In case you're a chemist in the Southeastern region of the United States, the SERMACS deadline was recently extended until Friday. I will probably be there for my first conference with my current employer. This one's being held in Richmond, VA, so hopefully between now and then I'll be able to find something fun to do in Richmond for the an evening or so.
On the other hand, the North Carolina ACS meeting is coming up shortly as well. This one is in Raleigh on the last Friday of this month (September). I'm looking forward to seeing if I run into many of my old professors at UNC.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
Open Tools
I've been hearing a lot of talk recently, on the web, about ways to keep track of literature in chemistry. Not only how to keep track of it, but how to access it publicly. The vast majority of the voices I'm hearing call for an open access answer. The basic idea is that the information is free and available for everyone. This might sound like a little too much to hope for, but here's why it's not: arXiv.
arXiv is, for those who don't have time to explore the link, an open access location where physics, mathematics, statics, computer science, biology, finance, and nonlinear sciences researchers post their journal articles before they are published. This pre-press version is called a pre-print. Since the pre-prints are electronic, this also makes them e-prints. These articles, however, usually don't come down once they become published in peer-reviewed journals. Physicists and others who research in fields covered by the arXiv don't have problems keeping up with relevant literature; their solution is to set up RSS feeds of articles who cite articles they find interesting, or simply a section of the arXiv where the information relevant to them gets published.
For many researchers and scientists, this sounds incredible. If you're like me, you probably spend a lot of time searching through the Web of Science, or some other abstract archive trying to cover all of our research interests through RSS feeds of citations much like those who can use arXiv. The problem that we have in chemistry is that we can't always access the right articles. I'm in an okay position with the research institution that I work for, since they pay for access to a wide variety of journal articles. This doesn't mean that I can access everything. I have a hard time accessing current articles from some journals that are important to my research. I can get them, but not directly off of the web like at universities. These searches are still tedious, even for those with unlimited access due to the number of journals and abstract services available.
I've probably been preaching to the choir so far. I'd like to use a future post to point towards already existent open source and access utilities for chemists, or any other scientists for that matter! Let me know what you use in the comments, open or closed.
arXiv is, for those who don't have time to explore the link, an open access location where physics, mathematics, statics, computer science, biology, finance, and nonlinear sciences researchers post their journal articles before they are published. This pre-press version is called a pre-print. Since the pre-prints are electronic, this also makes them e-prints. These articles, however, usually don't come down once they become published in peer-reviewed journals. Physicists and others who research in fields covered by the arXiv don't have problems keeping up with relevant literature; their solution is to set up RSS feeds of articles who cite articles they find interesting, or simply a section of the arXiv where the information relevant to them gets published.
For many researchers and scientists, this sounds incredible. If you're like me, you probably spend a lot of time searching through the Web of Science, or some other abstract archive trying to cover all of our research interests through RSS feeds of citations much like those who can use arXiv. The problem that we have in chemistry is that we can't always access the right articles. I'm in an okay position with the research institution that I work for, since they pay for access to a wide variety of journal articles. This doesn't mean that I can access everything. I have a hard time accessing current articles from some journals that are important to my research. I can get them, but not directly off of the web like at universities. These searches are still tedious, even for those with unlimited access due to the number of journals and abstract services available.
I've probably been preaching to the choir so far. I'd like to use a future post to point towards already existent open source and access utilities for chemists, or any other scientists for that matter! Let me know what you use in the comments, open or closed.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011
Not a Synthesis Blog
I enjoy learning about and, most of the time, even doing chemistry. I am not, at the moment, a graduate student or PhD in the field of chemistry. I am only a working chemist. A working analytical chemist. These things might change. It's possible that I'll go to grad school soon. I even have interests in chemistry and science in general that don't specifically adhere to the analytical portion of chemistry and hope to someday pursue those, but, as I said, for the moment I'm just a working analytical chemist.
This sounds like I'm talking a lot about myself. Since it's my blog, I can do that, but after this post I'll be trying to do so much less. The point I'd like to make here, though, is that my perspective is probably going to be different than that of other chemist's blogs. I follow several chemistry and science blogs through my Google: Reader account (ChemBark, Synthetic Remarks, and ScienceGeist are a few) and something has struck me as interesting: most of the chemistry blogs that I've stumbled onto are written by organic chemists. Now I have all sorts of respect for organic, synthetic, and biochemists. Hopefully one day I'll even do more reactions myself. But, these guys aren't the only chemists out there. I also remember running into a graduate student, surely in the ranks of those with complete dissertations by now, that I used to play water polo with. He was an organic chemist, and my courses had focused on analysis with research in biophysics. I remember talking about my recent job acquisition and desire for more education when he found out that I was interested in studying more analytical chemistry. His response: "Yeah, but that's not really chemistry."
Now, if we want to talk about pushing electrons, we analytical chemists don't do it in the same way...that much is true; our electrons get pushed in mass spectrometers or by radiation bombardment. Like I said earlier, I have a lot of respect for the wizards going around synthesizing things through new pathways every day. However, I think analytical chemists make a lot of things happen that otherwise wouldn't. Analytical chemists measure or develop measurements for every type of chemistry that happens. Everybody uses our techniques. Even if an organic synthetic chemist originally developed a way to measure something well, it inherently makes him an analytical chemist as well. This goes for you NMR guys too, at least in my opinion (lowly as it may be!)
So in the end, this post hasn't said much. From here on out, the posts will reflect some actual chemistry and science news/discussions/topics. Not every post will be about analytical topics; some posts might be about synthesis, or just science in general. I just wanted everyone to know before things got started that everyone is welcome here. We all work in the same sphere, so let's all have mutual respect.
This sounds like I'm talking a lot about myself. Since it's my blog, I can do that, but after this post I'll be trying to do so much less. The point I'd like to make here, though, is that my perspective is probably going to be different than that of other chemist's blogs. I follow several chemistry and science blogs through my Google: Reader account (ChemBark, Synthetic Remarks, and ScienceGeist are a few) and something has struck me as interesting: most of the chemistry blogs that I've stumbled onto are written by organic chemists. Now I have all sorts of respect for organic, synthetic, and biochemists. Hopefully one day I'll even do more reactions myself. But, these guys aren't the only chemists out there. I also remember running into a graduate student, surely in the ranks of those with complete dissertations by now, that I used to play water polo with. He was an organic chemist, and my courses had focused on analysis with research in biophysics. I remember talking about my recent job acquisition and desire for more education when he found out that I was interested in studying more analytical chemistry. His response: "Yeah, but that's not really chemistry."
Now, if we want to talk about pushing electrons, we analytical chemists don't do it in the same way...that much is true; our electrons get pushed in mass spectrometers or by radiation bombardment. Like I said earlier, I have a lot of respect for the wizards going around synthesizing things through new pathways every day. However, I think analytical chemists make a lot of things happen that otherwise wouldn't. Analytical chemists measure or develop measurements for every type of chemistry that happens. Everybody uses our techniques. Even if an organic synthetic chemist originally developed a way to measure something well, it inherently makes him an analytical chemist as well. This goes for you NMR guys too, at least in my opinion (lowly as it may be!)
So in the end, this post hasn't said much. From here on out, the posts will reflect some actual chemistry and science news/discussions/topics. Not every post will be about analytical topics; some posts might be about synthesis, or just science in general. I just wanted everyone to know before things got started that everyone is welcome here. We all work in the same sphere, so let's all have mutual respect.
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