ScienceGeist

Today is Day 3 of “Our Favorite Toxic Chemicals” blog carnival! Lots of early activity! Should be a great day with some stellar posts. I will aggregate the links here as they come in. 1) Supernova Condensate Markus gets the ball rolling with his favorite toxic hydrides. Highlights include arsine: “apparently has a faint garlic-like scent, but chances are if you can smell it you won’t live long enough to tell anyone that” and HF: “frankly, scares the hell out of me”. Me too, Markus. Me too. 2) J.A.Y.F.K. Dr. Rubidium has put up a brilliant post about succinylcholine and describes its use for both medical and nefarious reasons. She goes into detail about murder cases that revolved around the tricky forensic analysis of succinylcholine in the body. I can’t properly tout her work here. I’ll refer you to praise that came from Deborah Blum: “Wish I’d written this tale … Continue reading →

I was going to write my #ToxicCarnival post on oxalic acid and rhubarb. Oxalic acid is the molecule that makes rhubarb leaves poisonous. If you ingest it, oxalic acid will bind with all sorts of metals in your body and, in effect, will leach your system of much needed minerals. Of particular note is one of the products of this leaching, calcium oxalate. Calcium oxalate is one of the most abundant molecules found in kidney stones. That is what I was going to write about. But, as I sat down to work on it, I got a call from one of my college roommates. It had been a while since we had spoken, and I was excited to have him on the line. But calls like this, out of the blue, usually come with some sort of news. He told me that the wife of one of our friends had … Continue reading →

Today is Day 2 of “Our Favorite Toxic Chemicals” blog carnival! Mind what you eat! Put some more lotion on your face! I will aggregate the links here as they come in. 1. The Haystack Carmen kicked things off today with a stellar post on tetrodotoxin. The post starts with a quote from Captain James Cook, slides nicely into organic synthesis, moves into Zombieland and a discussion of “The Serpent and the Rainbow”, and ends with her own thoughts on how “we” present chemicals and chemical risks to the public and ourselves. This is a clinic in good and entertaining science writing! Oh yeah … and did I mention food … pufferfish … Anybody out there ever tried it? 2. Nature Nanotechnology This isn’t part of the #ToxicCarnival, but Carmen pointed out this timely editorial from Nature Nanotechnology: The dose makes the poison. Do go and read it. 3. Atomic-o-licious … Continue reading →

Today is Day 1 of “Our Favorite Toxic Chemicals” blog carnival! Feel the excitement oozing over you! I will aggregate the links here as they come in. 1. In The Pipeline Derek is up first with a post on selenophenol. Quoting Th’Gaussling’s description of this molecule: “The biggest stinker I have run across. . .Imagine 6 skunks wrapped in rubber innertubes and the whole thing is set ablaze. That might approach the metaphysical stench of this material.” High praise, that. Derek, for those of you who don’t follow him, has an entire series on “Things I won’t work with”. Check them out! 2. Carbon Based Curiosities Excimer has a hilarious post on TCNE (tetracyanoethylene). He starts off his post lampooning Andrew Liveris and musing that if 95% of products are made with chemicals, then the other 5% must be made from unicorns and rainbows. He goes on to describe in … Continue reading →

Announcing a Blog Carnival You may have heard. Chemicals are bad for you. Especially if they are made by “Big Chem”. They are especially scary if you happen to be a male reptile or an amphibian. If this is the case, you’re in line to have your johnson shrunk or, possibly, tack on a pair of ovaries. Nick Kristof, of New York Times Op-Ed fame, is the latest in a long line of writers to sound the alarm against “chemicals” being “spewed” into the “environment” by “products” being made at “Big Chemical” corporations. These vague pronouncements of doom pop up from time to time warning us against any and all products with “chemical additives”. They have played prominently in a recent discussion on the origins of autism. The aura of bad chemicals even made its way into an interview with DOW CEO, Andrew Liveris. Scared of chemicals? Not to worry, … Continue reading →

In order to attain the Golden Fleece, Jason was tasked with three … um … tasks. He had to yoke up a couple of fire-breathing oxen and have them plow a field. Then he had to plant the field with dragon’s teeth, which quickly grew into an army that attacked him. Finally, he had to get past the dragon that guarded the fleece. Jason couldn’t do any of this on his own. His lady-companion-friend Medea had to help him along the way. She gave him an oil that kept the oxen’s fire from harming him. Medea showed him how to use a rock to defeat the crop of soldiers. Finally, she helped him with a potion that sedated the savage dragon. “Jason and the Argonauts” movie poster. Source I can imagine an overzealous chemist describing their latest molecular conquest in such a manner. The viscious battle is waged to secure … Continue reading →

How should we be training our undergraduates? As many of you are aware, the Sheri Sangji tragedy has touched off another round of navel-gazing since the filing of criminal charges against her former advisor, Patrick Harran, of UCLA. For those of you who aren’t up to date on this story, I’ll give a brief recap: Sheri Sangji was killed in a laboratory accident in Harran’s UCLA lab. She died from complications due to the burns that she sustained over her entire body when she mis-handled a pyrophoric (spontaneously combusts in air) chemical. It is an absolutely heart-wrenching story, and you can’t help but feel sympathy for everyone involved: her lab-mates and friends at UCLA and, mostly, for her family. The specifics of these events have been discussed in greater detail elsewhere. Jyllian Kemsley’s blog is THE place to go for the most in depth coverage on all aspects of this … Continue reading →

Hi all, For those of you who didn’t know (and I did a horrible job of broadcasting this at the time), my post last week (The Maillard Reaction was written for a blogging carnival set up by C&E News. My friend Rachel, the C&E News community online overlord, had the brilliant idea to get all of the chemistry bloggers writing about their favorite reactions as a way to celebrate the International Year of Chemistry. And now, all of those carnival posts have been aggregated in a really terrific, stand-alone post by another friend, pharmacology professor and blogger for C&E News, David Kroll. I encourage you all to go and check out all of the posts in the carnival feed. There are many enjoyable entries. -mrh