Unconference

So, this coming Friday and Saturday, I'll be attending the She's geeky unconference in the twin cities. I'm hoping for some networking opportunities, and just to meet and support cool women doing science and technology things. Check out for more information, and come say hi if you're there.

Trying to figure out what to keep doing, and nifty series

As you can tell by the lack of posting, I'm trying to decide how personal I want this blog to me, and how much strictly chemistry. I like the idea of strictly chemistry, but my writing tends towards the personal. Still working on the decision.
That said.
there's an interesting series over at www.slate.com blogging the periodic table. Well dang, now I can't do that because they did. But check it out.

Science writing

So, after about three months of employment, I reached the end of my temp contract and am once again looking for work. I'm looking at ways that aren't 100% laboratory work all the time, as much fun as that can be. Trying to branch out for a while. So far, what I have come up with bites on seems to be writing. I'm editing the newsletter for my local section of the ACS, and am supposed to be writing some articles for a magazine specifically focused on green living. More details later as I get more facts to pass on. This isn't a very long post, since I don't currently have a lot to say, or a lot going on. I'm looking into a couple of posts in the future that will be more hard chemistry based, but the thing is, to to those right takes time and effort. Which is being put in.

Best demonstration ever of Le Chatlier's principle.

Just in case someone wants to show this to a student or someone who's doubting.
In the course of my work, I had to dissolve some CaCO3 in acid. No real problem here, that works quite well. Giving off CO2. I was doing this in a plastic tube with a lid. To control the reaction, and keep bubbles from going over the side, I could close the lid. Shut down the reaction after maybe 15 seconds. No new bubbles form. When I opened the cap, there-1 a hiss of gas sometimes. and 2. the reaction starts dissolving the powder at the bottom. Lovely, self-contained, and I would think cheap.

C&E environmental legislation

Another C&E article to write about, though I think I'm getting to this one fast enough that you can see it for a while without paying. Link is here -
There are a couple of things I want to say about this article, both from an environmental standpoint.
1-business to business labeling standards. Absolutely. You can't make a better product without really being able to figure out what's going on with your suppliers. Crucial. I can't believe this hasn't been done before. I use a bunch of chemicals in my daily lab work that I have no idea how they were made-"proprietary information" or what the impact of this synthesis on the environment is. My job currently is to tell you if there is any heavy metals in a particular batch of products-I can do that, for sure. But that doesn't tell you anything about how much waste was produced while these products were being made, how much water was contaminated even if the final product isn't, etc, etc. So we need to get on that.
I very much disagree that labels for consumers are already sufficient, and that there's any kind of good system in place for telling how environmentally friendly a product actually is. I can see claims that companies make, but this is much like I always found it less effort to write a B+ paper for my humanities courses in college than get a B+ grade on a test-when you're the one setting the discussion, you can write to your strong suits. That certainly has influenced what I write about on this blog-I'm going to write what I know, no doubt about it. You may know more than me about something else-that's great, but that's for your blog, not mine. The same thing can be easily shown in food labeling. Yeah, a cereal can make healthy claims that it is "made with whole grains" and be 100% correct. But that doesn't mention the 30 grams of sugar per serving(I'm making these numbers up, but the point is, you write to your strengths). And that works. That's done with household products as well "made from plant derived surfactants" great, but do you do anything about the amount of water/energy used, worry about how those plants are grown, etc? Nobody knows, because the dialogue is entirely set by the company doing the advertising, for their interests.
Which gets to my other beef with the article, and to an extent with a lot of articles that I see coming from the ACS-I don't know if it's official policy or not. Clearly I don't speak for and am not a representative of the ACS, and everyone reading this should remember that.
They advocate for voluntary standards. Nobody would be forced to even report or test anything they don't want to. This is a general position that I see them taking a lot-everything should be driven by what the industrial companies want. Now, they're an industry group-the position that the industry should regulate themselves only voluntarily makes sense within that context. However, I distrust voluntary regulation. I would like to believe that companies will hold themselves to high enough standards that will keep people safe from possible accidents from them, or possible bad effects of their products. But this is expensive. And business is about the bottom line. Therefore someone without this conflict of interest needs to be doing the regulating. I know it costs more to be held to a higher standard than you'd like to. And truthfully I'm looking to be proven wrong her-I'd love to work for a company that voluntarily holds itself to protect other people from itself. But as long as not every company does that, there need to be externally enforced protections.
Overall I do think increased information on the production processes for things we use everyday is important. You can ignore information you don't need, but can't use information that you don't have access to.
what do you all think?

