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Just a quick round-up to point you towards a couple of interesting pieces about the periodic table...
Thanks to Daniel for letting me know about a cool periodic table project where science and art collide - see his post at The Great Beyond for details.
This also reminded me of a post I saw not so long ago by David Bradley over at Sciencebase that gives us a tour of online periodic tables.
Stuart
Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)
Consider this a post for pedants, perhaps.
Here we are with a new journal on the horizon, Nature Chemistry, so one question we must ask ourselves is this - what do we abbreviate it to? Simple, huh? Surely it should be 'Nat. Chem.'? But wait, what about 'Nature Chem.'?
Well, let's start by looking at other NPG titles. Some of those based in London, such as Nature Materials (Nature Mater.), Nature Physics (Nature Phys.) and Nature Nanotechnology (Nature Nanotech.), all use the full 'Nature' bit, but Nature Protocols (Nat. Protoc.) does not! Let's cross the Atlantic to journals based in the States, such as Nature Chemical Biology (Nat. Chem. Biol.) and Nature Biotechnology (Nat. Biotechnol.) and you'll see that they use the 'Nat' form as well... Is your head spinning yet?
Also, notice the difference in abbreviation between Nature Nanotech. and Nat. Biotechnol. - whereas 'Nanotechnology' is shortened to 'Nanotech.', 'Biotechnology' is trimmed - albeit only slightly! - to 'Biotechnol.'... The copy-editing powers-that-be tell me that the word 'Technology' should be abbreviated as 'Technol.', because the word 'Technical' would be indicated by the shortened form 'Tech.' - still with me?
So, 'Nature Nanotech.' breaks all the rules... and it means we often see ourselves cited as 'Nat. Nanotechnol.', or 'Nat. Nanotech.' or 'Nature Nanotechnol.' - all of which are, technically, wrong.
Now, let's get started on other journals. Here at NPG, we abbreviate Angewandte Chemie to Angew. Chem. Int. Edn (assuming we're not talking about papers published before 1998, which still include the 'Engl.' bit...). This generally causes our more chemistry-oriented authors to correct their proofs by scoring through the 'n' of 'Edn' and telling us that it should be 'Ed.' not 'Edn'. I agree with the authors, but I am told that we shorten 'Edition' to 'Edn' because 'Ed.' means 'Editor'... anybody out there still reading?
My response to this argument is that we're citing the name of a journal, not just a random collection of words, so we should use 'Ed.', but we don't. At least we're not alone in getting it wrong, ACS journals insist on putting a comma after the 'Angew. Chem.' bit..! Note in all of this, that there is no full-stop at the end of 'Edn' - that's because 'n' is the last letter of 'Edition' and so we don't need one. This, of course, creates confusion as well, because most people out there cite things like PNAS as 'Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA' with a full-stop after 'Natl'. Of course, we don't... we go with 'Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA' because 'l' is the last letter of... OK, you get it. No matter, authors still correct that one on their proofs too... (PNAS itself doesn't even use full-stops...).
If you've made it this far - congratulations. I think we're going with 'Nature Chem.' - but it won't really matter as I'm guessing that ISI will index it as 'Nat.' Chem.' anyway... they abbreviate Nature Nanotechnology to 'Nat. Nanotechnol.'...
Stuart
Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)
Just a quick note to point out a couple of articles (subscription required) that Nature Nanotechnology has recently published on what is currently the trendiest of all carbon nanostructures - graphene.
Published online in advance of print, is a paper from Gordon Wallace and co-workers in Australia and the US, that shows how a simple chemical method can be used to produce stable dispersions of well-separated graphene sheets. This approach relies on maximizing the repulsive electrostatic interactions between the tiny one-atom-thick flakes of carbon - and, therefore, does away with the need for additional chemical stabilizers that can be a problem in applications where pristine samples work best. If you don't have access to Nature Nanotechnology, you can still read the press release.
