Author Archives: stu

Screw stereochemistry!

Posted on May 8, 2013

I saw my former PhD boss (Fraser Stoddart) over the weekend and he had a challenge for me. And I can’t resist a challenge. He gave me a copy of the midterm he had just given his grad class and … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun, Quiz time! | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A pocket full of what now?

Posted on April 20, 2013

I received the e-mail from @SeeArrOh a little while ago about the impending #ChemMovieCarnival, but I figured I would just be too busy to join in. After seeing the first round up of posts, however, I couldn’t resist, so here’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Carnivals | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

For the record

Posted on March 23, 2013

Sarah Everts from C&EN was kind enough to ask me for a comment about Angewandte Chemie to include in her article about its 125th anniversary. My quote is in the third paragraph from the end, but as with all these … Continue reading →

Posted in Publishing | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The times they aren’t a-changin’

Posted on January 25, 2013

Thanks to @drpeterrodgers for pointing out these two chemistry-related articles from Nature in 1970. First up, is Chemists are Like Dodos (you need to be a subscriber — sorry), which looks at a report by Prof. Colin Eaborn entitled, ‘Committee of … Continue reading →

Posted in Careers | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

The periodic table of Twitter

Posted on January 24, 2013

So, you’re a chemist and you’ve finally decided to find out what all the fuss is about with this thing called Twitter. You decide to sign up, but, for whatever reason, you don’t fancy using your own name. Maybe an … Continue reading →

Posted in Fun | Tagged , , , , , , | 22 Comments

Where you all come from to read this stuff

Posted on January 20, 2013

I see that Henry Rzepa just put up a post about where the readers of his blog come from. 144 countries, with India at number 3, and so on. I thought I’d put mine up for comparison — these are … Continue reading →

Posted in Metrics | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My #overlyhonestmethods story

Posted on January 11, 2013

Single crystals suitable for X-ray crystallographic analysis were obtained when a solution of the salt in EtOAc/nC6H14/MeCN was allowed to stand at 20 °C for about 1 d. That sentence appears in the X-ray characterization section of only the second … Continue reading →

Posted in In the lab | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The life editorial (in brief)

Posted on October 22, 2012

With apologies to @BenchFly (who sent me a set of thought-provoking career-related questions a long time ago now — and I promise I will answer them at some point), here is a short post to take part in the #ChemCoach … Continue reading →

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My Olympics

Posted on August 13, 2012

We were lucky enough to see a couple of events at the London 2012 Olympics… first up was some tennis at Wimbledon. We got to see Murray and Robson in the mixed doubles (beating the Australians — which is always … Continue reading →

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Where I’ve been (in the name of SCIENCE!)

Posted on August 11, 2012

I’m not quite sure who started the whole #sciencenomads thing on Twitter (I think either @Chemjobber or @SeeArrOh), but it got me thinking about all the places I’ve visited/worked because of SCIENCE! Sure, if I’d never got into chemistry (or … Continue reading →

Posted in Careers, Fun | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment