Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category:
PDFs and Reference Management Systems
by azmanam on Jun 23 2009 (2485 Views)
A two part post piggybacking on Phil’s printing post from last month. The first part is a quick list of indispensible (and FREE) tools you simply must have if you work with PDFs on a regular basis, and I assume we all do. One allows you to make PDFs from anything, and the other allows you to annotate any PDFs anywhere. The second part of the post is an overview of a relatively new reference management system I’ve been using for about a year now called Zotero. If you don’t know about it, you will soon. Catch both parts below the jump. Read more »
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Talking to Guests
by Phil on Jun 18 2009 (378 Views)Whenever a guest speaker is invited to my institute, it is the custom for a few members of our group to speak with him/her about their projects. Normally you have a time slot of about 15 minutes.
It is always a good idea to check the guest’s home page first, in order to find out what topics he will be particularly interested in. For instance, somebody doing research in a biological field will not want to know all the details of my synthesis. On the other hand, a synthetic chemist will not be interested in the invasive mechanism of the bug I’m fighting. By now I have a small presentation of abot 20 slides, of which I will focus on the ones most interesting to the guest.
I always like it best when the guests show some interest and ask questions. In those cases I stop giving a “talk” and enter into the discussion. Sometimes the questions are really hard to answer, but they are always very interesting because they look at my work from a new angle. If I get into a real discussion, the usual quarter of an hour seems like a very short time! It can be a pity to have to stop a good conversation because other people are waiting on the other side of the door, waiting to see the guest.
Breaking Stuff for Science
by maz on Jun 16 2009 (1798 Views)Most chemists will agree, a chemical spill on the floor is one of the most annoying things to have to deal with in a lab. With LBL policy, you have to adhere to the SWIMS protocol: Stop work, Warn others, Isolate the area, Monitor yourself, Stay in the area. Not to mention using the correct spill kit, dealing with all the paperwork of the spill and the opening of the spill kit, explaining to the safety people what happened and why (hopefully) it wasn’t your fault, etc.
Aside from making sure your people are competent and well trained, not much is often done to prevent spills. Engineering controls such as secondary containment, fume hoods, capped reagent bottles, etc. work well when people remember and plan to use them. All too often, we see good chemists forgo extra safety steps for speed or just plain old laziness. Sometimes, people get badly hurt not because they were bad chemists or bad scientists, but because they really needed to catch the 6:40 train that day.
What we need are more safety devices that prevent the accident caused by a failure of the preventative safety measures from being very dangerous. For example, take these safety-coated reagent bottles from VWR. They have some plastic coating (PVC I think) outside of the glass to prevent spills even if the glass shatters. Sure some solvents would eat through the coating, but it would still buy you time to contain the spill, or evacuate the room if necessary.
Recently, with LBL’s current safety kick, our lab ordered 40 of these babies to replace our older reagent bottles. Interestingly though, the coating is really hard to see. In fact, when we first examined the bottles there was a dispute between some lab members as to whether we received the correct shipment or not.
Here is how the bottle looked, next to a typical graduate student size scale:
Being scientists however, Mitch and I knew that we couldn’t just take VWR’s word that we now had safety-coated reagent bottles. We needed to test whether it really had the safety-coating, whether the coating would actually stay intact after an impact strong enough to break the glass inside, and whether the coating would feel weird if we poked with our finger.
So, using my safety training, I put the reagent bottle into a plastic bag, and put the plastic bag inside a phototray. Note the secondary and tertiary containment.
I went and found a big wrench, donned my safety goggles, lab coat, nitrile gloves and put the soon to be destroyed bottle durability testing apparatus into a fume hood with the sash half open. I then proceeded to smash it to pieces. It was a good day of science.
Here is the result after a good beating. The safety-coating is quite clearly visible now, along with the area where the hole would be, if the coating wasn’t still covering it. The interior glass shattered as expected, but the safety-coating simply flexed a bit and recovered. Also, no sharp pieces of glass pierced the coating, so the contents of the bottle would have been contained. It took a significant amount of effort with some sharp tweezers to illustrate the intact film of the coating. We also confirmed our hypothesis that poking the film with our finger would feel weird. The bottle met our expectations in all tested categories. It also looked really cool and took a great picture.
