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[Entropy912]

I'm gonna go with "TMEDA" is the correct abbreviation and "TEMED" is how you pronounce it?

Ha. Perhaps. Even on the wikipedia page, when they talk about it as a ligand for metals they use TMEDA but when they talk about it to make gels they use TEMED

 

[Iceman]

Worst smelling chemical?

TEMED is an obvious choice

Beta mercaptoethanol. Easy.

 

[Smiley90]

Beta mercaptoethanol. Easy.

no way man. I mean, it would've been the runner-up, but TEMED is way worse.

TEMED smells like rotten fish.

beta-ME smells.... nutty. I don't know. The annoying thing about beta-ME is that the smell gets friggin EVERYWHERE and lingers for so damn long. TEMED at least dissipates fairly quickly.

 

[FunkyMunkey]

So just as a little disclaimer, while my degree is in biochemistry and that has been useful helping me understand all of the various pathways, enzymes, kinetics, etc. of biological systems, I was trained as a synthetic chemist i.e. I haven't run a gel or a western blot in like ten years. That being said, if you're looking for a job a a biochemist I think you definitely want to have a good grasp of protein expression, purification, and characterization techniques, gel electrophoresis, PCR, site directed mutagenesis...huge range of stuff that you don't need to be an expert on but you should at least understand what it's used for. If you are looking for a bachelors degree level job, you can expect a large degree of hand holding initially, so they are generally looking for quick learners. What type of work have you done in college, meaning have you worked primarily with DNA? Proteins? Enzyme kinetics? Mass spec / NMR ? computer modelling?

Thanks for the reply and advice. I've had experience with facets of physical, organic, inorganic, and biochemistry, so I've done DNA isolation/replication/sequencing (chromatography, PCR, etc), and yeah enzyme kinetics, SDS-PAGE, column chromatography, mass spec, NMR, IR/UV-vis spec, gas chromatography as well. Overall I'd say the biochemical focus has been on DNA (which I've heard is quite useful job-hunting) and various other protein experiments (mostly using BSA), and the chemical focus on instrumentation and measurement analysis (dirty math). No computer modeling or other bioinformatics though, sadly, I'd love to check it out someday! And that's great to hear about the training, have to start somewhere . I hear echoes of needing to be a quick learner as you said, too.

I'll definitely brush up on different protein practices though, probably crucial.

 

[Raist]

Worst smelling chemical?

TEMED is an obvious choice

Phenol.

So, is anyone here an editor, on an editorial board, or a reviewer for a journal? I've ghost-reviewed manuscripts sent to my advisor from various journals, as is common for a graduate student such as myself, but I'm wondering how someone actually becomes an editor or reviewer for a journal? I assume this is something that occurs once you're farther along in your career and have made a name for yourself in your field, but I guess I'm wondering if there are any low-tier journals that one can volunteer to be a reviewer/editor for? Hopefully this isn't an overly silly question to be asking.

Just looking to gain more experience with the review/editing process and I'm having little luck learning more about this via Google. My advisor is quite busy (as most professors tend to be) so this is one of the random questions I'm going to try and avoid pestering him with until I've exhausted all other options.

Well, either they're "guest" editors on the board of the journal, meaning they are PI, or they're professional editors, meaning they're not working in a lab anymore. In general, the minimum experience is holding a PhD, but I'm not sure to which extent they prefer post-docs. An easy option to know more about the process would be to contact journals and ask them, I guess.

edit: oh, and you can't officially become a reviewer for a journal, you're just "randomly" asked to review a paper as an expert in the field, although sometimes editors fill in that role.

 

[Entropy912]

Thanks for the reply and advice. I've had experience with facets of physical, organic, inorganic, and biochemistry, so I've done DNA isolation/replication/sequencing (chromatography, PCR, etc), and yeah enzyme kinetics, SDS-PAGE, column chromatography, mass spec, NMR, IR/UV-vis spec, gas chromatography as well. Overall I'd say the biochemical focus has been on DNA (which I've heard is quite useful job-hunting) and various other protein experiments (mostly using BSA), and the chemical focus on instrumentation and measurement analysis (dirty math). No computer modeling or other bioinformatics though, sadly, I'd love to check it out someday! And that's great to hear about the training, have to start somewhere . I hear echoes of needing to be a quick learner as you said, too.

I'll definitely brush up on different protein practices though, probably crucial.

Always happy to help a chemist. Your best bet is to check out the career websites for big pharma companies like Pfizer, Merck, Amgen, Lily, etc. and check out the descriptions for associate level R&D jobs and also see how they divide up the departments.