top instrument makers-a bit late

When looking at C&E news(yes, I do read it when the American Chemical Society sends it to me) I found an article about top instrument makers. I'm curious about this sort of thing because I don't ever have that much opportunity to compare expensive instrumentation. I'm not writing grants, and when I've gone to conferences, most of the people know that i'm not the one writing the grants, or really spending the money. Though I did get to help pick out the previous ICP, and think I did a pretty good job of it. But in this article, Perkin Elmer was rated over Varian. I was a bit surprised to see that, but maybe that's because I've been unable to get through to Perkin Elmer at all in this job. really. E-mail just bounces back to me. I don't really want to spend all my time in the day on the phone, though that's the next step. How is this good customer service? I know I sound like a shill and it's kind of true, but really, I've just not been impressed.
This makes me wonder, what makes a good instrument? Is it customer service? Is it never having to call customer service ever? Is it speed of analysis(kind of a big one for me) is it accuracy(really hard to always claim it's the instrument, at least with what I've done, since sample prep introduces so much more inaccuracy).
but first, I will summarize their list
Number one, both last year and this year, was a company I don't know what about, Life technologies. I'm in the wrong part of chemistry, but good for them.
Number 2 both years was thermo Fishcher Scientific. I've used their FTIR for a while, it works. Though I don't really do enough detail work to say "oh yeah, this is a great IR". But they got the job done. Waters and Shimadzu switched from 5 to 4 and 4 to 5 between last couple of years. That's really the only motion in the top 10, until Mettler-Toledo moving from 10 last year to 11. and RocheDiagnostics moving from 13 to 10. I actually liked the Mettler-Toledo TGA that I have used.
you can see the full rankings, as well as what they're based on here, but you do have to be a member. I'm not going to copy everything. https://pubs.acs.org/action/showLogin?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fpubs.acs.org%2Fisubscribe%2Fjournals%2Fcen%2F88%2Fi17%2Fhtml%2F8817bus1.html&cookieSet=1
Now. What makes a good instrument to me
1. software that I can figure out and make do what I want. really really key. Don't have a bunch of parameters that have to be entered that you don't tell me about in order to do calculations that I don't care about. I was dismissive of this in grad school, but am starting to appreciate it more. Flexible software is great.
2. Easy sample prep/robust sample possibilities. I don't really know how to describe this, since it's more an "I'll know when I see it". And I'm kind of a hypocrite for liking ICP and saying this. Everything that i do has to be completely dissolved in water. If someone gives me a sample with solid flakes, i have to get them out somehow. Not fun. My ideal instrument would accept a variety of sample preps
3. robust instrument. In a lab, things get left around, harmless spills happen from time to time(I'm thinking things like water, and very very dilute acid solutions). is this going to ruin everything? I hope not.

environmentalism and chemistry

I named this blog better living. So I ought to post something about trying to live better, right? At the same time, it is supposed to be a professional blog, and I want to keep it that way. So I will. This post is going to combine the two.
Environmental awareness, sutainability, whatever you want to call it, people have lots of opinions on it, and people have lots of different ways of expressing those opinions. Fair enough. I personally am tryign to think about how I can make this world last longer, how I can make my life still work, without sacrificing the life of future generations that I'm giong to depend on once I get older enough to need it. If you don't like that, you're entitled to your own opinion, but not on my blog. Okay so relating this to chemistry-How do we make chemistry more sustainable? There are people doing wonderful chemistry to solve all kinds of environmental problems- I'm not going to list them all here, they'd be too numerous. That's obviously important. But not everyone can be working on cleaning up lakes all the time. People have got to eat, most people like to shower and have soap everyday, we want to wear something, we want to get from point a to point be in a hopefully not that crazy manner. This requires other chemistry. And I personally think that could stand to be responsible as well. So, apart from explicitly "green chemistry" how do I try to green my chemistry? Mostly the things that they always tell you-if you don't need it, don't use it, and if you do need it, see if you can do it with less
1. Making standards-this is admittedly a function of glassware availability. i try hard to only use 50 mL of standards, because that is the smallest volumetrics that we have. I'd do smaller if I could. This is also affected by amount of solution I have to pipette. If that was much smaller, I couldn't do smaller volumetric flasks. so, finding the optimum here. Which means less waste of chemicals. Bonus
2. Trying to use fewer plastic centrifuge tubes. It still makes me nuts how many of them are used in a given day, and how many I throw away. That said, there is a drawback here with regards to contamination. While I try to use fewer of them, the line sometimes down to either use a fresh tube or risk sample contamination. No dice there. This is something I do think most employers should encourage, because frankly at the rate I still end up going through those tubes, it can't be cheap.
3. Air drying glassware rather than acetone drying it. If it's going to be a while before I need to use it, why even bother with adding additional chemicals?
4. Proper cleanup. This might be the one thing that isn't inherently beneficial for the companies bottom line as well, though it doesn't have to be expensive, but is important. I try to minimize how much waste I make to begin with, and try to deal with it appropriately. Don't surprise the custodians. And I feel for any company like the cost of proper disposal will be cheaper than the cost of cleanup later.
5. not using disposable cups. This is admittedly because I live in an area where water isn't an issue, so I can wash the ceramic coffee mug from the kitchen every day. But I really don't want to throw away another piece of Styrofoam every morning. By the same token, using tap water instead of bottled. By now I don't think it's a big secret that most bottled water is just tap water that has been filtered. so why pay the money, why waste the plastic, why bother? I've got a cup, I've got the tap.

