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