Also, back in our January 2008 issue, we had a News & Views article written by Rod Ruoff from UT Austin called, "Calling all chemists". Although graphene has been a hot topic in the physics and materials communities, chemists are now beginning to start experimenting with the latest carbon nano-wonder themselves - and Ruoff chronicles the early stages of what he refers to as the 'chemistry part' of the graphene story.
As an aside, have you noticed how the interest in carbon nanomaterials has peaked in order of their dimensionality? First it was 0-D, when Kroto, Curl and Smalley presented us with buckyballs. Then came 1-D structures in the form of carbon nanotubes. Recently, there has been a shift into 2-D, with a focus on graphene. Watch this space, however, it won't be long before 3-D is next... diamondoids are already receiving some attention.
Stuart
Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)
I've been looking at some JACS ASAPs today, and several of the entries got me to thinkin'. For example, this paper just wouldn't be the same if they had been trying to make a Smith diode, or even a Schmidt diode, for that matter. And in this case, think how confused you'd be if you mistook their acid for a Lewis acid or a carboxylic acid! Finally, consider how happy Shvo will be to know that his catalysts have continued to provide interesting questions for scientists around the world, just like these folks.
After pondering these situations, I decided that although there are a multitude of reactions, processes, catalysts, numbers, and constants named after people, there really need to be more. Think of the increased recognition that people would get for their efforts, the increased ability to communicate with other scientists just by quickly throwing out a name or two, and the incredible difficulty of organic classes that require you to learn all of the named reactions. This is going to be great.
As a word of caution, however, this one points out that you have to be careful with what you pick, because you can't then later pick something else.
(Just imagine the confusion:
"Can I borrow some Grubbs' catalyst?"
"Yes, here you go."
"No, I meant Grubbs' catalyst!!"
Considering that I'm no longer in the lab, it's going to be hard for me to lay claim on anything too useful. Perhaps I can pick putting nanoparticles in agar gels as 'the Goodman method', mostly because I can't imagine that anyone else has ever bothered to do that. So, the question for you is, what do you want named after you? A reaction? A catalyst? A football stadium? Hurry up and pick, or all the good ones will be gone...
Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)
1. What made you want to be a chemist?
I always wanted to be a chemist. As a child I loved playing with my chemistry set and was always looking for supplies and reagents to run new experiments.
2. If you weren't a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be - and why?
I love to write. If I had the time I would love to try my hand at writing fiction.
3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?
We have already made very important contributions, although most people are unaware of them. In the next few decades, chemists must play an important role at solving the energy problems that we will face as we run out of oil. We should also learn to publicize our efforts and success stories more effectively.
4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?
I have always been very intrigued by Hannibal, the Carthaginian general who could have changed history in unforeseen ways as he came very close to defeating Rome. But I am not sure that he would be a good dinner guest! I would also love to meet Santiago Ramon y Cajal, the first Spaniard Nobel Laureate in a scientific discipline. His impact in neuroscience has been very pronounced and he did all his research work without any support at all.
5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab - and what was it?
Just a few days ago I was helping in my own lab, testing a new design for a spectroelectrochemical cell. Unfortunately, I have little time to work in my own lab. About seven years ago, I did a lot of scanning electrochemical microscopy (SECM) experiments during my last sabbatical, in Al Bard's lab, at UT-Austin.
6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?
This is an impossible question to answer. OK, I would take "One Hundred Years of Solitude" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and The Beatles' Abbey Road.
Angel Kaifer is in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Miami and works on the electrochemistry of supramolecular systems.
Back in my undergraduate days at the University of Birmingham (the one in England), I had a particularly entertaining set of lectures on aromatic chemistry from Jim Burdon. I don't know how he got on to the subject, but during one of the lectures he told us that neutrons were purple, and then went on to discuss the colour of electrons. Now, that's obviously incredibly silly... we all know that neutrons are a funny green-brown colour (and that electrons are blue).
