Wilder 'Chemistry' from 1880

What was the first mention of "Chemistry" in the journal Science?

You might think, given that Science started in 1880, that an author would first refer to 19^th-century champions such as Perkin or Wöhler. Perhaps they'd write of new fuels for transportation, electrochemistry, or the advent of large chemical industries such as BASF or DuPont.

None of these. On page 4, issue 1, famed comparative anatomist and professor Burt Wilder writes:

"A Bit of Summer Work: Notwithstanding the number of 'Summer Schools of Science' to be in operation this season, many teachers are likely to pass the vacation at a distance from the facilities afforded by organized laboratories. How shall they employ their time?  

. . .the teacher who hopes to make his instruction each year more thorough than the last, will be pretty sure to spend the remaining month or two in the search of help from books, and, while regretting the vagueness of the information thus obtained, may seldom think of making it more real by personal observation. 

Now it is true that in some branches of science this may require appliances not readily obtained. This is the case with Chemistry and Physics, and some parts of Natural History. But Botany and Entomology may be pursued almost under any circumstances, and I venture to suggest that at least one kind of anatomical work may be carried on with but a slight amount of apparatus."

Wilder's cure for teachers' potential summer slacking? Purchasing "a very sharp knife, and a pair of 'wire-nippers'..." - all the better to study the (freshly-dissected) brains* of cats, sheep, dogs, and rabbits. He closes his essay with this potentially tongue-in-cheek phrase:

"If this is done, by the end of summer the teacher will have become better able to appreciate the peculiarities of the human brain when one comes in his way..."

*Pssst! Did you need instructions for that? Wilder generously provides an address at Cornell where one can obtain hectograph (printing by means of aniline dyes and gelatin plates) copies of cat dissection protocol.

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

Stock Photo Science - Colchicine

Our tiny company doesn't have a true marketing or business development staff, so publicity often falls to the scientists - y'know, during our "down time." : )

For the past month, I've been trawling stock photo sites and "how-to" guides to assemble some company brochures for an upcoming event. Yesterday, I dug up this stock photo gem:

Source: iStockphoto

Now, Just Like Cooking 1.0 might have beleaguered the graphic artist, decrying his lack of experience and shouting about why we need more chemists in design departments. 

But I'm tryin', Ringo. I'm tryin' real hard to be the shepherd. Let's go piece by piece and try to figure out why we can't print this on our marketing materials.

For starters: the molecule I think they're looking for, colchicine, isn't exactly unknown. Doctors and healers have prescribed this plant extract for centuries to treat gout and local inflammation, despite concerns over its toxicity. Chemists have known how to make colchicine since at least the mid-1950s. 

So, here's how the molecule should look. There's some important differences here, perhaps most importantly that the acetamide (the "top" functional group, CH3-C=O-NH) should actually have a bond to the central ring. 

Next, let's move to the bottom right ring, which I'd call a cycloheptatrienone ("hepta" = 7, "trien" = 3 double bonds, "one" = ketone functional group). See how the double bonds are shuffled around in the stock photo? That would be OK, since the system does have other resonance structures, forms where just the electrons move around without breaking the carbon framework. But this structure, where the C=O and C=C bonds overlap, makes 5 bonds at that carbon. That only happens under very specific conditions, but certainly not in this drug.

Finally, check out those bonds on the left. We organic chemists use bond notation to infer a lot of crucial details, not least which atoms connect to which other atoms! Note the line drawn from the 6-membered ring to the "C" of the bottom methoxy (H3CO-) group. Perhaps an artistic choice, centering the group over the bond, but the real molecule shows a C-O bond. 

I know photographers don't often consult chemists before they take these shots, but I'd invite their input here. Wouldn't their business do better if their photos were accurate? 

Speaking as a scientist-cum-designer, it would make my job easier.

Happy Friday, everyone.

-SAO

Exactly Like Cooking - Review of "Yes, Chef"

It's been a while since I've read a book I couldn't put down. Especially one that blends two of my favorite subjects: cooking, and indentured servitude "making your bones" in a tradition-bound hierarchy.

Marcus Samuelsson's Yes, Chef: A Memoir reads like a grad school recap...(in a good way!)