There are, however, still environmental issues that I haven't found a way around
1. Use of heavy metals. I'm testing for heavy metals using ICP. That means standard solutions of pretty nasty environmental things, like As, or Cd. Not fun. But, using this technique, there isn't' away around that.
2. Those plastic tubes, as mentioned above. Even trying to minimize, I will still regularly go through a pack of 50 50 mL centrifuge tubes. They work well for what they do, and washing/reusing has limits.

This is something that everyone can do, and companies can encourage. It does save money to reduce waste.

Speed vs. accuracy

A big part of my job currently is getting accurate results quickly. Does this bag of product meet or exceed the required value of this given element? We need to know as soon as possible. Generally this is actually something I get excited about-I like to feel that my research is doing something for somebody somewhere. I want to know that people are using my results to make their product better, or make something new. But the question also becomes-if I don't find the right answer and that costs them a large batch of product, there's going to problems if this happens frequently. And fast analysis is generally more prone to errors. So how do you balance them out?
A lot of what I've done that has helped me is using an autosampler. I can have one thing running while another is digesting. Getting the pieces for digestion all dry is a problem, but solvable.
Some of this also seems to be natural-I think quickly, I answer test questions quickly, I was faster in grad school running ICP than anyone I trained. Some of it is experience. I know exactly what motions are fastest for doing this analysis, and that would change if I was using a different instrument.
So how do I learn that in cases where I don't already know it, and how do I balance out the need for accuracy and speed?
some of it comes down to simple advice I always see on career articles all the time-don't promise what you can't deliver. Sometimes it takes more than one day to get a good answer, sometimes confirmation of answers don't go quite as well as I'd hoped. If I'm doing the confirmation earlier than anticipated, I have time to go back and look more closely at the samples. I tend to run more sample replicates and run the same samples again to check for reproduceability. If the result isn't reproducable, it takes more time, pure and simple. I know people complain about this when airlines budget more time into their flights to avoid being counted as late, but if the shorter time estimates aren't achieveable, why does it help to see them? Give an estimate that is in line with reality, and recognizes that things will go crazy. You will need to redo things from time to time.
It also helps me to build in break time without losing analysis time. Once again, the autosampler helps this. If my mind is going fuzzy from squinting at too many small numbers on a computer screen, it helps to set up a bunch of data to collect, then leave the lab for long enough to grab a cup of coffee or water. That's not particularly news, I know. But it does help me be less likely to make some really stupid mistake. Which is always good.

Things I haven't learned

I said yesterday that I'd write about things I haven't learned. So here it is.