As we start to put the nuts and bolts of Nature Chemistry in place, we need to make important decisions about colour... what do I mean by that? Well, go and have a look at the Nature Materials homepage - see the red in the banner at the top of the page and in the section headers - that is known in these parts as 'Materials red'. If you pick up a copy of the print issue, you will see the same red used throughout the journal, particularly as the font colour for titles, headlines and figure captions.
In the same vein, you will see that Nature Geoscience is green (British racing green in fact). Nature Photonics is blue, Nature Physics is blue/purple. Nature Chemical Biology is yet another different shade of blue... Now go to Nature Nanotechnology - that's a gold-ish colour. In print, however, we use a red (not 'Materials red', but, you've guessed it, 'Nano red') because gold doesn't really work well for text.
So, along comes Nature Chemistry and it needs its own colour - preferably a consistent one that works for both print and online content. We're already experimenting with shades of a particular colour here - but I'm not going to tell you which one yet... I want to know what colour you think chemistry is?
Stuart
Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)
Posted on behalf of Materials Girl
You'd think that being on winter break for three weeks would provide not only holiday spirit, but also an ideal medium for productivity — catching up on blog entries, preemptively studying for physics, etc, etc. However, it seems that the mind automatically (and far too easily) switches from textbook chemistry to everyday chemistry. Notably, I spent countless hours creating “reactions” in the kitchen, as opposed to researching for my aerogel project or finding out how to use our dusty ellipsometer that everyone in lab seems to have forgotten how to operate...
In any case, I did manage — in the last three days of break — to start and finish the majority of my summer applications for undergraduate research. This suggests a recently evolved thought: Is it better to spend summers taking classes, thereby lowering the risk of becoming a fifth-year undergrad, or to continue with research, in order to gain experience and resume boosters? Concentrating solely on research, without the pressure of the regular school year, provides a superior medium for learning and productivity in lab. Nevertheless, graduating on time is ideal, and paying extra undergraduate tuition is hardly in my budget. It all depends on how those pesky once-a-year, required courses are scheduled, but who knows that far enough in advance?
On a similar note, is it more beneficial to spend extra time as an undergrad taking non-required but theoretically practical courses, or to finish the bare minimum quickly and learn what is missing as it comes in grad school and industry? What to do, what to do…
Well, what's that title all about then..?
As you may have seen from Josh's post not so long ago, I have accepted the position of chief editor of Nature Chemistry. Other than a name, however, there's little else to the journal at the moment, but things are moving - fast. You may notice that there is no link yet for 'Nature Chemistry' in this sentence or the previous one. That won't be the case for long - the first incarnation of a website should be up and running soon.
So, what is 'Journal journeys' then? Think of it as a diary of how 'Nature Chemistry' is taking shape. It won't necessarily be a day-by-day account of what's going on - that may well be a little dull... and there will almost certainly not always be time each and every day to tell you what's happening. And obviously there will be some things I can't tell you, but I will share with you as much as I can of what I think might be interesting.
So, why 'Day -11'? Well, I officially begin on February 1st, and so there are 11 days to go... in the meantime, rather than sunning myself on a beach, I'm still dealing with my Nature Nanotechnology responsibilities - and will continue to handle manuscripts for the next few months. Watch out for the Feb issue by the way, it will have a lot of chemistry content.
And finally, 'Deadline day' - how about that? Well, the deadline for applications for associate editor positions on Nature Chemistry closes on January 31st - see here. I want to offer a few words of advice (rather than an exhaustive list) to any of you out there who plan to apply - these should be fairly obvious - but they're important.
1. If applying for any job, but especially as an editor of some description, make sure there are no spelling mistakes in your application - get someone to read through your cover letter, CV, and any other materials you are requested to submit (see 2!).
