Poll - Do Scientists Sleep?

Update (July 1): Looks like we have some Lucky Sevens!*
Mean, Median, and Mode for the first 17 entries? Seven hours of sleep.

There's a 3.5-hour difference in start times.**
Interestingly, there seems to be a correlation between hours slept and arrival at work - longer sleepers show up later in the morning.***

*Sleep value (hours) taken at the lowest part of specified range. 
**Morning start time pegged to center of specified times.
***Start time prior to 7AM: 5.75 hours; Start time after 9:00AM: 8 hours

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Scientists: Does sleep help you, or hold you back?

I've read many recent articles claiming that "successful" writers, leaders, and inventors sleep less than the rest of us. I recently switched jobs, and that change - along with some biometric monitoring over the last month - has finally answered nagging questions about my sleep habits. But before I spill the beans, I'd like to pose three questions to you, dear readers:

1. How much do you sleep each night?

2. What time do you start work?

3. Are you productive?


Leave the answers in the comments.
Please be as accurate and honest as you can.
Looking forward to hearing from you!

Friday Fun - WWWTP? NASA Secret Food Edition

Pretty sure this counts as an epic Google Ads failure...

Happy Friday,
See Arr Oh

Friday Fun: Posters

Two regular readers have sent in chem-themed posters from different ends of the U.S.A.

First, from Lockheed Martin, comes this educational reminder:

Not unless he wears safety gloves, he won't!

Then this advertisement for Harvard Summer school, seen on mass transit:

Psst! We just tell 'em it's a lot easier in the summer...

Happy Friday,

See Arr Oh

USC to Acquire Scripps?

Other perspectives: The Scientist, Science, L.A. Times.

Well, that's not something you see every day.

Courtesy of U-T San Diego* - with bonus Derek Lowe quotes! - comes talk of the University of Southern California taking over gobbling up "acquiring" the Scripps Research Institute. I'm sure we'll hear much more about the motivations as events develop, but the early suggestion involves cold hard ca$h - declining NIH funding paired with expiry of major pharma partnerships on the Scripps side, billions in fundraising** on the USC side. I've been hearing about salary squabbles and shrinking department budgets at Scripps, but didn't realize things had gotten to this point.

Clouds in parking lot, 2014

I don't see the press releases on either side that U-T San Diego alludes to,
[UPDATE 6/19 - Here's the releases!]
Perhaps someone on the inside of either institution knows more? seearroh_AT_gmail

*The guys who helped break the Nicolaou to Rice saga!
** I mean, they did just get all that money from Dr. Dre...

JLC at ACS San Francisco this August!

Costume Craze | Sent by Carmen Drahl

I've finally booked the tickets! 

Excited to attend my first ACS Meeting in a looong while.

I'll try to tweet updates from a few of the sessions using the #ACSSanFran hashtag. 

Look for me in the crowds! 

(see registration photo at right)

Friday Fun: Biocompatible Hydrogenation

Bacteria have always fascinated me; as an organic chemist, the dream of realizing new anti-bacterial medications always occupies a bit of one's brain. But what if we were able to harness more beneficial bacterial traits for synthesis? Obviously, fermentation broths produce many of our best molecules, but we don't always look at the other secondary metabolites - gases, for example - produced by bacterial metabolism.

Well, the Balskus lab at Harvard aims to change that perception. Their lab slogan? "Microbes are Nature's synthetic chemists." As reported in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. yesterday, their lab has identified a biocompatible palladium catalyst that uses the hydrogen gas produced by E. coli to drive hydrogenation of a variety of electron-poor alkenes and alkynes:

Source: Balskus Lab | Angew. Chem. Int. Ed., 2014

This reaction takes place in aqueous culture, in the presence of oppressive concentrations of nitrogen and glucose, yet still produces decent yields (63-95%) of reduced products. One could argue with somewhat high catalyst loading (8%) and low reaction concentration, but as a proof-of-concept it's pretty cool. Bacteria produce hundreds of interesting volatile metabolites - among them sulfur dioxide, indole, and isoprene - and it'll be neat to see if more of these byproducts can be co-opted for synthetic chemistry.

Happy Friday,

See Arr Oh

An Observation

Looking back through ChemBark's and my own surveys for new chemistry faculty, I'm a bit gobsmacked.

Sunlight through leaves, 2014

Unless I'm miscounting, 86 faculty were hired in the general chemistry space over the past year, and 86 again for last season. Now, I'm willing to admit that we haven't caught everyone hired over the past 2 years; heck, I'm even willing to suggest that the actual figure might double.

So, let's say that, according to our bloggy survey, 172 new faculty start every year in Chemistry-themed fields. Is that a lot? No, not according to the 2012 NSF Survey of Earned Doctorates. This study claims that U.S. schools graduated 2,418 Chemistry doctorates. Of those, only about half knew what they were going to do after graduation - their "definite commitment."

According to some more NSF numbers, almost a third of all physical science students go on to careers in "Academe." Perhaps this category catches new professors, adjuncts, non-tenure-track, and postdocs alike? (Leigh did this analysis much better than I!). For chemistry, NSF heard only 113 definite commitments in 2012 for non-postdoctoral academic employment. Even if we (generously) assume that they're all professors, that's only 5%!

Sadly, this number jives well with what our bloggy "New Hires" survey* captures. I'm seeing 7%, which is still a far cry from the 20% Ethan Perlstein suggests for the life sciences, or the NSF's 26% for chemistry.

Compare that against the 800 or so folks (33%) reporting postdoc landing spots. Or the 712 (29%) reporting that they're "seeking employment or study."
I guess professorships truly are the new alternative career.

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*I'm fully willing to admit that NSF has statisticians, education specialists, and a tried-and-true method, whilst we have folks chiming in over the Internets. Still, I'd be typing a lot more if I'd've received 600 names instead of just under 100.