We’ve been enjoying the ‘favourite things about chemistry’ meme started by ChemJobber and continued by Azmanam and the C+EN team – who have now challenged us!
So the London-based team put their heads together and came up with this list:
1. The smell of ethyl acetate (in the morning) [SC]
2. A rainbow of Keck clips [SC]
3. A good graphical abstract that perfectly sums up the paper [SC]
4. CPK models (the proper physical things, not just pretty pictures) [SC]
5. Peter Atkins’ textbooks [GA]
6. Awesomely symmetrical (and pretty) crystal structures [NW]
7. Chemistry sets [GA]
8. The elements song [GA/NW]
9. Curly arrows [LC]
10. Freaky glassware and the prowess of glassblowers [All]
We’ll also throw the baton on to the Chemistry World gang, David Bradley of ScienceBase and Michelle Francl of Culture of Chemistry — and our Boston- and Tokyo-based teammates Steve and Anne.
Neil
Neil Withers (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)
I’ve propagated the meme …
https://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/my-favourite-chemistry-things.html
I’ve propagated the meme …
https://www.sciencebase.com/science-blog/my-favourite-chemistry-things.html
Well, some of mine overlap with others that have been posted, but it doesn’t stop them being my favourites. I also noticed a distinctly experimental flavour to a lot of them, so I tried to come up with some more closely related to my current position:
1. New reactions that run ‘spot to spot’ on TLC
2. Freshly made Pd(PPh3)4
3. A well packed flash chromatography column (which results in tight and well separated bands of compounds)
4. Gas-tight microsyringes
5. Old fashioned mechanical shakers that make the whole lab move
6. A full set of clean NMR spectra
7. RIDICULOUS – acronyms for NMR experiments
8. Rapid responses from reviewers (even when they say ‘no’)
9. A well balanced referee report
10. A good pun (with the emphasis on good)
Given the popularity of Derek Lowe’s ‘Things I won’t work with’ (https://pipeline.corante.com/archives/things_i_wont_work_with/), how about some things he does like? And how about some thoughts from Prof. Like Substance (https://proflikesubstance.blogspot.com/) – perhaps he could add some flavour from being a young academic?
My 10 favorite things about Polymer Chemistry