2. Read the job advert carefully - and make sure you do everything it asks you to. I copy in the requirements for the Nature Chemistry positions below:
Applicants should send a CV (including their class of degree and a brief account of their research and other relevant experience), a News & View style piece (no more than 500 words) on a recent paper from the chemical literature, and a brief cover letter explaining their interest in the post, salary expectations, and indicating whether they wish to be considered for a position in London, Boston or Tokyo.
So, I look forward to our personnel department forwarding a flood of (complete, spelling mistake-free) applications to me once the deadline passes...
Stuart
Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)
1. What made you want to be a chemist?
I first became interested in chemistry in high school. I was fooling around at the back of the class and was made to sit at the front by one Mrs Davis. When I was forced to listen to the material in this way I realized that it was all rather logical and elegant. We were studying basic nomenclature of salts and valences of various ions. On going to college I initially wanted to study chemistry and physics jointly but quickly opted for chemistry, although I have always been drawn to the more physical, more theoretical aspects of chemistry. For me chemistry has just the right mix of visualisability, abstract thinking and mathematics.
2. If you weren't a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be - and why?
That's an easy one! I would be a blues guitarist touring the world with a band of musicians. I have been playing this kind of music since I was in high school in London, the place where a blues revival took place in the late 60s and early 70s. I learned to play by copying the greats like BB King, Eric Clapton, Freddie King, Peter Green, Albert Collins and many others. In any case my exposure to public performance, while playing in various groups, helps me these days when I teach general chemistry classes of 350 students at UCLA. Anyone who has done this would agree that there is a strong element of 'performance' in keeping such classes interesting.
3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?
I am not the best person to ask this question since I specialize in history and philosophy of chemistry and writing about chemistry. However from the perspective of my own specialty I think it is essential that chemists develop their writing and communication skills so as to be able to explain to lay-people about their work and that of other chemists. Much concern about chemistry and science in general, for example Darwin's theory, seems to come from a lack of understanding of the real issues.
4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?
I think it would be Dimitri Mendeleev, the person who is most strongly associated with the discovery of the periodic system. And it's because I have spent a good deal of time thinking, researching and writing about the history and philosophical significance of this central icon of our science. Most recently I have published what I am pleased to say is being described as the definitive book on the periodic system. I include two chapters out of ten just on Mendeleev. The main thread running through the book is the relationship between chemistry and physics, such as the extent to which quantum mechanics explains the chemist's periodic system or as they still call it in Russia, Mendeleev's periodic system.
5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab - and what was it?
I regularly do demonstrations in my large general chemistry lectures. Students seem to appreciate them and I think it serves to bring things down to earth given all the mathematical abstraction that chemistry students need to take on board in a modern general chemistry course. But as for full scale experiments, it was the preparation of a compound of europium back in London. After weeks of false starts, futile trips to the glassblowers and so on, I finally had the sample in hand but dropped it on the floor on the way out of a building. I decided at that moment that my strength lay in thinking and writing about chemistry rather than hands-on chemistry.
6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?
I'll talk about the CD first since that's easy. I would take Fleetwood Mac's, Live in Chicago. This was recorded back in the early 70s and features the exquisite electric guitar playing of Peter Green. Listen to the opening track on volume 1 called "Watch Out" and you will see what I mean. And just as a back up I would have to take one of the 'Live Cream' CD's with the sheer magical improvisation of Clapton, Bruce and Baker.
As for a book, I might cheat a little and ask to have the whole of Encyclopedia Britannica. I love to learn new things and discover completely new areas of knowledge. But if really pressed to take one volume I think it would be Condon and Shortley's book on Atomic Spectroscopy or Atkins' Physical Chemistry.
Eric Scerri was educated in the UK and is now a continuing lecturer in the Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry at UCLA where he has been for the past eight years. He teaches large general chemistry classes as well as courses in history and philosophy of science and has published widely in history and philosophy of chemistry as well as chemical education. He is the founder-editor of the journal 'Foundations of Chemistry' and has written a best-selling book called "The Periodic Table: Its Story and Its Significance", Oxford University Press, 2007.