 

[Entropy912]

Phenol.

I actually think phenol smells pretty good. If phenol is bad than DMSO is the devil's anus. Doing lots of Swern oxidations is a good way to get your lab mates to hate you.

 

[FO-totality]

How about most dangerous chemicals you've ever worked with? I love reading Derek Lowe's "Thing I Won't Work With" bits. Some of the stuff out there is the stuff nightmares are made of.

These thoughts were prompted by a recent paper in JACS that describes a new route to "dihydrogen trioxide", which I suppose is a more systematic name than "hydrogen perperoxide", my own choice. Colloquially, I would imagine that the compound is known as "Oh, @#&!", substituted with the most heartfelt word available when you realize that you've actually made the stuff. The current paper has a nice elimination route to it via a platinum complex, one that might be used to make a number of other unlikely molecules (if it can make HOOOH in 20% yield, it'll make a lot of other things, too, you'd figure). It's instantly recognizable in the NMR, with a chemical shift of 13.4 for those barely-attached-to-earth hydrogens.

 

[maomaoIYP]

Worst smelling chemical?

TEMED is an obvious choice

TMEDA has got nothing on:
Pyridine, butyric acid, PCl3, CpH, ethanethiol etc

How about most dangerous chemicals you've ever worked with?

Nickel tetracarbonyl

 

[RumblingRosco]

An editor is typically a senior member of the community the journal is aimed at.

Reviewers are not really affiliated with the journal but asked to review the paper by the editors due to the reviewers supposed expertise and relevance to the specific subject of the paper.

Following up in Dennis's post, you don't sign up to be a reviewer for a journal. You need to be an academic who is well established in your field of expertise, and when a journal receives an article to be considered for publication, the editor will invite you to review the paper based on his assessment of your relevance to the field that the paper concerns. When you recieve such a request, you aren't obliged to agree to review, especially if you feel that it is not in your area of expertise. This is why papers are "peer-reviewed". You aren't a peer of a professor who submitted the paper if you are a graduate student.

I second ThermoScientific for their protocols. The
I haven't done any peer-reviewing of any articles. I took 3 Semesters of Molecular Readings which was basically this…. Anyway, I think your PI really holds you in high esteem to give you this training. Overall, I think he will review your findings and then do his own review of the article to see how well you critiqued/reviewed the other person's work. I have talked with few folks at a couple of conferences where their PIs do this type of thing. Regardless, its to help you out.

Well, either they're "guest" editors on the board of the journal, meaning they are PI, or they're professional editors, meaning they're not working in a lab anymore. In general, the minimum experience is holding a PhD, but I'm not sure to which extent they prefer post-docs. An easy option to know more about the process would be to contact journals and ask them, I guess.

edit: oh, and you can't officially become a reviewer for a journal, you're just "randomly" asked to review a paper as an expert in the field, although sometimes editors fill in that role.

Thanks for all the insight. In regards to the bold part from Zapages, yes, my PI certainly double-checks my comments for a review and makes sure he agrees or is convinced by my opinion thoroughly before submitting the comments back to the journal. As you mentioned though, it's still good practice to have the opportunity to ghost-review for him.

 

[Entropy912]

How about most dangerous chemicals you've ever worked with? I love reading Derek Lowe's "Thing I Won't Work With" bits. Some of the stuff out there is the stuff nightmares are made of.

Solid lithium aluminum hydride scared the shit out of me in grad school but we never use it anymore, always in solution. The only majorish explosion I've ever had in the lab was making a diazonium salt. Hexamethylphosphoramide (HMPA) is scary toxic as well

 

[Alcoremortis]

The one chemical that scares the shit out of me the most luckily isn't used by anyone anymore. Well, nobody much.

Dimethylmercury. Lethal dose is 100uL and seeps through rubber gloves in seconds. And then it takes about six months to die a slow agonizingly painful death.

 

[RumblingRosco]

The one chemical that scares the shit out of me the most luckily isn't used by anyone anymore. Well, nobody much.

Dimethylmercury. Lethal dose is 100uL and seeps through rubber gloves in seconds. And then it takes about six months to die a slow agonizingly painful death.

And this is why I just work with baker's yeast and non-human pathogens. Y'all chemical folks are some brave guys and gals.

 

[Entropy912]

The one chemical that scares the shit out of me the most luckily isn't used by anyone anymore. Well, nobody much.

Dimethylmercury. Lethal dose is 100uL and seeps through rubber gloves in seconds. And then it takes about six months to die a slow agonizingly painful death.

