Stereotypes about scientists

I said on Saturday that I was planning to write a full post about scientific stereotypes.   Here it is.   Lots of people have written lots of good ground here, and I'm not going to try to recover everything.  Here are just a couple of links http://www.labmanager.com/  http://www.sciencebase.com.
I could go into a whole lot of questions about the gender politics of the stereotypes, but that's not where I'm trying to go.
I'm pretty sure everyone has heard a lot of the stories about people in many techincal fields.   We're incapable of communicating, we loose interest as soon as anything has to actually deal with people, we can't manage to bathe/attract significant others or friends, etc.  I'm sure there are people to whom that applies.  You can see current examples on the TV show Big Bang Theory, among others.  And there are people who have different opinions about these stereotypes.  I have had guys in a bar in grad school say "Ooh, science majors are hot"  That wasn't the only reason this particular guy didn't end up as boyfriend, but it was reacting to stereotypes instead of learning the reality-not a good relationship foundation.
I recently got the comment that I'm an "atypical PhD-you are actually functional and can talk to people."   I do try for that, and I like(at least some) people. I definitely want to get to decide if I like them, not the other way around.  I worry that I'm not as socially polished as I'd like to be, but I'm pretty sure that's more a function of me having high standards for myself.   Science majors that I just went to school with include a salsa dancing singer with an amazing voice, a model-got pad, mothers of mulitple children, a sailor, a marathoner, and now I'm starting to feel like I don't do much.  All of them very functional people.
There are also many people trying to work on these stereotypes.   The University of Minnesota has a program UMN Gemini program site, that is designed to be a couple of lectures every month to help.   But why do we need to do that in 2011?   Why do I care?   Well, I do feel that there is a big anti science bias in my country, and that stereotypes like this play into it.  Okay, maybe we will do a little bit of stereotype politics.   How many politicians are willing and proud to go on tv and talk about not trusting science?   too many.  How many make cracks about eggheads?   Too many.   and so we get people who mistakenly believe that there is legitimate scientific controversy about global warming, evolution, the safety of vaccines.  because they don't want to be eggheads, and learn about science for themselves.   Now, this is one of many reasons that people have for many different beliefs.  It can't explain everything.  And doesn't happen in a vacuum.  But it's related.

It has been a long time, I know

I have been moving, and starting a new job.   So, that's what's taking most of my time, though I will try and get more up here soon.  
This job is a move out of doing chemistry, and doing research, into looking at other people's results, and verifying that all the QC is within range and that the change of custody has been done properly.  All sorts of things.
I'm kind of enjoying that.    I actually thinking about writing a longer post about some of that-there was an interesting conversation yesterday about stereotypes about scientists.  I've got a lot to say, but I'm taking my time about that because I am trying to keep this blog separate from my work.  I will not be posting on here what the job is, or telling any kind of details-since I know people can put two and two together.

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.   More posting tomorrow.

SWRM highlights.

I promised updates about the Southwest Regional ACS meeting.   I unfortunately missed a lot of sessions that I wish I could have made it to, due to being lost, and a resume review session, but I did get to see some.
My favorite research by far was looking at air mixing by radioactive isotopes, coming out of Arkansas.   They found troposphere and stratosphere mixing, and looked at things like time to see results from Fukishima.  Interesting stuff.   Also, some good green chemistry overview, but much of it seemed like just that-an overview, not new knowledge.   An interesting model of toxicity studies-preliminary at any rate-to be done on the computer.  
I did a lot of career events, because in part I was there looking for a job.  I heard excellent panelists talk about things that you can do with a chemistry degree other than labwork, which I'm looking hard at right now.  And about people's individual stories.   I heard about being the only woman at a water treatment plant.   I still hope to hang out with that speaker-she sounded very interesting.
I love getting to hang out in Austin, especially now, because I love warm weather.  It's cold outside.  

The Austin SWRM for the ACS

I am still here.  I didn't get anything up yesterday, because I was at this regional ACS meeting.   I will be here through the end of the week.   There will be posts about this, because I have already heard many interesting things, but I'd rather be listening than writing.   So until then, have fun listening to chemistry songs from the last post.   Or share some of your favorite chemistry jokes.  

