Musings on chemistry and the history and philosophy of science
In January 1939, the physicist Luis Alvarez was sitting in a barber's chair in Berkeley, California, reading the paper and getting a haircut. It was then that he read something astonishing; scientists in Germany had bombarded uranium with neutrons and had actually observed it splitting into two light elements, releasing further neutrons and a disturbingly intense pulse of energy...
Harvard chemist George Whitesides probably does not consider himself a philosopher of chemistry, but he is rapidly turning into one with his thought-provoking pronouncements on the future of the field and its practitioners...
Veteran chemistry blogger Derek Lowe's takedown of the nonsensical Buzzfeed article about eight "food chemicals" that you should stay away from was an excellent rejoinder to what was essentially a pile of sensationalized opinions disseminated by someone who does not bother reading up on basic science, but it also gave me a sinking feeling that is encapsulated by the following basic existential question.How long can we chemists do this?Over the last few years bloggers like SeeArrOh, Derek, Chembark and others have regularly pointed out instances of the growing epidemic of antiscientific, fact-free chemophobia that abounds on the Internet...
When I visited Lindau this year I experienced a mix of hopes and fears. The hopes came from the Nobel Prize winners and the young students and researchers gathered there.
In conversation Brian Kobilka is shy, self-effacing, modest and mild-mannered. In his work he is a tour de force of science who has chipped away at an unyielding problem for more than twenty years until it gave way and got him the Nobel Prize.Kobilka and his fellow prizewinner Robert Lefkowitz were honored for their work on G-Protein Coupled Receptors, Kobilka more specifically for determining the crystal structures of several crucial forms of the proteins using x-ray crystallography...
Avram Hershko – an amiable, mild-mannered Israeli biochemist – shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his co-discovery of the body’s protein waste disposal system along with Aaron Ciechanover and Irwin Rose...
Former Secretary of Energy and Nobel Laureate Steven Chu gave a wide-ranging and engaging talk at Lindau about science innovation and a realistic appraisal of problems.
The key goal of chemical science in the nineteenth and twentieth century was to understand how atoms come together to form molecules through chemical bonds.
This blog post originates from the Lindau Nobel Online Community,the interactive forum of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. The 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, dedicated to chemistry, will be held in Lindau, Germany, from 30 June to 5 July 2013...
This blog post originates from the Lindau Nobel Online Community,the interactive forum of the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meetings. The 63rd Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting, dedicated to chemistry, will be held in Lindau, Germany, from 30 June to 5 July 2013...
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