While flipping through yesterday's issue of Nature, I came across the special report on toxicology/toxicologists in the Naturejobs section... After struggling to get that infernal Britney Spears song out of my head, I read through the article, which really made toxicology sound like an interesting career...

Ricki Lewis wrote that a "career in toxicology might take a scientist to a contaminated well, a crime scene, a courtroom, an analytical chemistry lab or a political hearing" and "it isn't uncommon for a seasoned scientist to have spent time in academia, industry and government, and finish with private consulting." Considering how successful shows like CSI and Numb3rs are, I'm a bit surprised that no one's produced a prime-time TV drama starring toxicologists (I can see it now - EPA: Risk Assessment Unit...)

There's also a nice News & Views article by Robert Crabtree on a recent Science paper from the Goldman and Brookhart laboratories - in the presence of an iridium catalyst and a Schrock metathesis catalyst, the authors reported that a tandem alkane dehydrogenation/olefin metathesis reaction could be used to elongate inert hydrocarbon chains (technically, it's a tandem alkane dehydrogenation/olefin metathesis/alkane hydrogenation reaction, but that's a bit of a mouthful...)

The authors hope that this system could be used "turn coal, leftover oil refinery products or even plants into diesel fuel and other functional hydrocarbons." But Professor Brookhart acknowledged that "considerable improvements in the catalyst systems are required before they become practical."

Joshua

Joshua Finkelstein (Associate Editor, Nature)