Candid Chemistry - 2014 Edition

Occasionally, readers will send me funny pictures that somehow capture the chemistry cultural zeitgeist. Here's some from the last few months:

At MIT, you can apparently chain your bike to a caffeine molecule!

Seen at UC-Berkeley: the ultimate chemical Doom tribute
(...to this guy)

Still frame from LeVar Burton's charity read of Go the #*&@ to Sleep
Does anyone recognize the (fake) elemental symbol poster? Geordi would never approve.

Attn, Chemjobber: from Austria, a promotional poster extolling the virtues of chemical employment!
(and a hip song to go with it!)

Heartfelt thanks to everyone who sent one in. Keep 'em coming!

(seearroh_AT_gmail)

Coming Soon: Harvard's ComSciCon

(Thanks to Joseph Meany [@CrimsonAlchemist] for the tip!)

Source: Harvard ComSciCon

Want to study science communication at Harvard? Better hurry!

Applications for the June 2014 ComSciCon ("The Communicating Science workshop for graduate students") close on March 1st. The conference, which opened in 2013, has hosted professional science writers from NPR, The Atlantic, and professors from MIT and Harvard.

The application, which requires a few writing samples and thought exercises, looks pretty straightforward. The best part? This year's conference is open to all science graduate students at US institutions. Successful applicants will receive free registration, travel, and accommodations.

Here's the short version for June:

• Communicating with non-scientific audiences
• Communicating complexity and controversy
• Communicating for a cause
• Communicating with multimedia
• Engaging diverse audiences

Interested? Go apply today. 

Follow ComSciCon on Twitter: @ComSciCon

Buck Wild

Sometimes, posts just fall in your lap.

An enthused reader sent along the link for the latest MIT Chemformation newsletter. Standard stuff, really: announced awards, funded grants, some recent paper abstracts. But the 'diamond in the rough' popped up on Page 3, where one Prof. Stephen "BUCK WILD" Buchwald hung out with MIT undergrads for a ClubChem-sponsored dinner.

Credit: MIT Dept. of Chemistry

When we last saw Prof. Buchwald on Just Like Cooking, he was dressed up like a skeleton to hand out Halloween candy. In this edition, we learn even more about the man behind the mask:

"...students engaged Prof. Buchwald in an informal discussion that focussed [sic] on his enthusiasm for the Indiana University Hoosiers, his love for mystery novels..."

"Professor Buchwald['s]...daily jokes and spontaneous operatic singing made lectures a real treat."

College sports? Comedy? Opera? All with a dash of catalysis on the side, no doubt.

(I have to meet this guy someday)

Slow Down, Bob

An open letter to R.B. Woodward (RIP):
(Playfully adapted from Dr. Freddy's post)

Dear Bob,

Listen, I know you can't hear me right now, but I feel like this post may be overdue. Back in your day, the closest thing to "blogs" were the Editorial pages of the newspaper and (actual, cork) bulletin boards. Thus, I'll ask on behalf of all struggling grads and bench chemists: could you please stop being so darn productive?

Someone recently pointed me in the direction of your dual MIT theses. That doctoral title, what chutzpah!

I know, I know, things were different back then. You didn't have a single NMR in your dissertation; after all, it wasn't invented yet! Ditto mass spec or HPLC traces. You characterize everything by mp, bp, and elemental, and yet I can't believe you finished your Ph.D. in a year. 

Dissertation Stats: 64 (typewritten) pages, 23 (hand-drawn) structures, 27 references

Of course, we all know what happened next. You postdoc'd at Illinois for maybe two weeks, and jumped over to Harvard for a 40-year stint. You (almost) single-handedly applied UV and IR to molecular characterization, you made strychnine, chlorophyll, and B12, and you won a single-scientist Nobel at the ripe old age of 48. Some folks even thought you might have deserved (at least) one more! 

Your personality still towers over us today - legends of blue suits, chain smoking, and three-hour lectures abound in roughly 58.8%* of recent blog posts. Even your fashion sense is back in vogue, (perhaps) influenced** by your invisible hand.

