving, for example, electrons from the bottom of a certain ring to the top, and vice versa. Pseudoephedrine, ephedrine, and methamphetamine are already near mirror images of one another. To make meth from ephedrine, it is necessary to remove a single oxygen atom from the outer electron ring. Thus ephedrine and methamphetamine not only look the same under a mass spectrometer, but both dilate the alveoli in the lungs and shrink blood vessels in the nose-hence ephedrine’s use as a decongestant while raising blood pressure and releasing adrenaline. The key difference is that meth, unlike ephedrine, prompts wide-scale releases of the neurotransmitters dopamine and epinephrine.

What the 1997 tests at the University of North Texas showed was that, at least in lab animals, mirror-image pseudoephedrine was equally as effective as regular pseudoephedrine as a decongestant. Unlike regular pseudo, however, the mirror-image version didn’t cause any side effects to the central nervous system, such as high blood pressure and a racing heart: the common “buzz” that one associates with cold medicine. Better yet for Warner-Lambert, mirror-image pseudoephedrine could only be synthesized into mirror-image methamphetamine, which, according to the Oregonian, had no stimulant effects and could not then be made into regular meth.” (quote thanks to Mike the Mad Biologist.)

Where to begin? First of all, “mirror imaging” is not a term; the word you’re looking for is, of course, enantiomers. The explanation about electrons is not correct; you can’t move electrons willy-nilly around rings. The comparison of ephedrine and methamphetamine as mirror images is wrong — they’re not even structural isomers. To make meth from ephedrine, you don’t “remove a single oxygen atom from the outer electron ring” (that sounds like something you do on the planet Zefu), you remove an oxygen and a hydrogen from a side chain by reduction. Ephedrine and methamphetamine most certainly DO NOT look the same under a mass spectrometer; I imagine it’s quite easy to distinguish the peaks from one another. Did Reding’s editor basically make a pass on the science stuff?

Reding’s book relies heavily on a series of articles on the meth epidemic written by Steve Suo of the Portland Oregonian. (If you look in Suo’s articles, you’ll see that Reding basically reworded the somewhat-more-correct chemistry explanation from Suo’s article.) Reding and Suo’s larger point  is that (-)-pseudoephedrine does not generate CNS-active methamphetamine, and that Warner-Lambert (and subsequently, Pfizer) were not interested enough in the larger public health issues to spend the money to push (-)-psuedoephedrine through the FDA approval process when the enantiomer they had was already quite lucrative.

So now that we’ve had a laugh about bad chemistry explanations, a question for everyone: how easy is it to get (-)-pseudoephedrine? The companies in India contacted by Suo said that they could supply ton quantities, no problem. I’m skeptical, but not that skeptical. Anyone out there know about this?

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Wolfram|Alpha as a resource for chemistry basics

In honor of the ACS national meeting in DC, the WolframAlpha blog featured how to use their engine for chemistry. I won’t steal all their thunder so link is below.

Link: Wolfram|Alpha Chemistry 101

Mitch

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Cake From Lab Chemicals

The Nottingham crew that has brought the entertaining hair-stylings of Martyn Poliakoff with their series of Youtube videos on each element in the periodic table (periodicvideos.com) has celebrated its first birthday. In honor of the occasion they made a cake out of lab chemicals. The only non-hazardous labeled materials used were butter and eggs, which are impossible to find an appropriate lab substitute.

Although chemists don’t have a chemistry rock star, Youtube has made Martyn Poliakoff as close as we’ll get. Unless someone is bold enough to go the Paris Hilton route.

Safety Note: The cake baker, Samantha Tang, has no gloves on although she has a lovely accent and introduces me to a new interjection, “Pants!” In the background there are other lab workers without lab coats and their personal protective equipment.

Phil first covered the website earlier this year: The Periodic Table of Videos

Mitch

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Safety Chat: Nitric Acid Waste

We’re going to be taking time out of our regular blogging schedule to remind everyone about better lab safety practices. Recently at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory someone poured isopropanol into an acid waste container of aqua regia. Aqua regia contains nitric acid, and the reaction for those unfamiliar with nitric acid’s oxidizing power is thus,

Due to the pressure in the waste container, the bottle blew and spewed its golden goodness throughout the room. It fractured the safety sash, and could have really hurt someone.