Because everyone deserves chemistry fun

Okay, I enjoy fighting zombies as much as the next young person apparently does.   And I enjoy chemistry.   So what could possibly be better than an online game that combines the two?   Well, okay, there are things.   But this looks pretty fun.   zombie fighter.    It's all organic chemistry, which I'm more inclined to forget than just about anything else, because I haven't had to use it.   So play games!
Also, a comic just to add to the "older nerdy teacher" jokes that I love, even if I rarely use, like the Ferrous wheel.
H2O?

And songs.  chemistry songs
Enjoy!

Being a chemist without someone else's lab

People used to do this all the time. The chemist who had their home laboratories, and made discoveries in their spare time. Is that still possible today? I have to admit, I can't try much, because my husband and I rent, and I don't want to make permanent changes to the house, and am pretty risk adverse when dealing with someone else's property. But I try to collect resources, to make myself feel connected to chemistry, and that I am still doing productive things. I am still in the process of working on cosmetics, which, at least at the level I'm doing, are pretty low risk. I'm also looking at things/ways online to get chemicals/resources. I found a decent thread on about.com here . I wrote earlier about free full pdf resources. I can sometimes get friends still associated with schools to look up papers for me, particularly if I have a quick reference. Have I missed anything? What are other suggestions?

short new cool thing.

Three new elements named by IUPAC. I love this stuff. Check it out.  NY times link

Edited to add the link.

Now what?

So, I worked through much of my backlog. I am sure you're all blown over by the amount of posting that has happened in the last few days. Now what am I going to write about, you ask? well, I have a couple of plans coming up 1. A new book-The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean. Has anyone read this? 2. a big new ACS meeting-the Southwest Regional meeting. I'm looking at relocating down here and looking to make contacts. If you're around here, say hi. 3. Then, later, a local section ACS meeting. At the Science Museum of Minnesota, which is a wonderful place. I'm excited.

Another meeting. Minnesota Chromatography Forum

On October 19th, I attended the meeting of the Minnesota Chromatography Forum(MCF). I had heard of this group-I know the secretary, and a past secretary-but never made it before. Part of why I felt I had to quit doing roller derby was not having time to do this sort of networking much. Which was fine, until I got laid off. The meeting schedule is still available online. Dr. Stevens was a very dynamic and interesting speaker, and I always like learning new widely applicable techniques. QuEChERS, Quick, Easy, Cheap, Effective, Rugged and Safe methodology does sound like a very widely applicable dream come true for a lot of industrial scientists. I won't go into the details of the chemistry here as I didn't get a chance to ask exactly what I can and can't put out in public. The method is relatively new-this millenium-but seemed to be very widely applicable, and very accurate. You can use a variety of types of analysis, mostly GC, LC or mass spec. There were some different formulations for different specific instrumental or sample conditions. The environmentalist in me always gets a little nervous when I see packs recommended with disposable reactionware, but I know that is an easy way to make things cleaner and to have less variation in cleanup and sample prep, so I can see why that was done. I have to admit, overall, I felt a little like I had come for a talk, and gotten a commercial, in a way that I usually don't even at other mostly industrial meetings, like the Society for Cosmetic Chemists. I am still very interested in the MCF though, and looking forward to taking a class from them in early December about HPLC.

American Chemical Society meeting

On October 11th I attended the Minnesota Local Section meeting of the American Chemical Society at Normandale College. The speaker was Dr. Sumita Mitra speaking about "The Essential Habits of Effective Innovators". I promised her I wouldn't put the list online, so everyone should get her to come and speak with you. She worked for 3M for 35 years, and has since formed a consulting business. I very much enjoyed her talk, even if I was less able to put a lot of it into practice right now. Much of my work wasn't synthetic, so there are some differences of focus as well. The link to the description still works . I felt that many of her points involved approaching research in a slightly more systematic way, with the idea that effective means getting what you wanted. So she seemed not to encourage the "happy accident" mode of discovery. I would suspect this is important in larger corporate settings like 3M, where meeting targets is important and can't wait for a happy accident. I very much embrace a lot of her organization ideas. Unfortunately, this will have to be a short overview, to make sure I'm not stepping on any toes. I always love attending these meetings and hearing what other people have done with chemistry.