Yeah alkyl mercury compounds are a big no no. We can't even use mercury thermometers in the lab anymore. There was a professor somewhere that died of mercury poisoning after using dimethylmercury to calibrate and NMR awhile back.

 

[Smiley90]

The one chemical that scares the shit out of me the most luckily isn't used by anyone anymore. Well, nobody much.

Dimethylmercury. Lethal dose is 100uL and seeps through rubber gloves in seconds. And then it takes about six months to die a slow agonizingly painful death.

that sounds like fun


worst chemical? uh... none... really... not that I'm aware of at least. SDS powder irritates my nose? I dunno. We're a genetics lab, mostly, there's barely anything dangerous. I guess maybe EMS (Ethyl Methanesulfonate). it'll probably give you cancer if you fuck up. but... not too bad.

 

[Entropy912]

Biochem labs usually don't have anything really too dangerous. Gels are usually made of polyacrylamide which isn't particularly toxic, but the monomer acrylamide is a carcinogen. And it's also found in small quantities in french fries and potato chips! Yummy

 

[Entropy912]

I attended a bunch of chemistry talks today for an award ceremony at my company, mostly organic synthesis stuff, but there was one talk that I thought was really cool and wanted to share since there are a lot of biochemists here. Her name is Emily Balskus, she's a professor at Harvard: http://scholar.harvard.edu/balskus/pages/research. She was trained as a synthetic organic chemist, got her pHd from Jacobsen doing typical Jacobsen assymetric catalysis stuff, but now she her research is focused on studying microbes and their unique genomes, metabolism, enzymes, etc. Her talk focused on microbial glycine radical lyase enzymes her lab discovered which were responsible for choline metabolism, the major product of which is trimethylammonium oxide (TMAO) which is associated with various diseases including heart failure.

Her talk was mostly a biochemistry story with some crystallography and physical chemistry mixed in. I thought it was pretty cool that she took a pretty classic synthetic organic chemistry background and transitioned into more biochemical type research but she definitely approaches things like an organic chemist would.

 

[SolidusDave]

From my personal experience I vote for Phosphorus-32.
High energy beta radiation but can't penetrate below the skin.

Not really dangerous when handed properly, but it's still exciting/scary to handle. Because you cannot see, feel or smell the danger. But simply open up the led&plastic container of a fresh unit and that Geiger counter you placed on your table goes crazy.
Then you begin to question if that little Plexiglas shield is really enough, it's not covering you completely anyway...

Also you never know if all people worked properly so after handling the waste etc. you are always happy to hear from that machine that you're not contaminated

 

[RumblingRosco]

Biochem labs usually don't have anything really too dangerous. Gels are usually made of polyacrylamide which isn't particularly toxic, but the monomer acrylamide is a carcinogen. And it's also found in small quantities in french fries and potato chips! Yummy

We use ethidium bromide (EtBr) in our gels which is a potential carcinogen I guess. That's probably the worst thing in our lab excluding a few random chemicals we have from the 60s that are hanging out in old, dilapidated chemical cabinets.

I attended a bunch of chemistry talks today for an award ceremony at my company, mostly organic synthesis stuff, but there was one talk that I thought was really cool and wanted to share since there are a lot of biochemists here. Her name is Emily Balskus, she's a professor at Harvard: http://scholar.harvard.edu/balskus/pages/research. She was trained as a synthetic organic chemist, got her pHd from Jacobsen doing typical Jacobsen assymetric catalysis stuff, but now she her research is focused on studying microbes and their unique genomes, metabolism, enzymes, etc. Her talk focused on microbial glycine radical lyase enzymes her lab discovered which were responsible for choline metabolism, the major product of which is trimethylammonium oxide (TMAO) which is associated with various diseases including heart failure.

Her talk was mostly a biochemistry story with some crystallography and physical chemistry mixed in. I thought it was pretty cool that she took a pretty classic synthetic organic chemistry background and transitioned into more biochemical type research but she definitely approaches things like an organic chemist would.

I love reading about people that shift/switch fields, or at least dabble into other, somewhat-related fields. Thanks for sharing.

 

[mrkgoo]

I've kind of turned away from science, but somebody the talk here is making me nostalgic.

 

[Entropy912]

Just out of curiosity for those of you in grad school or doing undergrad research at a university, how is your relationship with your PI / mentor? One of the reasons I decided to drop out of grad school and jump into industry was because my PI and senior grad student mentor were more or less useless. The professor I worked for was never really around, didn't really care what I was working on. The grad student was in his like 7th year and just had a terrible attitude towards everything. In retrospect I should have switched labs but in the end my decision worked out for me. Nevertheless I've always been a little bitter and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for not finishing the pHd.