1. How do look for low levels of chloride in ICP. One of the hardest things I had to do was tell the boss that this just wasn't happening/wasn't possible. I couldn't see peaks from concentrations much higher than what we thought we had. I know, from past experience in school that this isn't a good plan. Cl- has almost no signal, and that's not unique to me. Nobody at Varian, when I talked to them, or online, was really recommending ICP as a way to do this. They were right.
2. How to hang out at lunch when other people aren't really outgoing/social. My awkwardness is a topic for another post, and not that bad in most situations. But I prefer to draw people out and listen, rather than talk. This means I need people who like to talk to talk to. The few days someone from another plant came to learn, there was lots of conversation and I talked lots. The rest? Not so much. I know I need to get better at making conversation with others who are quiet like me, but this whole double whammy of not talking is hard. Still in progress
3. How to make ppb standards. Still not precise enough, except in the case of Cd. Maybe it's just that the metals aren't intense enough. I'll go with that.
4

Another day, another post

Hey, I have managed to get another post in a reasonable timeframe. Very proud. I'm winding down my temp project, as previously stated, and trying to find some way to mark that. I don't know how much I can say here, but I've learned a lot about chemistry and the business world. So I think I'm going to do a set of two posts, one about things I've learned, one about things I haven't. Here's things I've learned
1-I really do like Varian ICPs better than Perkin Elmer-sorry PE. That's how it goes.
2-Microwave digestion isn't as scary as I'd previously thought
3-reading the manual helps(already knew that, but will put it down here anyway
4-I need time to adjust my schedule earlier, but I really do get stuff done in the morning.
5-sitting and looking at a computer all day isn't good for your eyes.
6-labcoats are really useful(once again, I knew, but I'm trying to dress a bit better for this job than as a grad student.

later this week-what I haven't learned

Wow it's been a long time

So, I've been away for a long time. I swore I wasn't going to be one of those bloggers who just posts 3 to 4 posts then vanishes. Life has gotten busy-getting heavily into skating, and I got a job!! at least, I got a job, in Feb., that was supposed to last a month. The more clever of you readers might be here asking, wait, a month? shouldn't that be done? and yes, a month has come and gone. Two months have come and gone. I will be done in two weeks. I have really enjoyed having a job-it gives me a sense of purpose, it gives me a sense of having structure, which I really need. It's nice to get to use my brain and ICP training. The best thing has been mostly figuring out, hey, I can do this. The most stressful event was this past Friday, telling them "no, I can't do what you want with this technique" I felt like a failure, though I know that low concentration Cl- lines are a pain to physically impossible to measure with ICP. But I suppose that was also a good learning experience. I can't do everything, though I'd try.
Well, it's time to look for the next job now. I'm trying to get something more environmentally motivated-applying at the city and state for inspection type jobs, as well as more private environmental companies. We'll see how that turns out. I'm more excited about most of these jobs than a lot of "formulation chemist" positions that I had previously applied for, so that's hopeful. I remember a lot of advice boards saying "if you're really passionate, that'll show". Hopefully it will.
Skating. I've decided to try out for roller derby, for Minnesota Roller Girls and Northstar Roller Girls. This means skating over an hour about 5 times a week. Sometimes a bit less, because the closest rink doesn't start sessions til 8:30 for adults. and a whole side part of the having a job is getting up before 6 am. and I need a full 8 hours, apparently. At least, I do when I'm doing heavy athletic stuff. So I'm training myself to get home early, and get to bed.
I have read some of my chemistry books-got a good one on ICP by Steve HIill, which I knew a lot of the ICP-OES material, though am curious about ICP-MS. I also have a new environmental one Environmental Chemistry, by Manahan. I do hope to do a couple of full out book reviews eventually.

American Chemical Society meeting

so I said this blog would be about chemistry and attempting to get myself set up as such. Yesterday was the Minnesota section of the American Chemical Society meeting. First off, there was a crap accident on I-94 on Hennepin. which made me late. grr. . . I missed a lot of "How to be a Chemistry Ambassador". Most of which seemed to boil down to "look on the national ACS webpage" and "talk about interesting applications of chemistry." Good ideas, though I wasn't sure how to use that to take any kind of steps. Maybe I'm not in a position to be a chemistry ambassador. then there was dinner and talking. Most people seemed to be really nice. I got to talk to a couple of other job seekers, and at least one lady who knows her husband's company is looking for a chemist. Is this the "networking" they speak of? okay, sarcasm done. but that was good. There seemed to be a lot of teachers there too. an interesting social interaction mode that reminded me of both my high school chemistry teacher and a couple of professors at the U of I. very . . . distinctive, though I'm not sure I could really describe it. But it made me giggle. I also might have volunteered to judge for a science fair on Friday. They seem to be looking for working chemists, but hey, I've got time. It'll be good for me. Making a name as a chemist and all that. Then there was a presentation about biobusinesses. If I was looking to make a start-up, I'd have been fascinated, though apparently Minnesota doesn't have all that good of an outlook for startups. Not enough capital and support. Hmmm. . . If I was an investor I'd see what I could do, because I do actually want to take chemistry knowledge and make it useful-to see products that make someone's life better as a result of my research.

