Apr 7, 2008
Chemspy users may have noticed a few outages recently, at least on the blog section of that site, so rather than spend many an hour trying to upgrade servers, I’ve decided to re-host just the blog content from that site on Sciencebase. The databases and chemical search tools will remain in place over on that site. The following is a small selection of recent items about informatics, online science tools, …
Mar 14, 2008
A mixed bag this week in my Alchemist column on ChemWeb.com this week. First up, news that US$1 million is to be ploughed into biofuels research that could circumvent some of the serious environmental concerns associated with this renewable energy source.
In the world of pharmaceuticals we discover that there might be yet another string to the bow of aspirin-like drugs, this time in the fight against breast cancer. …
Feb 15, 2008
In the realm of physical chemistry (or is it chemical physics?) there was almost theological interest in this week’s Alchemist. Having written about water glass and how low-temperature studies of aqueous phase changes are helping scientists to explain this anomalous and yet ubiquitous material it was a simple spellcheck-induced typo that drew the most interest from The Alchemist’s email newsletter readers.
Wave after wave (pardon the …
Feb 8, 2008
Earlier this year organic chemist Adam Azman contacted me to ask if there is a free or open source chemistry dictionary available for word processors. Well, a quick search revealed only paid-for dictionaries so he set about creating his own from scratch.
“It took me the better part of a month,” Azman told Chemspy, “but I’ve made my own and I want
it to be as open-source as possible. Chemspy Sciencebase is …
Jan 21, 2008
Where online do you turn, when you are looking for a periodic table?
The domain name PeriodicTable.com - reveals a superb online periodic table with an obvious website name and the option to buy a poster printout.
For more on what Periodic Tables mean and their underlying formulations check out Periodic Table Formulations by Mark Leach
Berkeley nuclear chemist Mitch Garcia who runs ChemicalForums.com, would, as would …
Jan 16, 2008
Diamond is not unique! Nature’s missing crystal discovered! A crystal as beautiful as diamond! Those were the themes running through dozens of articles in the media about a discovery made by Japanese mathematician Toshi Sunada of Meiji University. The original press release proclaimed that he had discovered a theoretical crystal structure with the same symmetry properties as diamond but with handedness, or chirality, and that this knocked the …
Jan 8, 2008
Why do they grit the roads with rock salt in winter? What does the salt do to the water to reduce ice on the roads? Is this somehow related to how salt affects the boiling point of water? Keywords to search for: colligative properties, boiling, freezing, ions, solutions, solvent, Raoult’s law
Meanwhile, I’ll let Plasticine models from Ithaca and cheesy music explain:…
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Nature Reviews Drug Discovery publishes the highest-quality reviews and perspectives plus news stories and features that investigate key issues in drug discovery...moreover if you check my resume, you'll see that the magazine is in my client list. more info...
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