Blog Profile / Chemistry Blog
| URL : | http://www.chemistry-blog.com/ | |
|---|---|---|
| Filed Under: | Academics / Chemistry | |
| Posts on Regator: | 395 | |
| Posts / Week: | 2 | |
| Archived Since: | July 23, 2009 | |
Blog Post Archive
“Get a job, Ken!” Part 7: Research/Proposal Talks and Meeting with the Chair
The research talk and proposal talk are arguably the most important parts of the on-site interview. This post, part seven in the “Get a job, Ken! series” delves into both, as well as the final [...]
The Smell of Chemistry in the Morning
One of my professors once told me quite categorically that if you can smell someone’s chemistry, they are doing a bad job. His point was that any chemist worth their salt would be doing stinky [...]
“Get a job, Ken!” Part 6: Phone and On-site Interviews
In the “Get a job, Ken!” series, I’ve so far retold my experience coming up with research ideas, writing the ideas down as formal research proposals, assembling the different pieces of the faculty job application, [...]
Guest Post: The Periodic Table of T-Shirts.
Guest post by Dr Simon Norris a Chemistry teacher at a college in the UK. As his alter ego The Cycling Scientist he has visited primary schools with his science road show. His current interests are using [...]
“Get a job, Ken!” Part 5: Submitting and Waiting
In this blog post—the fifth in my eight-part “Get a job, Ken!” series—I share my experience submitting job application materials. This includes the research proposal (Part 3) and other materials like a cover letter, CV, [...]
“Get a job, Ken!” Part 4: Other Content
This blog posts continues my “Get a Job, Ken!” series. My last post focused on writing research proposals. This post describes the other pieces of the application package. There isn’t a standard, one-size-fits-all set of [...]
“Get a job, Ken!” Part 3: Proposal Format
Continuing my “Get a job, Ken!” series, this post builds upon the last by suggesting how to turn research ideas into written proposals. Strong proposals contain a competitive research idea (as discussed in my previous [...]
Polymers from Elemental Sulfur
This post is contributed by John Spevacek, an industrial polymer chemist and the author of the blog “It’s the Rheo Thing” While organic chemists are familiar with the elements, very seldom do we ever make [...]
#ChemMovieCarnival: How to Kill a Werewolf in a Chemistry Lab
Here’s a late entry of the chemistry movie carnival. I hope there are a few people left in the theatre. I’ve been running a ‘Science on the Screen’ course with a local college. Over the [...]
“Get a job, Ken!” Part 2: Proposal Preparation
In my last post I describe the timeline for my faculty job search. In this post, the second in the “Get a job, Ken!” series, I share my strategy for creating and vetting research proposal [...]
“Get a job, Ken!” Part 1: The Timeline
The application process for chemistry faculty positions can last several (grueling) months. The timeline below is my 2012 job search and serves as the first installment of my “Get a Job, Ken!” blog post series. [...]
#ChemMovieCarnival: Criminal Minds
Criminal Minds is one of my favorite television shows. It follows a team of FBI agents in the Behavioral Analysis Unit. They examine the psychology of crime scenes and the choices of the criminal before, [...]
#ChemMovieCarnival: Testing Breaking Bad
I can’t believe that no one else has grabbed Breaking Bad for the Chemmoviecarnival. In case you don’t know its a show about a high school chemistry teacher, called Walt Whiteman, who turns his [...]
“Get a job, Ken!”
It has been several months since my last post, but I have (what I think is) a reasonable excuse: I’ve been trying to get a job. The demanding mantra endlessly looping in my brain for [...]
Chemical Nostalgia: My grandfather’s (lethal) legacy
Chembark and Seearroh have been indulging themselves in a bit of chemical nostalgia and so I thought I’d pitch in. My story doesn’t revolve around a conference or lab experiences, but instead its a tale [...]
Why You Shouldn’t Cook Asparagus in Lemon Juice
At the ACS conference in New Orleans Shirley O. Corriher and Sally Mitchell talked about using food and cooking as ways to teach students about chemistry in a more engaging and compelling way. Some examples [...]
Polymerase chain reactions, so good they invented it twice.
I’ve recently been preparing some new courses which have given me the opportunity to browse through the literature from the dawn of molecular biology. And in the process I came across a 43 year old paper entitled [...]
[Guest Post] Coal, Crude Oil, and Fine Wine
The following is a guest post from Matthew Goyette an associate with Timpview Analytical Labs. He is passionate about innovative approaches to clean energy production and an aspiring science geek. What most people know about coal is that [...]
Chocolate Sniffing White Blood Cells
At the ACS conference in New Orleans today Peter Schieberle gave a report of his research in odor and aroma chemistry. In one of his experiments he placed white blood cells (WBCs) in one part [...]
Is ‘Chemical-Free’ Nonsense?
Back in 2008 the UK’s Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) ruled that an advertisement for an organic fertilizer claiming to be “100% chemical free” was not misleading because: “When there is a colloquial understanding of a word, [.....