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