So in our effort to make the lab safer, we tested and confirmed the usefulness of these safety-coated reagent bottles in an easily repeatable scientific experiment. Tests would have been done in triplicate, however funding was abruptly cut off when we attempted to share our findings with others in the lab. We recommend the safety-coated bottles for use throughout the chemistry lab. All waste was disposed of in coordinance with EH&S protocol.
Existential crisis of a post-doc appointment (updated)
by noel on Jun 15 2009 (1477 Views)This month has been exceptionally busy around my group. My PI is currently on a 2-week trip to Norway and Germany[1] and before that, we were trying to get a ton of hiring business out of the way. My experience in the past couple weeks actually had quite an eye-opening effect on me.
A little back-story on my current work situation, I have been working at this lab full time (40h/wk) since last May. We are an engineering support facility with a few side chemistry and material projects. Because of the corporate nature of the facility, my work has been both well compensated and intellectually fulfilling.
The nature with this facility means that we hardly ever get grad students. 15% of the employees here are temporary (i.e. post-doc and interns). Ten percents are summer interns with employment of about ten weeks. The direct consequence of a lab that is not attached to a university has the need to constantly replenish its labor supply. While this means we gets fresh takes on things from all the new people, I also see the struggle of Ph.D.s in job market played out frequently. And as someone who is just dipping her toes in the idea of graduate school, this is quite daunting.
Anyway, I guess we have room for yet another post-doc.
Last Monday, I was sitting in the back of the conference room during a technical seminar on the grad school research of a post-doc candidate while sipping on my morning tea. The candidate was visibly nervous, frequently stuttering and wiping the beads of sweat at his forehead. In the next three days, the same thing took place. The seminar, the lab tour, the lunch, the non-stop interviews; as I did my best to be hospitable, my mind wanders, and I couldn’t help but keep coming back to the same thoughts:
- I wonder if he knew that his voice was cracking and shaking
- Does he need more water? It looks like he’s out of water
- Everything sounds more interesting in a southern accent, even pchem
- Isn’t it sad that you can summarize the past 4 to 6 years of your life in a 45-minute PowerPoint presentation?
- It’s her third post-doc? Really?
- I guess it doesn’t matter how well qualified you are, the guy that went to the most well ranked school will probably get the job
- I wonder if they understand that they are constantly judged, when we walk them between buildings, when we take them out to lunch, by anyone and everyone
- All for two more years of being replaceable, is it worth it?
Is it?
Noel
[1] It’s been a known fact that my PI forgot/failed/was too lazy to renew his training so he lose his access to our lab room. We were all happy that he had to knock and wave to get someone’s attention to be let in. Recently, he realize that we often leave the back door open to get solvents from the dock. Now he ambush us from the back door. Anyway my point of the story is that we always feel the need to fidget (more likely on unproductive tasks) when he’s around. I guess I can finally relax/be productive now. Like writing this blog post.
(edit)
After re-reading it, I realized I failed to address my point here. My point: what is really the goal of a post-doc? As I have been told in the past 5 years, it is the rite of passage to the world of academia. But what does one hope to accomplish in a two-year appointment at a topic that is possibly unrelated to his expertise and past experience? It seems like the new guy is just picking up whatever the last guy has done in his two years.
It seems like an interesting role, to be contributing somewhat at a higher realm of science than the regulate graduate student, but for about half to a quarter amount of time. I ask again, what is the goal here? Is it to diversify one’s research interest? Is it to network in the community? Is it to push more papers out? Is it the parallel universe to dispense unemployed Ph.D.s? Or is it simply the awkward phase where the community thinks one should be while little professional and intellectual developments take place?
That is all.
Welcome back, Atlantis!
by noel on May 27 2009 (621 Views)
This is not completely relevant to chemistry, but is definitely of interest to the scientific community. On May 11, 2009, some of us astronomy fans and zealots gathered around to watch the launch of Atlantis STS-125. For those who are unfamiliar with it, this was a servicing mission in attempt to extend the Hubble ST’s life for the one last time. After all the amazing images Hubble was able to capture, this one last stretch seemed well worth the try. The team completed 5 space walks while orbiting 350 miles (Really? Miles? We’ll talk about the unit system another day) above Earth.
