Dear Chemistry Diary

Bachelor in Chemistry, 27, curious, photographer and maybe something else

[eddieintheocean]

gorgeous gorgeous people read scientific articles and research papers for fun

[eduardosaverin7-archive]

Women in STEMB. Science technology engineering. And blog

[almost-chemdiary]

Day 127.1

I also have this cool slow-mo video that I wanted to share. Hope you like it!

[cenchempics]

Always welcome

Synthetic chemists dream of crystals. They suggest purity, and crystallographers can probe good-sized crystals with X-rays to determine the chemical structure of a substance. In this project at the University of Calgary, crystals are an essential part of separating isomers, chemicals that have the same formula but slightly different geometric configurations. In skilled hands, that slight difference in chemical properties is enough to make one version crystallize while another stays in solution. Graduate student Braulio Michelle Puerta Lombardi and undergrad researcher Ethan Pezoulas obtained these beauties as an intermediate while synthesizing a chelating carbene ligand. Though the group already knows this structure, so no need for X-ray analysis, advisor Roland Roesler tells C&EN, “gemstone-quality crystals are always welcome.” — Craig Bettenhausen

Read more about the group’s research here: Angew. Chemie Int. Ed. 2020, DOI: 10.1002/anie.202011301

Credit: Roland Roesler, University of Calgary - @RolandRoesler on Twitter

Do science. Take pictures. Win money. Enter our photo contest here.

Click here to see more Chemistry in Pictures.

[sixpenceee]

Oxidation | source

[cenchempics]

Solid + solid = liquid?

Can a mix of solids form a liquid? In a “deep eutectic system” (DES), yes. In these cases—which includes some mixtures of sugars, amino acids, and organic acids—compounds that are typically solid at room temperature lower each other’s melting points when combined in some ratios. As a result, they melt. Starting at the left, this picture shows two natural compounds, menthol and lauric acid. Combined in a certain molar fraction as they were heated and stirred, the compounds formed the eutectic liquid in the flask on the right. After the liquid is formed, it remains stable at room temperature. This is also what happens with honey, a naturally occurring DES that is a viscous liquid resulting from the mixture of various sugars. Project Des.Solve, funded by the European Research Council, aims to extend knowledge of these systems, focusing on their characterization and boosting application to fields including extraction, biocatalysis, green chemistry, and biomedical science.  — Craig Bettenhausen

Submitted by Liane Meneses and Luísa Pereira/Project Des.Solve

Do science. Take pictures. Win money. Enter our photo contest here.

Click here to see more Chemistry in Pictures.

[cancerbiophd]

99% of doing lab work is just a voice in my head going “it’s ok. it’s ok. take your time. you’re ok. just breathe. take it slow, one tube at a time. there you go.” 

[cancerbiophd]

04.14.20 // yup, still in the lab! we got a waiver to continue as “essential research”. i have a plan to finish all my lab work within the next 2 weeks so i can work exclusively from home, but my PI keeps “suggesting” more experiments to run so that deadline keeps getting pushed back but i guess what else is new ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[cenchempics]

Be still, my giant rotovap

As I stood contemplating this giant rotary evaporator on display at the Pittcon 2020 expo, thinking of the hours I spent on a regular-sized rotovap in graduate school, an older chemist with a long white beard and plaid shirt stood next to me. After a while, he said, “Reminds me of the moonshine setup my uncle had deep in the woods in Tennessee.”— Craig Bettenhausen

Craig Bettenhausen/C&EN

Do science. Take pictures. Win money. Enter our photo contest here.

Click here to see more Chemistry in Pictures.

[unsympatheticchemprof]

[startswithabang]

Ask Ethan: What Is The Fine Structure Constant And Why Does It Matter?

“When we do our best to measure the Universe — to greater precisions, at higher energies, under various conditions, at lower temperatures, etc. — we often find details that are intricate, rich, and puzzling. It’s not the devil that’s in those details, though, but rather that’s where the deepest secrets of reality lie.

The particles in our Universe aren’t just points that attract, repel, and bind together with one another; they interact through every subtle means that the laws of nature permit. As we reach greater precisions in our measurements, we start uncovering these subtle effects, including intricacies to the structure of matter that are easy to miss at low precisions. Fine structure is a vital part of that, but learning where even our best predictions of fine structure break down might be where the next great revolution in particle physics comes from. Doing the right experiment is the only way we’ll ever know.“

This week, I was asked to explain the fine structure constant as simply as possible. It’s actually a story more than a century in the making, as the previously-observed fine structure of matter let us know that Niels Bohr’s model of the atom was insufficient from the outset! Today, our understanding of how the spin of matter, the relativistic effects that come from moving close to the speed of light, and the inherently fluctuating nature of the quantum fields permeating the Universe come together enables us to probe the structure and nature of matter more deeply than ever before.

The fine structure constant is so much more than almost anyone realizes. Come open your eyes to its wonders today.

[astrodidact]

[luetine]

Scientists have obtained the first image of a black hole, using Event Horizon Telescope observations of the center of the galaxy M87. The image shows a bright ring formed as light bends in the intense gravity around a black hole that is 6.5 billion times more massive than the Sun.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a project, composed of many radio observatories or radio telescope facilities around the world, to produce a high-sensitivity, high-angular-resolution telescope. The aim of the project is to observe the immediate environment of the supermassive black hole Sagittarius A* at the centre of our galaxy as well as the even larger black hole in the supergiant elliptical galaxy Messier 87.

The EHT uses a technique of very-long-baseline interferometry, a type of astronomical interferometry. An astronomical interferometer is an array of separate telescopes, radio telescopes, antennas etc. that work together as a single telescope, this enables us to create a virtual telescope with an effective diameter of the entire planet. When a signal from an astronomical radio source is collected at multiple radio telescopes on Earth, scientists calculate the distance between these telescope by using the difference between the arrivals of the radio signal at the different telescopes. This allows observations of an object that are made simultaneously by many radio telescopes to be combined, emulating a telescope with a size equal to the maximum separation between the telescopes. At a later time, the data collected by the telescopes are, together with the time signals provided by the atomic clock, correlated with data from other antennas that recorded the same radio signal, to produce the resulting image.

[kristellablr]

[almost-chemdiary]

In water*

[almost-chemdiary]

Day 127.1

I also have this cool slow-mo video that I wanted to share. Hope you like it!

[yippee-ki-yoyo]

Anyway, here’s

[almost-chemdiary]

Before posting my last update I realized how many chats and messages I have. I’m so sorry but tumblr mobile sucks so it never tells me that I have a new ask. I’ll answer everything, thank you <3