Starting up the backlog

It has been a while since I published much here. A variety of job searching issues have come up. However, I do have a slight backlog of posts, so I will be a bit more prolific the next few days. Starting with the book I was reading. Very slowly. I was reading The Alchemy of Air by Thomas Hager. Here is a link to the book on Amazon if you're curious. The book is supposed to be the story of the discovery and use of the Haber-Bosch process for making ammonia. I have used this example in class many times to talk about why catalysts are useful and important. And to explain Lechatlier's principle. It's a good example. The process is also, frankly, hugely important in terms of feeding the world's population. As we recently passed 7 billion in population, feeding everyone requires finding ways to stretch our natural resources. I loved the historical bits and story. I find it sad to really get inside Fritz Haber's head, and imagine the disappointment he must have felt at the constant barriers of racism towards being a real German, before and after Nazi's came to power. I still want to know why historians don't consider his second wife a reliable source. I also hadn't realized how much of a story of the development of chemical engineering this book would be. So much had to be made from scratch for this process to work on the scale it needed to. That was an incredible achievement. What I didn't think this book would teach is much chemistry. That wasn't the point; I'm aware. The goal is history, not chemistry. And we can find descriptions of the chemistry elsewhere. But I felt that it was a bit of a lack, somehow.

Really, C&E News?

As you can see from the name of my blog, I'm a member and pretty big fan of the American Chemical Society. So I was pretty disappointed when I read what is apparently a locked article, entitled "When Scientists Betray Employers" in the October 10th issue. Because I think it doesn't happen? No, not at all. I know intellectual property theft happens. And whatever I may think of specific patents(and my objection to some things being patentable is the biggest reason I am pretty immune to all the calls of "We need patent examiners" but that's generally not chemical discoveries) I do think that chemists and companies need ways to protect their ideas. So I read the article, I was interested. And the article was dripping racism. They only talked about cases involving people of Asian descent or citizenship. They talked little about motivations beyond money. As far as I can tell, their only other argument was that everyone from China(US citizen or not) is operating as a Communist? Talking about laws in China vs. the U.S., sadly relegated to about 1 final paragraph, would have been interesting. Talking about solutions would have been interesting. But blanket Asian distrust? Put me off the entire argument.

Cool chemistry books

I once again didn't post much this month, and didn't really comment on the "faster than light neutrino incident-though for the record I share the sentiment at xkcd.com. Anyone want to bet me $200?
but I am starting an awesome new book, having gotten done with the book I promised that I would before it-ironically Getting Things Done.
First up-The Alchemy of Air, by Thomas Hager. Specifically about the Haber-Bosch process, I'm looking forward to it. There will be a report later.

Just angry

Okay, I usually try to keep my politics out of my blog, and I will still general. This is going to be strictly scientific politics.
Why is this even an option? You want to talk about things that will seriously mess with science in this country? Being able to be investigated for fraud for politics. Can I set up a case against everyone that studies prayer for others? No. I don't. Because I believe that science means investigating everything.
Just . . . really.
And we wonder why the scientific literacy rate in this country is terrible

HPLC

Ha. Maybe I will post this month. Though it's older-from last September. I was working at a company I've been at before, though this time doing HPLC as well as ICP. Very exciting, I've wanted to do HPLC. Also, it seems like the wave of the future. I'm analyzing amino acids, using pre-column derivitization. it's pretty cool, actually.
However, that instrument is being a little punk this week. Already, I've changed column and pre column, had to totally replace one solvent bottle due to algae growth, and deal with blockages, since it looks like I didn't get it totally in time. Very frustrating. However, I am already getting to be so much more confident on that instrument.
My favorite things about the technique so far-
1. Getting an appreciation of just exactly how high pressure 200 bar really is. If it's not 100% lined up and tightened there are leaks. and I get to see them. really fast. They aren't lying when they say high pressure.
2. automatic mixing-really most forms of automatic chemistry-is also just really fun.
3. Pretty chromatograms. I do get very pretty peaks-symmetrical, thin, and no tails. I like success.

