Get it Funded! (A Game)

Last night, intrepid C&EN reporter Dr. Dre, err, Dr. Drahl, sent over another challenge from NOS2013:

I think Jerry Berson talked w/me re funding influencing field flux. So what's gonna happen to totsyn?
— Carmen Drahl (@carmendrahl) June 27, 2013

Let's reword that: How will changes in funding affect total synthesis, the study of assembling complex natural products from simple commercial chemicals?

Now, this isn't the first time folks have declared the synthetic field to be on death's door. Hardly. So, I answered the way I always do, which has kept the field alive and kicking long past Woodward:

@carmendrahl @2014RMC @ChemProfCramer TotSyn will survive - it'll just dress itself in new clothes for new funding opps #SameOldStory
— See Arr Oh (@SeeArrOh) June 27, 2013

Chemjobber, always one for a savvy one-liner, immediately jumped on board:

.@SeeArrOh "Towards the enantioselective nanodelivery of 56-desoxymaitotoxin" @carmendrahl @2014RMC @ChemProfCramer
— Chemjobber (@Chemjobber) June 27, 2013

Nyuk nyuk nyuk. OK, wise guy, I've got a few more, then . . .

"Reversible carbon dioxide capture using lycopodium alkaloid analogs"

"Pentacene-functionalized steroids for solar panels"

"Origin of Life: The Gliotoxin Hypothesis"

"Analysis of 10^5 novel secondary metabolites in the human gut microbiome"

OK, Readers, I'm sure you can do better. Leave me some gut-shakers and knee-slappers in the comments section!

Friday Fun: Chem Swords

As Stuart Cantrill pointed out on Twitter this morning, today's xkcd comic hits all the right receptors for chemistry geeks:

xkcd #1114, c. Randall Munroe

So, in four short panels, we have jokes about Sb and Ac, role-playing games, LoTR, even an olde tyme word for "spooky." Perfect!

Here are my humble attempts*

- I forged a blade from iron oxide, but it just rusted away.

Lion-O
Source: Ted Wolf / Rankin-Bass

- Next, I made a silicon dioxide scimitar; it shattered like glass.

- My 'Einsteinium Excalibur' shrunk every three weeks.

-  I have high hopes for my Osmium Sword of Omens; it roars, and dihydroxylates everything it touches!

- Magnesium Masamune: Victor Grignard's house blade.

- The neon lightsaber? Went over like a Pb balloon.

*I tossed some of these on Twitter before I sketched out the post. Please don't "Lehrerize" me for it! (Sounded better than "Breslowize")

Press Release Supplement

As part of my new editorial gig over at Nature Cooking, I've had sit-downs with all the major factions in the company, including the fine folks over at Nature Protocols. They were kind enough to suggest a theme for our first issue; apparently, that's chemistry cookies!

Credit: Nature Protocols, via "The Twitter"

In an attempt to please my new colleagues, I scoured the Electrical Highway for at least 5 minutes, until I found these critical lab instruments:

Scientific Cookie Cutters | Credit: thinkgeek.com

Oddly, the strychnine and maitotoxin shapes were on back order....c'est la vie.

Found Chemistry - Landmark Gate with Chemical Message

On a recent visit to a major US university, I had occasion to stop outside the towering steel gates leading into the main courtyard of the newly-constructed chemistry building. I glanced up, and saw organic molecules, decked out in bronze, blue, and red.

On either side of the gate are polypeptides, four residues each, that use standard amino acid abbreviations to spell out a four-letter word* on either side. Pictured (at left) is the left-hand gate. 


Here are artistic molecules done right - correct bond angles, color-coded atoms, even double bonds! They're certainly better rendered than most of the recent ChemBark "WWWTP?" posts.


*(Need a hint? Only so many schools have four-letter names!)

In Praise of Portmanteaux

Listening to the news on the drive home, some interesting words crossed my ears: Fracking. Locavore. Flexitarian. 


It's clear that we generate neologisms nowadays simply by stitching old words together.

I'm tired of writing this sinfo on microsyn...time for skitter?

The trend has a name: portmanteau words. Attributed to wordsmith Lewis Carroll in the late 19^th Century, the practice has evolved with the internet age to describe complex ideas in tiny verbal bundles. For instance, a locavore is a "local omnivore," or someone who eats foods located sourced from within a certain radius of his home. 


Not that we chemists should be surprised. After all, we're responsible for many of these words, and we use them every day. The aldol reaction takes an aldehyde and an enol to forge new carbon-carbon bonds. Using small organic molecules for catalysis? Organocatalysis. Why talk about reduction and oxidation cycles, when you could just say redox?


So, in an effort to increase synthetic chemists' efficiency, I'd like to propose several new portmanteau words:


sinfo: Supplementary Information
chactalysis: C-H Activation Catalysis
fuells: Fuel cells
meconomy: The "Methanol Economy"
Wots: Western blots
flolumn: Flash-column chromatography
microsyn: Microwave-assisted synthesis
skitter: Scientific Twitter  (Does that make Just Like Cooking a 'sklog?')


We could take this trend to a logical extreme, and repurpose words we already have. For instance, what do you call going back through your lab notebooks for an old prep?      
Retro-synthesis!


Commenters - Feel free to chime in....what have I missed?