Where is Dan Michael?
I got sick on Thursday and the cough is making it difficult both to sleep and attending lectures. And my voice sounds like it belongs to a 80 year old man. Conventional cough medicine is probably not more effective than placebo. But there is a much better solution… theobromine, found in chocolate – according to a peer-reviewed article by Usmani et al. Good news for all chocolate lovers!
Photochemistry, the interaction between molecules and light (or electromagnetic radiation), can be quite spectacular. One example is luminescent compounds. Another is so-called photocromic reactions, which can be described as a reversible change of colour upon exposure to light. A neat example of such a reaction was just published in Org. Lett. and a video in the supporting information has been published on YouTube:
via The Chem Blog
I normally prefer organic products, not because I’m so worried about food additives or ionizing radiation, but because of the potentially environmentally harmful synthetic fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides used in conventional agriculture.
But sometimes the marketing depts go too far. Like when they promote 100 % chemical free compost. Unfortunately, many people appear to be afraid of chemicals in general, but everything around us is chemicals: you, me, compost… Another funny example is the carbon-free t-shirt, given that humans consist of ~ 18 % carbon by mass. By the way, we consist of 65-90 % dihydrogen monoxide :)
Writing about organic, I just learned that Cuba is in the lead when it comes to organic farming — because of the US trade embargo! The country is beeing looked at as a model for other nations. Indeed, necessity is the mother of invention.
I found this wonderful interpretation of a benzene ring from Golden Book of Chemistry Experiments on Carbon-based Curiosities:
The monkeys are carbon and the bananas hydrogen. The monkeys who hold both feet of another monkey represents double bonds.
Many Norwegian universities today have their own open access repositories. The University of Bergen has BORA (shared with HiB and NHH, the University of Oslo has DUO, NTNU uses DIVA – and there exists a search engine to search though all of them (I’d never heard of it before though..): Nora. While this is good, the large majority of the work produced are never published in these repositories. Vox Publica reports that only 33 of 9868 peer-reviewed articles produced in 2006 are available!
One reason is that they are all based on an opt-in model. It’s therefore interesting that Harvard University decided that all scholarly publications by employees at the university must be made available online in an open access repository. The proposal uses the opt-out model instead, where all articles must be submitted to the repository and scholars who don’t wish their work to be openly available must apply for a waiver. I would love Norwegian universities to follow suit! NTNU has already taken a small step in the right direction, by deciding that all master’s and phd theses will follow the opt-out model.
In the future, open access might lower the barrier between academic publications and the “informal web”. Maybe blog comments on academic publications one day will be a common phenomena?
Despite it’s boring name, Novec 1230 (C-6 fluoroketone) is a really fascinating chemical. It’s liquid at room temperature and looks and acts very much like water. But it’s not wet! It’s also generally very little reactive, so you can sink your LCD in it while keeping it powered on! You can also sink books in it, and it appears that the liquid doesn’t get adsorbed or make any damage. I don’t know why it doesn’t wet, maybe because of very high surface tension? Anyway, that makes it perfect for putting out fires without damaging the interiour like water does. And unlike other halogenated fire suppression agents, like halon, it doesn’t deplete ozone! Finally it appears to be non-toxic and easy to handle. Hm.. Could someone send me a sample? :D
I received Harris and Bertoluccis textbook on Symmetry and Spectroscopy today and I felt slightly hit by the dedication: «I dedicate this book to the student who is willing to take it to bed with him at night, along with a pencil and occasionally a calculator, and who falls asleep with a smile on his face». Of course I was reading that in bed… I also think I felt asleep with a smile on my face. But a calculator in bed..? That sounds like an idea from an engineer :) Truly, math can be rather fun, but «chemistry without numbers is poetry» (Andrew Shaws). And I would rather read poetry than do calculations in bed.
Colorful chemistry is great, but luminescent chemistry is even better. This week we synthesized two luminescent compounds: Alq3 with q = 8-quinolinolate and Eu(tta)3(phen) with tta=theonyltrifluoracetone, phen = 1,10-phenantroline.
We tested the compounds under UV-light, where Alq3 emitted green light and Eu(tta)3(phen) red, due to fluorescence. The compounds would produce the same light in an electric field (electroluminescence), which is the basic principle behind OLED-displays, but unfortunately this requires a more complex setup.
Alq3 emits green light when radiated with UV-light. This is a typical main group luminescent compound, where the luminescence comes from π-π*-transitions in the conjugated system (the other common transition is n-π*. As the transitions take place in molecular orbitals, there is a large gap between the many vibrational states and the emission peak is broad. Also, it’s only slightly shifted from the absorption peak.
Eu(tta)3(phen) emits red light when radiated with UV-light. Eu is a rare-earth metal and the luminescence come from f-f-transitions on the metal. This gives very sharp emission-peaks (because the transitions take place in atomic orbitals), which is good. Also, the absorption peak is shifted a large difference from the absorption peak. This ensures the compound is really white when no stimuli is added, while Alq3 is slightly yellowish.
A fun fact is that an Europium (Eu) compound is used in the Euro banknotes for anti-counterfeiting.
I like to think that I care more about the environment (and other important stuff) than about myself, although I admit it’s probably not the real, deep truth. Well, at least getting my hair trimmed is something I tend to forget. A week or so ago I discovered that it really was in need to be done soon. Then on thursday I heard some good news: Huldra, the first ecological hairdresser in Bergen has just established. That made the choice of hairdresser easy. Even though a normal haircut can’t really be ecological, I really love to support such a project. It’s not everyday you can get good conscience by going to a hairdresser!
So what is an ecological hairdresser? Basically, they avoid the use of hairproducts with certain chemicals known to damage either people or the environment. On their homepage they’ve made a list of chemicals to avoid. As a chemistry student I love most chemicals, but I also see it very clear that many of them really shouldn’t leave the lab. Of them are many found in haircolouring and other cosmetic products. In fact I’m happy to be a boy without the big need for cosmetics. I’m really not jealous on you girls! Well, enough about that. I’m satisfied with my haircut and I’m quite sure I will go there again.
Do you want this sweety in your hair?
