ChemCafé

Synthetic chemists use to perform their reactions in various pieces of glassware such as round-bottomed flasks, vials, Schlenk tubes of simple beakers. An article recently published in PNAS(1) reports synthetic chemistry performed in an unusual environment, as the authors present it, ‘in the physiologically relevant context of a mouse‘!
The team from University of California (UC) [...]

For more than three centuries, Antonio Stradivari’s instruments (violins, cellos, harps,…) have represented the quintessence of the Cremonese instrument-making tradition. During his life (1644-1737), Stradivari has produced more than 1100 instruments, and roughly 650 still exist today – and many violins are still played by virtuoses. Hosts of musicians, violin makers, acousticians and chemists have [...]

When inhalated, organophosphorus compounds can cause death within minutes. Although they are prohibited by the Chemical Convention Weapons, several states still possess large stockpiles of these chemicals, and terrorist organisations are not particularly known for complying with international conventions – one of these organophosphorus compounds is sarin, (in)famous for having been spread in the Tokyo [...]

Among the loads of various ‘concentration calculators’ and ‘grams-versus-moles converters’ that are available online, I think the one provided by WolframAlpha can be quite useful and is nicely done. For example, if you need to know how many moles of iron are present in 5 grams, just query ‘how many moles are in 5 grams [...]

It’s been a while since last post… I’ve been quite busy for several reasons, such as trying to get some of my research published, taking part at the annual meeting of the Swiss Chemical Society and, last but not least, spending three weeks doing military service – Switzerland still has mandatory military service for [...]

Phosphorus was known since heroic alchemistry times for its propensity to emit light and spontaneously self-ignite when exposed to air. These rather unusual properties make this compound dangerous to handle and transport. The most reactive allotrope of phosphorus is the so-called white phosphorus (also named yellow phosphorus, never mind), which in more modern times became [...]

To conclude the ISMSC 2009 overview, let’s sum up what amazing things were presented in the last days… We had a really funny talk from Prof. J. Sessler – great cartoons, but great science as well! Then Prof. L. Lindoy presented nice ‘boomerang complexes’ – interesting name for research produced in Australia – as well [...]

As I said in an older post, I was last week attending the ISMSC (stands for International Symposium in Macrocyclic and Supramolecular Chemistry) in Maastricht, in The Netherlands. We attended many great lectures given by talented speakers (and researchers), and the atmosphere was quite relaxed, as you can see in the following not-to-chemical summary of [...]

Our good old friend and companion of many chemical adventures, the periodic table, will soon have a new element in its seventh, unfinished row. The so far unnamed element 112 was recently reported by a team from the GSI Helmholzzentrum für Schwerionenforschung (Centre for Heavy Ions Research). The researchers led by prof. Sigurd Hofmann were [...]

A couple of months ago, I had to struggle very hard in order to be allowed to use osmium tetroxide for my experiments. Safety rules enforced at my institute make it almost impossible to obtain this apparently super toxic compound… so my curiosity was excited when I found a paper in PNAS (also commented on [...]