Hey everyone - our February issue is online. This one has a bunch of surprises - a copper enzyme with a new metal binding site (using methionine and tryptophan), a report that cisplatin and oxaliplatin are site-selective, and a thiamine diphosphate-dependent enzyme that lacks an otherwise strictly conserved active site residue. One of the articles (which uses high-content screening to look at phosphorylation in cells) resulted in our Tetris-like cover; I wonder when we'll find a manuscript that inspires Donkey Kong?
Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)
Posted on behalf of the Prospective Professor
The calls to request interviews started to come late in October and the interviews themselves started as soon as mid-November. The visits last for 1-2 days and seem to follow the same general schedule, meals out with faculty, short meetings with 10-20(!) different people and two seminars, one describing previous research accomplishments and one detailing the proposed research plan (otherwise known as the “chalk talk” even though everyone uses slides).
It’s a spectacular experience to meet with so many people in the chemistry world. These will be my life long colleagues. I will see them at conferences and study sections, review their papers and they will review mine. I’ve learned about research that I might never have read about on my own accord, but that I’ve found incredibly intriguing. I’ve discussed my future plans with countless people and with each visit my ideas are challenged, analyzed and ultimately strengthened.
Despite the excitement, the novelties of travel wear off pretty quickly. Depending upon where you are coming from and going to, your internal clock will either make you extremely tired in the morning, or unbelievably groggy during dinner. And after a while the thrill of flying to a new place, staying in a fancy hotel and eating every meal out feels more like being trapped in a flying tin box towards a destination where you will stay in a sterile looking room with a hard bed while eating approximately 4x more food than usual. I never thought I’d see the day when the sight of the dessert menu makes me mildly queasy.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a privilege to have the opportunity to visit these institutions, but I can’t help feeling a bit out of sorts as I sit on the floor of an airport waiting for a delayed flight while wearing the same suit that I’ve had on for the last week...
The London offices of Nature are blighted by viruses at the moment – I’ve currently got the worst cold that I’ve had in years, and several other scourges are also rampant, including the notorious norovirus (otherwise known as the ‘winter vomiting bug’). With the recent news that avian flu has apparently now been brought to the UK by migrating birds, I decided to see how chemists have been dabbling in the world of viruses.
So let’s start with avian flu. A fascinating paper in Nature Biotechnology uncovers what would need to happen at a molecular level for the virus to become transmissible between humans (subscribers can see the paper here, but there's also a C & EN article about it here). Infection is mediated by the binding of hemagglutinin (HA) proteins on the virus to sugars on HA receptors in the host. Ram Sasisekharan and his team have found that the shape formed by the carbohydrates is all important: the sugars on avian HA receptors form a cone-shape, but human sugars are arranged more like umbrellas. So, if the virus can mutate to bind to our ‘umbrellas’, we could be in trouble. Sasisekharan’s discovery might provide a way of checking whether new mutants of the virus could cause a human pandemic. None of this research would have been possible without recent advances in carbohydrate synthesis and mass spectrometry.
Those of you interested in nanotechnology may be interested to hear of a report in ACS Nano, which describes how quantum dots can be attached to cowpea mosaic virus to construct a minuscule memory device (click here for the paper). Mihri Ozkan and her group show that the resulting hybrid particles demonstrate reversible, bistable electrical behaviour, suitable for repeated write-read-erase cycles. Mind boggling stuff. I like the idea of making cyborg viruses, as long as they don’t give me a cold.
Meanwhile, John Robinson and his group report in Angewandte Chemie on the use of synthetic virus-like particles (subcribers can read the paper here). These star-like structures self-assemble from lipopeptides, and the authors have attached synthetic antigens to them. When injected into rabbits, the antigen-carrying particles trigger an immune response – the rabbits generate antibodies to the antigens. The authors hope that their particles have a bright future in the design of synthetic vaccines. I hope so too. Perhaps they can find a vaccine for the common cold. For now, I’ll just have to keep taking the paracetamol.
