Neat-o Curved Arrows in Chemdraw

UPDATE: New Catalytic Cycle video below!

James (of Master Organic Chemistry and the Reagents App/Guide fame) and I had some off-line conversations about curved arrows in ChemDraw. I don't particularly like the suite of arrows ChemDraw gives us in the Arrow Tools menu. Yeah, they give you 4 arc angles, but you have to guess if you need the clockwise or counterclockwise arrow... and I just don't like them. They look, i dunno, amateur or less professional or something.  Nothing against people who use the standard arrows, I just don't like them.

So over the years I've become quite adept at using the Edit Curve function in ChemDraw.  It allows me to make my arrows look however I want them to.  I have a couple of arrow shapes I particularly enjoy, and I use them a lot.

James (@jamesashchem) gave me a hat tip on Twitter for showing him the new arrows, at which point Mark Peczuh (@mwpeczuh) requested a public YouTube video.

So I made one.  Here it is.  If you already know how to use the Edit Curve function then cool.  If not, hope it helps

12/12/11:

Thanks to everyone who left kind comments about the curved arrow video.  Stephen Davey (@stephengdavey) asked if the Edit Curve function could make curly q arrows.  I'd never tried to make one like that before, so I took a crack at it.  Turns out, this arrow doesn't work so well with the Edit Curve function (unless some actual graphic designer knows more about making paths than I do.  If so, please let me know!!).  I ended up combining an arc, an arrow, and a circle and the effect looked ok.  Here are my failed attempts, plus the final output (click for larger):

Later, Bal (@gnak_lab) asked about an easy way to draw catalytic cycles.  I think the question was referring to the "circle of arrows" like in this mechanism for the Heck reaction.  I've done catalytic cycles before, but was never really pleased with the result either.  Then I had an idea.  You can add curvature to straight arrows... so I though if I started with a circle as a template, added the arrows, then deleted the circle, that might just work.  So without practicing first, I shot a video on me making the catalytic cycle for the Sonogashira reaction (I just recreated the mechanism from that site).  The video for that is below.  It's not a polished mechanism, I'd go back and tweak a few things, but for a first try, I think it turned out pretty well

(video at 2x speed for brevity)

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Chemistry YouTube Videos - February 2010 Roundup

A student in a chicken suit gets tackled by organic chemistry lecturer Owen Priest at Northwestern University.

An excellent video on methane by the Periodic Table of Videos crew last month.
Safety Note: Samantha "Pants!" Tang is not wearing a lab coat, gloves, and her hair is not fully pulled back.

Also from the Periodic Table of Videos, Sam shows us the Traffic Lights reaction.
Safety Note: Sam does not wear gloves even while working with NaOH powder.
EH&S Note: Throws the solution down the sink.

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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Edible Solar Cells?

I got a heads-up from Blake Farrow about turning donuts and tea into solar cells. They do a good job balancing goofiness with fun and satire. Enjoy the youtube video.

*We at Chemistry Blog fully support the development of nuclear energy and not the sad destruction of our powdered donut resources.

They also supplied an abriged version for the nanotation video contest: Nanotechnology Brings Us Delicious New Solar Cells

Our previous ACS Nano Contest coverage: The Nano Song

Mitch

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SciFinder Youtube Videos

This is wrong. This is so wrong. But it did get me to bookmark the website.

The Paper

The Party

The cheese is strong with this one.

Update: Also covered by Will. SciFinder on YouTube? Absurd.

Mitch

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