Credit: Random House

For those unfamiliar with Chef Samuelsson - owner of the Red Rooster in Harlem and former executive chef of Aquavit - his story reads like a modern fairy tale. Adopted from Ethiopia at 5, into a white-collar Swedish home outside Goteborg. Attended a technical school (Mosesson), where he fell in love with culinary arts. As a journeyman chef, he cooked his way through a series of European restaurants (Belle Avenue, Victoria Jungfrau, Elisabethpark, Georges Blanc), some cruise ships, and a long stint in New York City, where he finally decided to land. Along the way, he's taken some turns on TV, first on Top Chef: Masters and recently as a judge on Chopped. He's cooked at a State Dinner for President Obama.

Samuelsson's writing, humble yet descriptive, makes you truly see the food in front of you. You can feel the pain and grind of kitchen life, from cuts, burns, and scrapes to the deeper emotional wounds wrought by oppressive managers and head chefs with attitude. Samuelsson emerges from the book less a 'foodie hero' than a grizzled vet of the restaurant scene.

Of course, the parts I most appreciated paralleled my life as a bench-bound synthetic chemist. Kitchen shifts, like lab work, demand long hours, dedication, and a willingness to learn every facet of the job, from "front of house" to garde manger, herb garden to chef de partie. Chemists, too, find their jobs easier when they make a point of practicing skills to the point of subconscious performance - filleting fish or de-boning duck become as automatic as pulling pipettors or running rotovaps.

I enjoyed the concept of a stage, a tradition between restaurants (p.74):

"To be sent away was the highest honor: It meant that you would be sent off to spend a week, a month, or a season doing a stage, which was an unpaid apprenticeship ...the idea was that you'd either come back, bringing those new techniques and skills you'd picked up with you, or or your boss's kindness would come back to him someday."

(Doesn't this sound like a visiting researcher position, or perhaps a short postdoc?)

Less amusing, though, was the metric for success in moving up the cooking ladder (p. 165):

"Don't draw attention to yourself. I know it sucks, but try to be as small as possible."

"...to get ahead in that culture, you have to completely give yourself up to the place. Your time, your ego, your social life, your relationships, they are all sacrificed. It's a daily dose of humility most Americans find difficult to swallow."

(Uncomfortably close to graduate school, right there).

Finally, Samuelsson does not understate the role luck and failure play in shaping one's career. Multiple random events, albeit tragic ones - car accidents, deaths, missed contacts - propelled him into his current life. As with progress through a long total synthesis, failure too can drive you to seek out new ideas, or at least discard the bad ones fast.

I'd recommend this book to anyone with the dual food / chemistry interest; I think you'll find a lot of familiar territory. A real page-turner.

Happy Reading, Happy Eating, Happy Friday!
See Arr Oh

Habemus Chemia!

When the white smoke puffed up the conclave chimney, all eyes turned to the Vatican. A little while later, Jorge Mario Bergoglio - now Pope Francis* - emerged. His historic election as the first Pope from South America overshadowed another first: he's a chemist (Over at ChemBark, Paul had leaned in that direction earlier today, but I'm sure he was equally surprised)

Habemus Chemia!
Source: Guardian UK

Wikipedia, font of all things true and definitive, lists him as a graduate of the University of Buenos Aires, with an M.S. degree in the late 1950s. Ditto the Catholic News Service.

My Spanish is a bit rusty, but the Excelsior (Mexico) and 20Minutos (Spain) label him a 'chemical technician' and 'chemical engineer' respectively. Lisa Balbes helpfully points out that, according to ABC News, one of his first assignments in the church was teaching high school chemistry.

I tried to look up the Pope's peer-reviewed chemistry publications through SciFinder, Reaxys, and Google Scholar, but, alas, I'm unable to find any. Perhaps a more enterprising reader can clue me in if they're more successful...

*Though I'm not Catholic, I appreciate the influence and direction the Pope offers the faithful. I also find it exciting when chemists enter very public walks of life. See, for example, Jack Welch, Angela Merkel, or John Kuhn.

Friday Fun - Up, Up, Up The Mountain Ahead

Dream big, kids.