Andy
Andrew Mitchinson (Associate Editor, Nature)
1. What made you want to be a chemist?
I enjoyed chemistry in high school and did the usual teenage things with zinc dust and sulfur rockets and electroplating. However, I started my college career aimed at chemical engineering, but I was tripped up by engineering drawing, which in those days was pen and india ink — very demanding. Since I was doing well in general chemistry, I decided to switch and became a chemistry major. I truly enjoyed the lab experiences, particularly analytical and organic labs, and was then hooked.
2. If you weren't a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be - and why?
I had wanted to be a jet pilot when I was an undergraduate, but a bone tumor and a broken leg ended that dream.
Now if I had to choose another profession, I would be a jazz musician. Though I have no real formal training past high school, I enjoy drumming along with CDs of the greats of jazz, traditional, blues and funk.
3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?
Chemists have contributed tremendously to society in a myriad of ways that the public generally does not appreciate. Our contributions range from medicine to clothing to electronics. I anticipate that our contributions will continue to grow in importance as we experience changes in raw materials when petroleum feed stocks are depleted.
4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?
This is a hypothetical question that I have not pondered before — too pragmatic, I guess. I guess my choice would be Thelonius Monk, the great jazz pianist. I would like to know how his mind worked to come up with the truly original way he played.
5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab - and what was it?
It was on August 25, 1988, according to my notebook. I carried out the reaction of 2-methoxycarbonyl-1,2-dihydroisoquinoline with benzaldehyde using NaH in DMF. The two diastereoisomeric carbonates were formed in 54:46 ratio.
6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?
For the CD it would be a very tough choice between one of Monk's compilations or one by Monty Alexander, another swinging pianist.
As to the book, I would probably pick a historical treatise, such as one by Stephen Ambrose on World War II.
Harry Gibson is in the Department of Chemistry at Virginia Tech and works on self-assemblies of the pseudorotaxane, rotaxane and catenane types, as well as efforts with endohedral metallofullerenes and ionic liquids.
As regular readers may know, I occasionally come across chemistry-related newspaper articles on my commute to and from work - and this morning I found another one that I wanted to share.
Flipping through yesterday's edition of The Times on the way in today, I found an interesting little story about how one section of the population is perhaps not doing all they can in the war on climate change (if we can have a war on terror, surely we can have one on climate change?). Anyway, it turns out that the deceased could be doing more to reduce their carbon footprint...
In the article, 'Dearly departed encouraged to do their bit on global warming', a local council in Greater Manchester has suggested that the heat generated when those who have recently shuffled off this mortal coil are cremated, should be used to power the boilers and lights of crematoria. The council officials are treading carefully, however, with one of them admitting that, "If you look at it in black and white, some people might sit there thinking 'my relative is being cremated to heat the chapel'."
Much consultation is planned, however, and one local vicar has already given the plan his blessing, "As a final act of generosity, it's a lovely way for the dead to provide comfort for the living at a difficult time. I think it's a great idea," said Reverend Vernon Marshall.
Perhaps the most interesting fact I discovered as I read the article with a certain amount of morbid fascination, however, is that by the year 2020, it is expected that the biggest source of mercury emissions in Britain will be from crematoria. Mercury in tooth fillings vaporises during the process and is released into the atmosphere. Possible solutions include installing filters in crematorium chimneys... or perhaps a little post mortem dentistry, removing the dearly-departed's teeth before cremation (see this article from the LA Times).
One of my colleagues this morning asked if burial was any better - does the mercury eventually leech back into the soil and water, it may not be returned to the environment as quickly, but does anyone know if that is a potential problem?