What I don't like about this technique-
leaks, blockages, anything else. See above.

out of town

You may have noticed that my posting has been less than usual this month. I have been out of town at a wedding/family trip, and looking for work. So, forgive me, this will have to be a slow month.

TiO2

TiO2. Used for so many things. A report a couple of weeks ago in C&E news talked about how it is used in sunscreen. But I'd like to talk more about the compound in general here. What is it? How does it work?
Firstly-what is it?
A combination of titanium and 2 oxygen atoms. A solid crystal with a crystal structure.
How does that work? Shouldn't I have listed a structure? The way it works is that TiO2 has a variety of forms. The three most common ones are rultile and anatase and brookite. Anatase and Rutlie are tetrahedral. Brookite is orthorombic. Control over these forms can usually be accomplished in the design stage through temperature control at synthesis.
Which form do you want? That depends on your application.
Anatase is generally more reactive. The article I linked to above contains interesting experiments about sunscreens on metal. Anatase TiO2 was seen to increase radical production.
It is also used in solar cell designs.
Rutile is what seems to be better for sunscreens. Less reactive, it sticks to reflecting. Another common use is white paint. Reflecting all wavelengths of light ends up looking white. The UV reflectance gives TiO2 sunscreen capabilities.
Brookite, the last of our forms, is not white. It is a rare form, and doesn't seem to be commonly commercially used

Tensions in green classes

So, these past two weeks, I took the Society of Mechanical Engineers' Green Specialist certificate classes. Taking the test will be at some future time. One of the classes was "green chemistry". Now, I am in support of this idea-a lot of pretty harsh solvents don't need to be used nearly as much as they are, and looking for ways around that can be both good business sense and environmentally important. Because let's be honest, a 2 step process with 77% yield is an improvement on a 5 step process with 44%.
My problem, however, is the assumption in that class, and in the sustainability community in general that chemical free is even a legitimate term.
Water is a chemical. You can't sell something chemical free. Fear marketing like that is the reason I won't buy anything from Burt's Bee's-they have some ideas that I like(tea tree oil works better on my pimples than salicylic acid, but I'll get my own oil and mix it in other company's products-and this is as much personal info as needed on this blog) because I won't give them money to promote fear of my industry.
My other concern about the class is the image of chemists as misguided, not knowing what we do that may be harmful to the environment, "not understanding some of the risks". I would argue that most chemists have a better understanding than the public about the risks of most chemicals. We look at the MSDS. We have to learn what protective measures are important.
This idea also erases the contribution by many chemists looking specifically to do things like find a safer/more efficient route to synthesize ibuprofen, or looking to develop environmental remediation technologies. Or people like professors Vicki Grassian and Mark Young that I used to work with that study the effects of what we put in the atmosphere on the many process happening up there.

Things to take down

Maybe I'm just in a contrary mood today, but I am considering a list of chemical things that are annoying me.
This order is the order that I think of them, not meant to indicate anything else.
#1-Chemical free anything. A particular offender of this is Burt's Bee's. If you have something to put in your tube, it has a chemical.
#2-100% pure, when we're talking about a combination product. This usually seems to mean "pure"="natural" I don't know. But unless we're talking a single thing, pure seems like the wrong choice here.
#3 hair oil advertised as "sulfate free". Because there are no surfactants there anyway. This is technically true, so it annoys me a little bit less.
#4 Trans fat free skim milk. Really? Once again with the technically true, but I dream of enough scientific literacy in our population that this isn't an effective advertising strategy

Small

I worked with nanoscale materials-zeolites and magnetic iron- and just really enjoy tiny, hard to see particles. I tried to get my students to see atoms when teaching our AFM lab. So I've got a couple of reports on small things
1. Carbon nanotubes may not save the world-or specifically, may be linked to cancer

I know we're all shocked here, and I have suspicions about any single new cool technology. Nothing is perfect. That said, there are also a lot of things that can be linked to cancer. If I spent my days going around doing nothing that has ever been linked to cancer. . . well, I'd be stuck just in terms of vitamin D-too much sun=cancer. Not enough sun=not enough D=cancer. So I'm not convinced that we can live in a perfectly safe world, much as we'd like to.
Cool concept-actual 3D imaging of nanoparticles.
anyone seen the details?