The mission will entail five spacewalks and aims to increase the telescope’s capabilities by a factor of 90, according to panelist Sandra Faber, an astronomer at UC Santa Cruz. After the repairs and upgrades, “it’ll have the capability of 100 Hubbles,” said panelist and NASA Chief Scientist Alan Stern.[1]
Over the past two weeks, we followed their mission closely, whether it is at the comfort of our own home or out in the field with our makeshift telescope. We envy their opportunity to take the ride of a lifetime and amazed at their epic fine-motor skill inside a space bunny-suit (I can’t even do that in a glove box, whoops).
On Sunday, May 24, the crew of 7 touched down at the Edwards Air Force Base in California, after a 13-day mission. The astronauts, in my opinion, are heroes in every way that one would defines any other American heroes–firefighters, soldiers, teachers, etc. Their contribution to scientific advancements is clear, and the risks they take is significant and very real. Their dedication and enthusiasm are beautifully put by one of the astronauts:
When asked about the risks posed by the Hubble service mission, Astronaut Grunsfeld told Earth & Sky that, “I think the cause of science is something worth risking my life for. I’ve spent almost my entire adult life and most of my young life,” Grunsfeld added, “in the pursuit of scientific knowledge. And Hubble is almost an icon for the quest of scientific knowledge.”
Yep. We’ll toast to that. And welcome back to Earth!!
Noel
[1] Hubble worth the risk, says NASA astronaut
We’re done!
by noel on May 23 2009 (831 Views)Today we traded in our acid-burned, grease-stained lab coats for nice looking rental gowns. It was really an ugly day–we’ve been having beautiful sunny days in the 80s all month–until now, that is. Today was a whooping 55 degree with dark grey clouds hovering over the beautiful Berkeley landscape. Just about everything was out of the ordinary.
Today the College of Chemistry @Cal held its 137th commencement ceremony.
The two hours was reasonably pleasant to sit through. The whole ceremony was rather casual and humorous. We didn’t have much of any rehearsal. People were sitting when they were supposed to stand, speakers forgot their spots during the speech, the dean returned to his seat before he handed out the last of the scrolls… but it was an intimate, light-hearted ceremony.
The most unforgettable moment for me was the reaction of the grad students. During the ceremony, Ph.D. candidates were seated on stage with the rest of the professors. After they all walked across the staged, got hooded, received a scroll and walked back to their seats, the dean officially granted them their degrees. Across rows of sleepy professors and their hoods of various colors, I saw the genuine happiness beaming from behind. They hugged each other, celebrating their accomplishments (and the 6-10 years they might have spent in this hole in the wall). It was just a really wonderful moment, since graduate students really don’t show much of any emotion. 
It was also something special for the Chemistry Blog, though. Today, Mitch, Maz and I walked across the same stage. So… PARTY TIME!!! (doesn’t Mitch look legit? That’s because you haven’t seen his shoes)!!!
So, cheers and many congratulations. And peace out, Berkeley.
Noel
“That’s why we love you guys. We ask you to do the impossible, and you ask us when it’s due.” – prof
Puns
by Phil on Apr 24 2009 (599 Views)Angewandte is kind of famous (or infamous) for the puns in the graphical abstract subheadings. I came across this one:
Kaim, Hosmane, Záliscaron, Maguire and Lipscomb, ACIE, Early View: To “B” or not to “B”,
which is about average for an ACIE pun. Fair enough. Further down the page there was this one:
Winchester, Whitby and Shaffer, ACIE, Early View: To Bi or not to Bi.
Seriously, are we running out of puns?
Exciting! Safe! My childhood dreams come true
by noel on Apr 16 2009 (821 Views)My discovery of this awesome toy kit posted on Retro Thing (via: Boing Boing/via: Oak Ridge Associated University) is motivation enough for me to drain my budding IRA account just to afford it.
This kit pretty much sums up everything a young, aspiring nuclear chemist could ever want. According to these sources, it contains: FOUR types of uranium ore (must be a deluxe kit, right?), a couple alpha, beta, and gamma sources, a cloud chamber, an electroscope, a spinthariscope, a Geiger counter, a comic book, and get this, a government manuel titled “Prospecting for Uranium.” Sweet.
Despite its awesomeness and foresight, it was only available for purchase between 1950 and 1951. The company explains its short lived glory by the rather high price tag at the time ($50.00). Today, the rarity of this kit means that the it can go for about 100x of the original price on the collectables market!
Now, if you would excuse me, I need to pick up and retry my failed could chamber project.
Noel