Stuart
Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)
I was at the store this weekend and spotted 'Nanoglue', complete with little cartoon particles on the label. However, the actual packaging and internet hype (yes, that's the complete record of things I could find) leave me sadly lacking in actual information to pass on... I can only imagine that it's meant to glue very small things together, or that it's meant to be used by very small people (since I could see the bottle, it's obviously not the product that's nano-sized)?
I guess I thought we (that's the universal 'we') were still embroiled in fights about where and when nanotechnology was safe, or whether we might all perish from exposure to these tiny, tiny dots of destruction. Have you all heard about any resolution to this discussion, or are nanoparticles just somehow less offensive in adhesives?
Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)
Happy new year to everyone! I hope you were all able to take off a few days from lab-work/school-work/work and catch up on sleep, read a few good books, and decompress a bit...
It's been a long time since I've blogged, but I just wanted to tell you some great news - I'm very happy to announce that Stuart Cantrill will be the chief editor of Nature Chemistry (set to launch in early 2009)...
Some of you may have noticed that NPG is now searching for editors to join Stuart at Nature Chemistry, as well as a chemistry editor to take his place at Nature Nanotechnology...
If you have any questions about what life is like as an editor, please feel free to post it here and one (or more) of us will let you know our thoughts...
Hope you all had a great break!
Joshua
Joshua Finkelstein (Senior Editor, Nature)
1. What made you want to be a chemist?
I suppose family background must have helped. Growing up in the 1950s, my father was an experimental engineer in the emerging electronics industry, and I was kept well supplied with popular books on science and technology. Our local university in Newcastle also put on evening science lectures for children, and I was sometimes allowed to tag along to these with my older brother and his friends. Later on, at grammar school, a group of enlightened science teachers ran a weekly chemistry club and I still remember my excitement when experiments such as the synthesis of Bakelite and Nylon actually worked!
2. If you weren't a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be - and why?
Maybe a writer – though of course a chemist has to be writer in any case. I'm not sure I'd have been much good at fiction, but I enjoy exploring some of the more obscure byways of Victorian and Edwardian art history, and I might possibly have made some sort of a career as a biographer of neglected painters and composers from that period.
3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?
I wish I knew! But I suspect that, with oil and gas now genuinely running out, the viability of nuclear fission still being debated, and fusion still a long way from being a realistic proposition, the development of new materials and processes for energy production, conversion and storage is going to be one area where chemistry really will have a major impact on society over the next twenty years.
4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?
I wish I could have known Lawrence Bragg, who is I think one of the most underestimated scientists of the last century. His record of achievement, sustained over more than fifty years, is quite staggering. Not only did he discover the fundamental law governing diffraction of X-rays from crystals, but he used this insight to help understand, for the first time, the nature of literally almost everything, from simple salts through metals to silicate minerals and finally to the structures of the most complex molecules of the living cell. (He was also, by all accounts, a brilliant lecturer and a thoroughly decent chap).
5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab - and what was it?
I was working in the lab only yesterday (though admittedly this was the first time in about five years), doing some scouting experiments on the synthesis and crystallisation of tungsten-ruthenium molecular wires. I began my research career as an inorganic chemist, working with Bernard Aylett in London, and although most of my work now focuses on polymers, I still maintain a small but active research programme in coordination chemistry.
6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?
The book would be Jim Watson's "The Double Helix". The story raises serious ethical issues regarding scientific competition versus collaboration, but it also gives a vivid account of one of the most important discoveries ever made in science. Moreover, it really captures the atmosphere of intellectual life in England in the early 1950s – a fascinating period when science was just emerging from its wartime constraints, driven by scientists such as Bernard Lovell, John Randall and Geoffrey Wilkinson, whose early careers had all been frustrated by the war. My CD would be Vaughan Williams' "London" symphony of 1913 – another work which supremely catches the spirit of a time and a place.
Howard Colquhoun is in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Reading and works on the design, synthesis, structural chemistry and applications of high performance aromatic polymers.
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