When you join a new company, you instinctively adapt to the work pace, flow, and org chart. Some changes take longer than others, and I believe, like Yogi, that "90% of the game is half mental." It takes time to wrap your brain around unfamiliar information, and job titles are part of that adjustment.

What do I mean? Work in science awhile, and you'll collect proper nouns like Halloween candy. Chair of some committee, Head of a department, Scientist 1,2,3,4...infinity. Manager, Director, Prez, Chairman, and of course "Senior" or "Emeritus" appended to every title later in life.

Germane to our earlier discussion about chemistry "life coaches," I feel the community needs a list of all the different things you can do in chemistry, parsed artificially by job description. Here goes, from bottom to top, best I can muster (suggestions welcome!):

That Kid who likes Science
Student
Test Tube Washer
Intern
Science Fair Winner
Chemistry Major
Teaching Assistant
Science Fair Judge
Tutor
Technician
Research Assistant
Grad Student
Research Associate
Lab Manager
Scientist
Postdoc
Habilitant
Assistant Professor
Adjunct Professor
Research Chemist
Associate Faculty
Visiting Professor
Manager
Grantee

Hey, look, a hyper-literal metaphor!

Scientist II
Principal Scientist
Senior Scientist
Specialist
Associate Professor
Senior Chemist
Project Head
Special Advisor
Senior Manager
Chief Scientist
Assistant Director
Full Professor
Associate Director
Dept. Head
Director
Chaired Professor
Vice President
Assistant Dean
Chief Scientific Officer
Research Fellow
Advisor
Dean
Vice-Chancellor
President
Vice-Chairman
Chairman
Ribbon-Cutter
Laureate
Chancellor
Board Member
Knight / Dame

(see post title)

CEO
Founder

...and, of course: "Emeritus" (everything above).

Readers, what did I miss on this life expedition? Suggest 'em in the comments, and I'll toss suggested titles in where I think they fit best. 
Happy Friday!

Cutting-Edge, Nobel-Worthy Chemistry

After all the early fuss about the merits of the 2012 Chemistry Nobel Prize, I noticed this challenge, couched in an earlier Chemjobber comment thread:

"The organic chemists seem to get their hides chapped most easily when a Nobel gets awarded to a 'biologist'. It's worth asking 'what are the fundamental unanswered questions in organic chemistry?'" (Emphasis mine)

Here are three areas, broadly defined, that I believe could win the Chemistry prize next year.

Synthetic trachea
University College London, 2011

1. Whither Polymers?  Darlings of early 20th-century industry, yet they've taken a back burner lately, winning their most recent Nobel in 2000. But, what a decade! Self-healing polymers. Fluoroelastomers you can print into any shape. Synthetic organs, even, grown from biodegradable polymer scaffolds. Trouble with this prize? Picking only three winners...

2. Biochemical Assembly Lines. Yes, cue the "it's not chemistry!" complaints, but I really like work which elucidates the cellular mechanisms plants, animals, and microbes use to assemble huge, medicinally-relevant natural products. Researchers can prompt E. coli to make an antifungal compound, for instance, or yeast to make a cancer therapy. Directed evolution of these assembly proteins, or the DNA which encodes them, can lead to products with wild substitutions and unexpected properties.  Bonus: All the 'big wheels' tend to be card-carrying chemists, and work in chemistry departments. The overarching goal tends to be chemical - utilization of Nature's machinery to produce new compounds.

Usual suspects: Christopher Walsh, Chaitan Khosla, David Liu, Ben Shen.

Walsh Group, JACS 2012

3. Fundamental Catalysis. Technically, there have been a few Nobels for this fairly recently (2001, 2005, 2011). But, what a decade! Here's some currently-exploding fields:

Organocatalysis
Chiral Anion Catalysis
Gold Catalysis
New carbene ligands
Frustrated Lewis pairs
Catalytic C-H activation

Any discipline on this short list could take home a Nobel within 10 years. Admittedly, some of these are rather young, but, as Ash has pointed out, the committee has rewarded ever-shorter publication-to-prize gaps, so it's not without precedent.

Usual Suspects: Dean Toste, Melanie Sanford, Anthony Arduengo, Graham Hutchings, Douglas Stephan, David MacMillan, Benjamin List

Readers, who would you award a Chemistry Nobel?

