Fun Things To Do In Lab

This week in “TBDMSCl crystals”

Vacuum distillation of polyaromatic compounds could be fun. 

In this case I only had to sit with an UV lamp to see when will my compound distill, since it had a bright blue fluorescence (as seen), while the side products of the reaction did not had any visible emission when irradiated with UV light.

The Harvard Computers (Hint: They were women, not machines!)

Today is the birthday of Annie Jump Cannon, born December 11, 1863, known as one of ‘Harvard’s Computers’. She is credited along with Edward Pickering as the creator of the Harvard Classification Scheme which remains the foundation of today’s stellar classification system.

One of a dozen women hired by Pickering to do the hard work of identifying, classifying and cataloging hundreds of stellar objects, Cannon distinguished herself as the brightest of the bright and rose finally to a full professorship before her death in 1941. Pickering hired the first of his ‘computers’ in a pique of frustration, noting that his maid could probably do better work than he was getting from his students.  Indeed, he hired his maid, Williamina Fleming, who became the first of his ‘computers’ and quickly distinguished herself. Pickering was pleased enough with her work (and lower wages) that he soon built a team comprised entirely of women to compose the catalog. Cannon was hired a little later to oversee a catalog of the southern skies.  While no eponym celebrates her name, her contribution (along with the remaining group at Harvard) as well as the countless women throughout history to impact science, math, politics and all human endeavor, today we remember and say Happy Birthday. A true gifted scientist and true pioneer, gone but not forgotten. As in most human endeavors, nameless and tireless women support the work of more celebrated men with little or no credit.  Newton said of his work:  ’If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.’  Today we acknowledge that many of those giants were and are women.

Image curently in the public domain courtesy New York World-Telegram and the Sun Newspaper.

Today’s post is for hb-she does twice the work and asks for half the credit.  Our boys are who they are because of her.

Mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell

my graduate school professor

Yes, even in graduate school, we are still being told this

(via misbehavedscientist)

Copper essential for burning fat, researchers find             

Though small amounts of copper are essential to health - oysters, liver, beans and nuts are good sources - copper’s role in metabolism has been unclear: Some studies found that it boosted fat burning, others that it depressed it.

University of California, Berkeley, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Howard Hughes Medical Institute researchers have now clarified the critical role that copper plays in nutrition: It helps move fat out of fat cells - called adipocytes - and into the blood stream for use as energy.

Without enough copper, fat builds up in fat cells without being utilized, said Christopher Chang, the Class of 1942 Chair and a professor of chemistry and of molecular and cell biology at UC Berkeley.

“Unlike other studies that link copper levels both to increased or decreased fat metabolism, our study shows definitively how it works - it’s a signal that turns on fat cells,” said Chang, who also is a faculty scientist at Berkeley Lab and a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. “If we could find a way to burn fat more efficiently, this could be a big contribution to dealing with obesity and diabetes.”

The new study appeared online this week, and will be published in the July print issue of the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

“Copper regulates cyclic-AMP-dependent lipolysis” by Lakshmi Krishnamoorthy, Joseph A Cotruvo Jr, Jefferson Chan, Harini Kaluarachchi, Abigael Muchenditsi, Venkata S Pendyala, Shang Jia, Allegra T Aron, Cheri M Ackerman, Mark N Vander Wal, Timothy Guan, Lukas P Smaga, Samouil L Farhi, Elizabeth J New, Svetlana Lutsenko and Christopher J Chang in Nature Chemical Biology. Published online June 6 2016 doi:10.1038/nchembio.2098

Caption: The crystal structure of the cAMP-degrading enzyme phosphodiesterase PDE3B, showing two magnesium atoms (green) in the active site. Copper binds one of the amino acid residues in the pink loop at the left, blocking the activity of the enzyme. Credit: Lakshmipriya Krishnamoorthy and Joseph Cotruvo Jr., UC Berkeley

Babel Tower: A Kinetic Mirrored Ziggurat Reflects the Surrounding Iranian Landscape / By Shirin Abedinirad and Gugo Torelli.

Craig Ward | Subvisual Subway

Turning Bacterias from New York Subway into Beautiful Artworks

On the care and keeping of your scientist

Congratulations on adopting a scientist! Regardless of their field they will require much coffee, free food, and love. Here are some field specific tips for keeping your scientist happy and healthy!

Biology: make sure they don't get overly invested in their model organism by reminding them about the flaws inherent in their system on a regular basis, but also make sure to join in when they criticize other models in favor of their own

Chemistry: don't let them do that 'just one more reaction' at 10 pm. make sure they get out of the lab and see the sun on a regular basis. try to keep them from partying too hard when they do leave the lab

Geology: humor their rock puns but don't let the lick the rocks (they will tell you they need to lick the rocks to identify them, but don't fall for it)

Astronomy: try not to let them become completely nocturnal. point out nice stars to them and look suitably impressed by their "pictures" of planets that don't look like anything to you

Physics: take them to the park on a regular basis to remind them that things larger than subatomic particles exist. bring a frisbee or a ball to play catch with and be impressed by their ability to calculate trajectories

Math: always make sure to have free batteries for their calculators and a mathmatica user guide on hand. Humor them when they tell you why space without angles is important

Ecology: make sure they remember to wear sunscreen and keep an eye on them in the field. Remind them to come inside and analyze their data occasionally

Psychology: don't mention Freud or ever call them a soft or social science, but make sure you gently remind them that social factors can impact reproducibility and try to keep them from drawing sweeping conclusions about the inherent nature of humanity

Neuroscience: be suitably impressed by their newest experiment and then remind them that people are not mice as often as possible

Computer Science: make sure they take breaks while debugging by limiting their supply of coffee. Nod and smile when they go off on indexing and arrays. Make sure they always have a rubber duck.

Make sure to keep your scientist away from engineers unless they have been properly socialized to interact in a translational household. The most important thing is to remember to hug your scientist on a regular basis and remind them that there is life outside the lab