FUCK YEAH, CHEMISTRY

Bio Scientist Tattoo done by Sean Ambrose at Arrows and Embers...

Fri, 12 Apr 2013 23:16:08 -0400

Bio Scientist Tattoo done by Sean Ambrose at Arrows and Embers Custom Tattooing

Peter Higgs (Center) From Left: San Lan Wu, Joe Incandela, Guido...

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:35:00 -0500

Peter Higgs (Center)

From Left: San Lan Wu, Joe Incandela, Guido Tonelli, Fabiola Gianotti

atomstargazer: Life of Scientist Who Changed the World’s...

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 21:40:46 -0500

atomstargazer:

Life of Scientist Who Changed the World’s View

Carl Sagan

“I can find in my undergraduate classes, bright students who do not know that the stars rise and set at night, or even that the Sun is a star.”- Carl Sagan

Stephen Hawking

“Remember to look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder about what makes the universe exist. Be curious. And however difficult life may seem, there is always something you can do and succeed at. It matters that you don’t just give up.” -Stephen Hawking

Neil deGrasse Tyson

Like no other science, astrophysics cross-pollinates the expertise of chemists, biologists, geologists and physicists, all to discover the past, present, and future of the cosmos—and our humble place within it.” -Neil deGrasse Tyson

Albert Einstein

“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the the universe.” -Albert Einstein

Niels Bohr

“Never express yourself more clearly than you are able to think.” - Niels Bohr

Richard Feynman

“Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars - mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?”- Richard Feynman

Marie Curie

“In science, we must be interested in things, not in persons.” -Marie Curie

Rosalind Franklin

“You look at science (or at least talk of it) as some sort of demoralising invention of man, something apart from real life, and which must be cautiously guarded and kept separate from everyday existence. But science and everyday life cannot and should not be separated. Science, for me, gives a partial explanation for life. In so far as it goes, it is based on fact, experience and experiment.” -Rosalind Franklin

Nikola Tesla

“I do not think there is any thrill that can go through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love, everything.”-Nikola Tesla.

Thomas Edison

“I never did a day’s work in my life. It was all fun. I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” -Thomas Edison

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Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:32:01 -0500

Can you identify these structures?

Fri, 08 Feb 2013 22:18:15 -0500

Can you identify these structures?

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Sat, 02 Feb 2013 21:37:57 -0500

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Mon, 28 Jan 2013 23:28:52 -0500

jtotheizzoe: The Celestaphone: Sounds of Space There is no...

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 02:05:55 -0500

jtotheizzoe:

The Celestaphone: Sounds of Space

There is no sound in space. But thanks to one special instrument, we can hear sound made from space, in a sense. Meet the “Celestaphone”, an instrument made from meteorites.

Sound, although it’s invisible, requires a medium in order to propagate. Without piggybacking on air molecules in order to deliver all those waves of varying frequency and amplitude, sound itself does not exist. Hence no sound in space.

That didn’t stop Clair Omar Musser from making sound from space. He began collecting fallen meteorites in the 1930’s, eventually collecting over 1,388 pounds of space rock. Some of these contained metal, and some more dense and smooth rock. 678 pounds of that collection went into the frame and bars of the Celestaphone, the world’s first and only instrument made completely of meteorites.

Thanks to the guys at Everything Sounds, you can hear the Celestaphone in action in this recent episode (it currently lives at the Rhythm! Discovery Center in Indianapolis). You don’t want to miss it. Behold the sound of the stars!

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Sat, 26 Jan 2013 00:03:02 -0500

Michelle Millar: A Chemist To Remember

Fri, 25 Jan 2013 16:22:56 -0500

cenatacs:

Michelle M. Millar was a liquid-nitrogen-chugging, helium-breathing, premier high-spin synthetic inorganic chemist. At least those are a few of the things people who shared her life remember about her.

Millar, a chemistry professor at the State University of New York, Stony Brook, passed away untimely at age 64 from an apparent heart attack in February 2011. Her chemistry friends, students, classmates, and colleagues, including her husband, SUNY Stony Brook chemistry professor Stephen A. Koch, gathered here in Philadelphia at the ACS meeting to pay homage to her during a symposium in the Division of Inorganic Chemistry on metalloenzymes and their functions.

“Michelle had an eventful chemical career,” Koch recalled. She trained with some of the best inorganic chemists around. After obtaining her B.S. degree from UCLA in 1968 doing undergraduate research with Alan L. Balch (now at UC Davis), she earned a Ph.D. in 1975 at MIT, where she worked with iron-sulfur protein specialist Richard H. Holm (now at Harvard). She then carried out postdoctoral research with inorganic chemistry legends F. Albert Cotton at Texas A&M University and Earl L. Muetterties at Cornell University. As a postdoc, she characterized the first example of a compound containing a tungsten-tungsten quadruple bond, as well as the first example of a compound with a square-planar carbon atom.

At Stony Brook, Millar specialized in the design and synthesis of transition-metal complexes as models for metalloenzymes, Koch related. She recognized that much of the unusual metal chemistry that takes place inside proteins is possible because the organic limbs of proteins serve as sterically congested ligands to control access to the reactive metal centers. Among other achievements, Millar’s group prepared analogs to the oxidized [Fe4S4] cluster center in the electron-transfer protein rubredoxin, and her group synthesized molecules that mimic nickel-containing hydrogenase enzymes. Koch said he buried her with laminated pictures of some of her favorite molecules.

Read More

Why is it so cold?

Thu, 24 Jan 2013 15:22:32 -0500

Why is it so cold?

Climate Change 2013: Perspectives of 8 Scientists

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 01:09:52 -0500

Climate Change 2013: Perspectives of 8 Scientists

The Secret Sex Life of Marie Curie

Wed, 23 Jan 2013 00:34:08 -0500

The Secret Sex Life of Marie Curie

Bravais Lattices

Tue, 22 Jan 2013 19:04:02 -0500

Bravais Lattices

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