2012 Chemistry Nobel - And the Winner Is...

Source: Forbes.com

Congratulations to Profs. Lefkowitz and Kobilka, winners of the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry! (Admittedly, it's a bit tough to wake up for the webcast, but vale la pena.)

This year, the prize reflects both men's work with G-protein coupled receptors; these receptors influence all sorts of processes in the body, from smell and vision to immunity and mood regulation. Incidentally, ChemBark had no listed odds for this win

Congratulations, gentlemen! Back to bed for now...

Update, 10/10/12 - As I noted on Twitter, "Since 2000, 6 out of 13 #Chemistry #Nobel prizes awarded for #Biology: 2003, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2009, 2012."

I also asked whether the prize would fit better under "Chemistry" or "Physiology or Medicine." Apparently, I'm not alone here: see essays from Nat. Chem. and SciAm.

Molecular Chords - A Musical Periodic Table

"One day, my system will be used
to categorize cupcakes, texts, and
crooked politicians."

Dmitri Mendeleev had a good thing going. Not only did his periodic table allow him to predict the properties of "missing" elements, it also provided a future template for all sorts of pop-culture catalogues - from beer and QR codes, to chocolate and shoes. Even the universe has one! If you want to get really meta, there's even an online collection (wait for it...) a periodic table of periodic tables.


While researching an upcoming post, I encountered a few 'Periodic Tables of Music.' Here's one for jazz, and another for pop music. But what about a table where the atoms themselves compose the music?

Enter Mahadev Kumbar, an Adjunct Professor at Nassau Community College in New Jersey. I found his Musical Periodic Table in a 2007 article and associated lecture series written for the Journal of Chemical Education.

From his introduction:

"One (perhaps surprising) aspect of the natural world is that each and every process in nature—chemical or otherwise—produces some kind of sound, whether audible (20 Hz–20 kHz) or nonaudible (<0 Hz and >20 kHz), characteristic of that process. Those sounds, I believe, are the music that is the universal language of the natural world."

To construct his table, Kumbar grabbed a few lines from each element's emission spectrum. He then mathematically transformed the energies of elemental electronic transitions into characteristic notes played by each atom. 


Kumbar also notes that "atoms...clustered together...tend to generate unique and distinct music." Perhaps each element could be considered a player in a nanoscale symphony: for instance, silver bromide (AgBr) plays a beautiful open third (C6-E6), while bleach (sodium hypochlorite, NaOCl) plays more of an inverted C#min chord, stretched across three octaves (E5-G6-C#7).

Chemistry Words, with Friends

A recent discussion on Twitter brought some salient sci-comm discussion: Why aren't more chemical terms acceptable for play in the smartphone app Words with Friends?

(Not Really)
Source: Fake Science Tumblr

Unfamiliar with the game? Words, much like Scrabble, prompts players to place lettered tiles to form words on a 15 x 15 grid. The game rewards you for playing unusual letters (Q, Z, each worth 10 points) and for building words across certain labeled spaces, which confer extra points to certain letters and longer words (In fact, critics and fans both remark that WWF seems to be more like a "math game" than erudite word selection).

So, you'd think that WWF would allow submission of any legal word, right? Well, since language constantly evolves, the designers limited choices to a public-domain word list, ENABLE, containing ~173,000 words. Quite a lot, really, until you compare that to SOWPODS, the tournament Scrabble players' list, weighing in at 267,000 (and counting!).

The ENABLE list, ranging from "aa" (lava) to "zyzzyvas" (a weevil), represents scientific fields from anthropology to zoology. Large 'blocks' of terms deal with nuclear energy, geology, physics, and biology. So, what about chemistry?

I spent a few minutes trawling the list, then picking the brains of my colleagues. With this (very) minor effort, we found just a handful of terms missing: ipso, meso, fluorous, and chiron. [Words we guessed might not be there, but were, included: carbocycle, solute, solvent, catalyst, nucleophile, polydisperse, synclinal, catechol, aglycon, zincate, chiral, orbital, glycine, alkali, ketone, and bromide.]

All in all, more chemical variety than I had expected. Readers, I've obviously not covered the gamut of chemical terms, so if you find ENABLE lacking, let me know in the comments. Or, better yet, let Zynga know!