While you were making quinine and cortisone in your 30s, we're now just trying to find good, stable jobs. So Bob, please enjoy your well-earned rest, and stop reminding us of how life could have been a few generations ago. We just can't bear the comparison.

*Studies show that roughly 95% of statistics are made up on the spot

**And Mad Men

Chemists in Costume

Source: J. Chem. Soc. 1937, 705.

While poring over papers this weekend, I ran across two photos of chemists I couldn't resist sharing. Although many folks think of chemists as old men with frizzy white hair, glasses, and lab coats, these two pictures show them in a different light.

First, a portrait of Camille Matignon, appeared in a four-page obituary from a 1937 issue of J. Chem. Soc. Matignon held the Chair of Inorganic Chemistry at the Collège de France for 26 years, rubbing elbows with Berthelot and Le Chatelier. Matignon served as an editor, public speaker, President of the French Chemical Society, and was named a Chevalier of the French Legion of Honor.

The obituary comments on his "...striking personality and gay, vivacious enthusiasm..." I think that statement compliments this portrait rather well, don't you?


The second photo, stolen borrowed from the MIT Chemistry Department newsletter Chemformation, shows a fairly famous organic chemist disguised in a skeletal visage for Halloween. I won't spoil it for those who want to take a guess, but I've provided a link to the MIT faculty page, if you need a hint...

Source: E. Vinogradova / MIT

#Chemjobs: Fellowship Freefall

Back in graduate school (*cough* ages ago), I distinctly recall looking forward to the annual announcement of the Division of Organic Chemistry (DOC) Graduate Fellowships. The competitive awards, which require advisor recommendations, essays, and a pretty slick research record, granted the lucky few a full year's stipend along with travel funds to attend the National Organic Symposium.

When I clicked for the 2012-2013 crew, I felt something was missing...where's all the fellowships? I counted only eight grantees. Not to condemn them; their research certainly merits the award, but didn't the DOC used to give out a whole pile more?

In a word: yes. Here's the historical data for the grantees, taken from this website. 

Talking points:

1. Lines, lines: It's not an accident that the trend mirrors the overall economy generally, and employment in Big Pharma specifically. Note the huge uptick in awards between 1997 and 2001, when the average was ~18 per year. Boom times. It's since settled down to just about 8 annually, around the average of the recession-era '80s.

2. Visits: Those last seven years (2006-2012) match the corresponding decline in corporate recruiting (see MIT, Harvard graphs via Chemjobber).

3. Strange birds: Since graduate school enrollment has dramatically increased, at the same time as fellowships have decreased, these awards become even more prestigious, if only by dint of rarity.

4. Peak Perfection: Let's look at the top year: 1997, when 19 fellows were named. Who sponsored the awards? Take a trip down memory lane...

Wyeth-Ayerst

Abbott

Pfizer

DuPont Merck

Hoescht-Marion Roussel

Org Syn (x 3)

Organic Reactions

Boehringer Ingelheim

Zeneca

Bristol-Myers Squibb

Procter and Gamble

Pharmacia-Upjohn

Eli Lilly

Smithkline Beecham

Merck Research

Rohm and Haas

Schering-Plough

Wow, how many of those guys even exist anymore? Contrast this list with the 2012 crop:

Merck / Division of Organic Chemistry

Org Reactions / Org Syn

Genentech

Boehringer Ingelheim

Org Syn (x 2)

Amgen

Troyansky (family endowment)

Pretty slim pickins.

5. Winners? Losers? Some auspicious names have been missing from the DOC Fellows' list in recent years: Harvard, MIT, Scripps? Actually, the trend improves for state schools, with 5/8 in 2012 going to the public universities. Compare this to 1995 ("boom times"), when the list included Harvard (x 2), Stanford (x 2), Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, MIT, Yale, USC, Chicago, and the publics represented by Berkeley (x 2), Wisconsin (x 2) and Utah.

Note: Thanks to Chemjobber for the inspiration.
Update (11/8/12) - Fixed USC, not a public uni! Thanks, Anon commenter...also Chicago..