 

[Don't Laugh]

Science/English-GAF, lend me your assistance, por favor.

For my science class each student was required to submit a handful of questions to the professor for a grade. The questions had to be science related and relevant to material covered in the classroom. Grammar counted.

Anyway, I lost half a letter grade on my first question. Can anyone tell me why the way I worded it was incorrect for future reference?

Cheers.

 

[opticalmace]

I've kind of turned away from science, but somebody the talk here is making me nostalgic.

What kind of science background do you have?

Just out of curiosity for those of you in grad school or doing undergrad research at a university, how is your relationship with your PI / mentor? One of the reasons I decided to drop out of grad school and jump into industry was because my PI and senior grad student mentor were more or less useless. The professor I worked for was never really around, didn't really care what I was working on. The grad student was in his like 7th year and just had a terrible attitude towards everything. In retrospect I should have switched labs but in the end my decision worked out for me. Nevertheless I've always been a little bitter and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for not finishing the pHd.

I have a very good relationship with my supervisor, but I am at a relatively small school and I am her first serious PhD student. We're both kind of learning as we go, but the student-advisor relationship that we had during my MSc is a large part of the reason why I decided to stay on for a PhD with her.

 

[RumblingRosco]

Just out of curiosity for those of you in grad school or doing undergrad research at a university, how is your relationship with your PI / mentor? One of the reasons I decided to drop out of grad school and jump into industry was because my PI and senior grad student mentor were more or less useless. The professor I worked for was never really around, didn't really care what I was working on. The grad student was in his like 7th year and just had a terrible attitude towards everything. In retrospect I should have switched labs but in the end my decision worked out for me. Nevertheless I've always been a little bitter and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for not finishing the pHd.

My relationship with my PI as an undergrad was great. She was a fairly stoic, strict person, but she only had two undergrads and one graduate student, so I was able to work with her one-on-one quite frequently. This gave me a great advantage as I transitioned into grad school, as I really knew quite a bit more than my average incoming grad student.

My relationship with my PI as a graduate student is also good, but quite a bit different. My lab is much larger (10 grad students, 4 post docs, some visiting professors/students, and a bunch of undergrads) so I rarely see my professor working in the lab... maybe once a year, so I can't learn hands-on from him like I did with my undergraduate PI. I meet with him weekly though for about an hour to go over recent results, discuss future plans, etc; that weekly meeting is so helpful. We get along pretty well too thankfully, or this would be a very painful Ph.D.

Science/English-GAF, lend me your assistance, por favor.

For my science class each student was required to submit a handful of questions to the professor for a grade. The questions had to be science related and relevant to material covered in the classroom. Grammar counted.

Anyway, I lost half a letter grade on my first question. Can anyone tell me why the way I worded it was incorrect for future reference?

Cheers.

I don't know what the technical definition of the error is, but when I read this sentence out loud, I can see how it is a bit awkward. I think the use of the word "something" makes it a bit ambiguous; there are better words you could use there. I personally would re-write it as: "Your lecture this morning mentioned citrate when covering the Krebs cycle. Citrate was also discussed in my chosen article," or you could say, "Your lecture this morning mentioned citrate when covering the Krebs cycle, which was also discussed in my chosen article."

I think half a letter grade is a pretty harsh hit for what I would call a minor error if that. Sorry I can't be more help.

 

[Alcoremortis]

Just out of curiosity for those of you in grad school or doing undergrad research at a university, how is your relationship with your PI / mentor? One of the reasons I decided to drop out of grad school and jump into industry was because my PI and senior grad student mentor were more or less useless. The professor I worked for was never really around, didn't really care what I was working on. The grad student was in his like 7th year and just had a terrible attitude towards everything. In retrospect I should have switched labs but in the end my decision worked out for me. Nevertheless I've always been a little bitter and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for not finishing the pHd.

Pretty good, I think. My lab is pretty big (~30 people, half grad students), but he manages to make time for everyone and has enough enthusiasm to make everyone feel like their project is really important. He also has it set up so no two people work on the same project (unless they really want to) because he doesn't want anyone in the lab competing with each other. Which, I think, works out well. He gets lots of papers every year out of it, and everyone in the lab feels comfortable teaching anything to other lab members because they know they won't get scooped as a result.

It also creates a really friendly atmosphere, though that might just be that he accepts people into his lab that are like him in some way. But there's always joking and parties and silly experiments (dry ice + liquid soap + water = hilarity).

