Editor’s note: Frank Leibfarth is about to embark on a postdoc position and is trying to make his way through the academic maze. Find him contributing to the Sceptical Chymist or continue the conversation on Twitter @Frank_Leibfarth. Read more
Frank Leibfarth is a graduate student trying to make his way through the academic maze. Find him contributing to the Sceptical Chymist or continue the conversation on Twitter @Frank_Leibfarth. Read more
Posted on behalf of Aaron Finke Chemistry lab courses should focus more on method and problem-solving rather than specific techniques, with room for students to “fail” so they can learn from their mistakes. The best approach is to use open-ended experiments that require students to formulate conclusions other than “it worked” or “it didn’t work.” However, these experiments usually require a significant time commitment on the instructors’ part, and so these kinds of experiments are usually only found in labs for chemistry majors with small student enrollments. My undergrad’s senior capstone project for chemistry majors is a particularly good example … Read more
[Joining The Sceptical Chymist is our latest guest blogger, Aaron Finke. A grad student at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, he works on polyphenylene dendrimers and hyperbranched polymers. You may know Aaron better as Excimer from his posts at Carbon-Based Curiosities.] … Read more
Posted on behalf of Sugar Daddy With the changing of the guard in Washington, late-night night television hasn’t quite been the same. I guess the new guy in charge is a harder target for comics. Anyway, to a certain extent, the late-night hosts have been turning their attention elsewhere, and eventually chemistry was bound to make it. In this clip, Conan O’Brien draws attention to, among other things, the discovery of a fourth form of pure elemental boron. The humor in the clip originates from a recent New York Times article that had mistakenly counted the number of pure forms … Read more
Markus Ribbe did his PhD in the laboratory of Ortwin Meyer in Bayreuth on the oxygen-tolerant superoxide-dependent nitrogenase of Streptomyces… ... Read more
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