Interesting question

Yet another C&E news post. They had an article in the July 4th issue about encouraging research in an environment like pharmaceutical development, where the stakes are reputed to be so high, and everything must go perfectly. And I have to wonder how much of that comes from this US living and dying by the stock market, by perceptions, and by the idea that stocks must only go up and up, and that short term loss, or even lack of short term gain is unacceptable. What do you think is the solution? Is there a better way to do this? How do we encourage people to come up with truly new ideas, if we have to admit that some truly new ideas don't work?

Question about sustainability that touches on chemistry

I got a link to the following that makes me . . . curious.

I find the basic concept, that worrying about only one thing is not actually indicative of overall sustainability or greenness very important. I rant a lot about the concept of food miles as the only ecological value of food(an extreme example of some locavore arguments, but not beyond the realm of possibility) and carbon as the only measure of product waste a lot. Some of that comes because a particular factor is easy to measure and easy to track. There is merit in tracking things that have numbers associated with them, particularly in the green movement. At least, that's my opinion as a scientist. Numbers and data ground observations in reality.
I am, though, not convinced that packaging doesn't matter, though. I feel like waste can be at least moderately prevented by careful buying. Do we really need to buy 2 weeks worth of groceries every time? Call me suspicious

Book report

I have recently been reading an awesome, and chemistry related book- "The Poisoner's Handbook" by Deborah Bloom. A college friend of mine read it to me. Without giving too much away, it was a fascinating perspective on the start of forensic science and toxicology as a discipline in the 1920s, with lots and lots of jazz age detail thrown in. Reminds me of students I taught in graduate school that wanted to do chemistry because they saw CSI. The richness and the detail were lots of fun, though if you go into the book looking for detailed explanations of chemistry, that's not the point. The book is meant to be historical rather than technical.

EU report on nanomaterials

Since most of my PhD work involved scaling down in size to nano materials, I always am interested to keep up with that world. Here's a recent EU report on nanomaterial safety.

cool periodic table

I love playing with nifty web apps, and cool takes on the periodic table. My favorite thing I've seen was in my grad school building, where they had a periodic table with a small sample of every element in the particular space.
This doesn't tell you anything you couldn't get anywhere else-atomic number, weights, electron configuration, etc. It is, however, slick enough to be worth publicizing.

posting schedule

I am trying not to neglect this blog quite so much. As you can see, I have been. But I want to know-what do you want to see? I've been doing mostly short posts right now-that's what I've got in me. I'm looking to make this what readers want to see when I get into longer stuff, so let me know what you want to see.

Silicones

An interesting new article came out a couple of weeks ago in the latest Chemical and engineering news.
What does everyone think about this? Overblown? Worth considering?

Twin Cities Society of Cosmetic Chemists Meeeting

I had this post worked up in my drafts folder, but was unhappy with it. Well, seeing a new issue of C&E news, I'm adding it in.
C&E news did a piece on plasticizers, particularly pthalates, and some of the negative press they've been getting. Do they deserve that bad press? The article implies no, and I do generally support the ACS in saying that no, not everything "chemical" or made in a lab is dangerous, and plant derived compounds can kill you just as well. But, here is the link
though you have to be a member.
However, bad press leads to interesting new discoveries
A bit over a month ago I went to a meeting of the Twin Cities Chapter of the Society of Cosmetic Chemists.
The talk was about a company, Segetis. They make a variety of levolinic acid ketals. They make a variety of compounds that can be used for plasticizers and solvents. They do not make them through fermentation, as many green companies do, they make them through thermochemical conversion. This allows a much simpler scale up process, and generally a cleaner distribution of products. Their process creates an alternative to petroleum products.
This chemistry is green, and hopes to replace some toxic plasticizers like pthalates.

coming back

After some time away, start watching this space again-I have been looking for new and exciting things to put here.
One idea-blogging about the periodic table and elements has already been done excellently by
It's not new, but go check it out