Social weekend

So not a chemistry post. But haven't done much chemistry because this was a very social weekend. which is good.
Friday. well, okay, didn't do much Friday. I was a bit grumpy about social things, I will admit.
Saturday. Saturday was roller derby. I was awesome. really truly awesome. I had been really tempted to do this in Iowa. But by the time they had a team, I was dissertationing. Yes, I made up a word there. But didn't have time. Now, however, I can. am seriously tempted to try out in May. If I can get my gear act together in time, I will. However, these women are seriously hardcore. I think it will be take down or be taken down. fun.
Sunday was a pretty amazingly geeky day. it starts out with Firefly. sadly I couldn't stay for the whole marathon. but still. I love that show. and Christina Hendricks.
After that, we had people come over for dinner. tasty stir fry and miso soup. Iffy sushi. I've got to get a better knife. Then we started to play a Battlestar Galactica board game. Not enough time to really play long, but it was cheezy and perfect for fandom. Made my weekend. Now, if only it wasn't snowing all the time. I remember being told it didn't snow here as much as in Iowa. I think this is a lie.

Books

Books Books Books. As I'm sure most of those who have taken a chemistry class in college know, they can be expensive. Really expensive. but really useful. I've got a shelf and a half or so of simply chemistry textbooks. Many of them are useful-I don't have to remember the periodic table if I can look it up, and that helps. But I'm not sure that all of them are helpful. I mean, am I going to need to do the proofs that I did in physical chemistry class ever again? I really hope not. I trust the laws of thermodynamics. really.
But which ones do I get rid of? How many $150 books can one get rid of? and it's not like I can resell them, of course there are new editions now. I wasn't taking organic chem that recently. And yet, I like the idea of having a bunch of knowledge at my fingertips. If I had a job I'd buy a lot more detailed and specialized textbooks. It's not like I don't have space to store them. and I do need something to make me feel like a chemist. So perhaps the books stay for now.
what do you do with old books? am I the only one that keeps them? Is it different for books and class work?(I don't keep that at all.)

First Post!!

Well, this is new and all. I realize that nobody probably reads this yet at this point. but. I have moved to a new city and need something to do with my time. The name of this blog, trite as it is, sort of reflects the double plans that I have here-chemistry, and adjusting to living in the cold of Minneapolis, MN. There will be some of both.
I should probably start with a bit about me. I'm a chemistry PhD, pretty serious geek. It fascinated me to hear about protons neutrons and electrons in 3rd grade, and the inherent coolness stuck with me to grad school. I'm now looking for ways to keep doing chemistry for money. Most of what I've done is inorganic chemistry. I've never gotten into carbon enough to really love organic chemistry, and analytical. I do like analysis. I have taught, and that made me realize that I just don't have it in me to be the one that motivates a bunch of Chem 101 students at 8 am. I have nothing but respect for all my professors and my high school teacher. Go Mr. Crumm. but I just can't do it.
I am also going to write about adjustment. I moved up to Minnesota to be near the man I love. This is great. But it is also not a very interesting live in and of itself. So. Better living comes in a variety of formats.
1. Friends. I do know some people up here through college, but he's closer to them. I need to figure out how to have my own relationships and life.
2. Hobbies. I do love dancing. some I do with the man, some I do alone. I want to perform. I do love that. I do near eastern dance and Irish dance. I would love to get into performance troops for both, or maybe just Irish. but Irish is partnered, which means there needs to be more men. I also knit and am trying to learn how to sew.
3. Job. see above.
4. cold tolerance. I swear I moved here in the coldest week of the year. It was about 5 degrees for a week after I got here. It has gotten warmer since, but I still hate it.
So that's me. This will mostly be a pretty personal blog. I'm considering a bunch of posts that really do address "better living through chemistry" take a chemical and explain what it has done for the world. I think that will be fun.
There will also be posts about feminism from time to time. It's important. Everyone who says that it isn't is lying. I really believe it's that simple. It's flat out b.s. that women make 77 cents on the dollar to men doing the same work, and way less if they're mothers. since this will be a chemistry blog and chemistry is my work, a lot of the feminism posts will be work related, I'm thinking. Not to say that other topics aren't important or will never come up.
so that's who I am, and what I'm doing right now.