The lessons you should take home:

• Get rid of strong oxidizing acid waste as you generate it.
• Do not trust others near your waste bottles. Don’t let others add to them.
• If you generate strong acid wastes, probably a good idea that everyone from the undergrads and lab techs to the postdocs are made aware of the incompatibility of organics and nitric acid. You can’t expect chemists to have this knowledge anymore.

Mitch

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Consolidating Chemistry Labs

Our lab is consolidating into 2/3 of the space we once had to make room for a new faculty hire starting this fall. That means finding room for all the things that used to fit in much more space. We started by consolidating our inorganic shelves by combining duplicate containers and submitting waste for things we’ll never need.

All of which allowed the opportunity to uncover some really, um, interesting bottles of things.

Talc.  Maybe we’ll refinish our lab counter tops.

Chunk marble.  Seriously.  Quarter sized chunks of marble.  In a labeled bottle.

But the best…..

Oh… 50-75 milliletrs of elemental mercury.  Nice.

Have a great week, everyone.

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Shifting Constants

“]One of the first things that pops up in chemical education at the high school level is stoichiometric equations where a student is supposed to determine such things as yields, coefficients, and amounts of substance on a purely theoretical basis. This quickly becomes old hat for many students. In high school, my stoichiometric technique (if you could call it that) left a lot to be desired. I tended to “divine” my answers on tests and quizzes by playing with numbers until an answer made sense- then using it. It worked surprisingly well- and I got through classes learning very little but with decent grades. At the time, I wasn’t terribly interested in chemistry, and the class really was boring up until the end, where we got to learn about electrochemistry. I didn’t realize at the time that the subject matter wasn’t being done any justice. To me a mole was a mole was a mole. I just knew there were these numbers that I used to divine answers.

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Oxygen, the “Gilligan” of the Periodic Table [Video]

The video was made by Christopher Hendryx as his thesis for Ringling College of Art & Design.
Link: http://vimeo.com/4433312

Mitch

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Survivor: Mechanisms (now accepting logo submissions)

I read an interesting article in May’s issue of J. Chem. Ed. titled “Can Reaction Mechanisms Be Proven?” by Allen Buskirk and Hediyeh Baradaran of BYU.  Intriguing.  So I pop open the pdf and a Note from the Editor is boxed at the top of the page before the article starts.  It says:

“Can Reaction Mechanisms Be Proven?” generated spirited responses from its reviewers. The reviews were approximately evenly divided, and all were of very high quality. The authors agreed with the editor’s proposal that the reviewers convert their reviews into rebuttals or affirmations of the authors’ position for publication along with the article, which has been revised based on the reviews. Most agreed to such a process and their comments appear here. We hope that publication of this paper and well-reasoned rebuttals such as those provided here will initiate a wide-ranging discussion. JCE will provide an online forum for further discussion of the issue. Our hope is that both faculty and students will contribute their opinions and ideas to this discussion. -JWM

Huh.  You don’t usually hear about that happening too often.  So now I had to read the article.  It’s pretty fascinating, and I encourage you to read it all.  I’ll summarize and give my thoughts below the jump

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My Attempt At a Periodic Table

Inspired by azmanam’s recent post, Alternative Periodic Tables, I’ve decided to make my own periodic table. I freely admit I didn’t improve much on the old Mendeleev design. The only unique difference with this table is the color coding for the valence electrons

The Basics
s-blocks are blue, d-blocks are green, p-blocks are shades of purple-pink, f-blocks are red. Black are for the elements that have never been studied chemically.

The Exceptions
The d-metals that are missing an s-electron in their octet are teal (green + blue). The f-metals that have an extra d-electron are brown (green + red). The super brights Palladium and Thorium gained or lost two electrons not in their native octet.

It was always difficult for me to remember where in the periodic table the electron configurations do not conform to what I would naively assume. I would hope this type of periodic table keeps it more in the mind of students.

Mitch

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