 

[Bedameister]

Wow 30 people sounds like a lot to me. Our labs are usually very small. Normally there are about 4 people in a lab. In my last practical work I was in a lab with 3 other people.
Man I miss the lab. I've been studying for more than 2 month now and still a lot ahead. But after my exams there is more lab work to go, I'm really looking forward for it.

 

[Smiley90]

There are 3 people in my lab. 2 starting October. And 3 volunteers. It's sad.

 

[Entropy912]

Pretty good, I think. My lab is pretty big (~30 people, half grad students), but he manages to make time for everyone and has enough enthusiasm to make everyone feel like their project is really important. He also has it set up so no two people work on the same project (unless they really want to) because he doesn't want anyone in the lab competing with each other. Which, I think, works out well. He gets lots of papers every year out of it, and everyone in the lab feels comfortable teaching anything to other lab members because they know they won't get scooped as a result.

It also creates a really friendly atmosphere, though that might just be that he accepts people into his lab that are like him in some way. But there's always joking and parties and silly experiments (dry ice + liquid soap + water = hilarity).

Wow the guy running your lab has 15 undergrads doing research? That man is a saint, at my university it was very difficult to do undergrad research, at least in chemistry.

 

[Don't Laugh]

I don't know what the technical definition of the error is, but when I read this sentence out loud, I can see how it is a bit awkward. I think the use of the word "something" makes it a bit ambiguous; there are better words you could use there. I personally would re-write it as: "Your lecture this morning mentioned citrate when covering the Krebs cycle. Citrate was also discussed in my chosen article," or you could say, "Your lecture this morning mentioned citrate when covering the Krebs cycle, which was also discussed in my chosen article."

I think half a letter grade is a pretty harsh hit for what I would call a minor error if that. Sorry I can't be more help.

I appreciate your help. I'll stop by the language department tomorrow and get their take on it.

 

[RumblingRosco]

Wow the guy running your lab has 15 undergrads doing research? That man is a saint, at my university it was very difficult to do undergrad research, at least in chemistry.

Could also be some post docs in that mix.

 

[maomaoIYP]

Just out of curiosity for those of you in grad school or doing undergrad research at a university, how is your relationship with your PI / mentor? One of the reasons I decided to drop out of grad school and jump into industry was because my PI and senior grad student mentor were more or less useless. The professor I worked for was never really around, didn't really care what I was working on. The grad student was in his like 7th year and just had a terrible attitude towards everything. In retrospect I should have switched labs but in the end my decision worked out for me. Nevertheless I've always been a little bitter and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for not finishing the pHd.

I had a very good relationship with my PI, so much that I did all my undergrad, masters and PhD research with him for a total of 10 years. As a graduate student you shouldn't have a senior graduate looking after you though, anything that you don't know should be addressed by your PI.
As a rule of thumb we make it compulsory for potential students (especially undergrads) joining our research group to speak extensively with most of the people in the group, in particular with the person who is responsible for teaching them stuff. If anyone feels that they will have a problem working with the student, our PI won't take them into the group.
As a student who's about to join a group, doing so is also advantageous. Warning signs that should make you reconsider joining a research group include:
The group is too large for the PI to engage directly. (>>10 for example)
The PI has lots of administrative duties (e.g. HOD, deanery etc)
The graduate students don't seem friendly to each other.
The group is physically split into different labs on a permanent basis.
There are no group research meetings.
The PI's focus is too heavily skewed towards publications instead of learning.
The project you will be assigned is simply to help a graduate student produce results.

 

[Lebron]

Just out of curiosity for those of you in grad school or doing undergrad research at a university, how is your relationship with your PI / mentor? One of the reasons I decided to drop out of grad school and jump into industry was because my PI and senior grad student mentor were more or less useless. The professor I worked for was never really around, didn't really care what I was working on. The grad student was in his like 7th year and just had a terrible attitude towards everything. In retrospect I should have switched labs but in the end my decision worked out for me. Nevertheless I've always been a little bitter and had a bit of a chip on my shoulder for not finishing the pHd.

I had a good relationship with mine, but it does seem to be a flip of a coin type of thing. They were the ones who actually pushed me to go into industry and not pursue further in grad school. Haven't regretted it since. I get paid way more and learn a hell of a lot more now.

 

[liquidspeed]

Wanna talk about it, buddy?

in what respect?

 

[Entropy912]

I had a very good relationship with my PI, so much that I did all my undergrad, masters and PhD research with him for a total of 10 years. As a graduate student you shouldn't have a senior graduate looking after you though, anything that you don't know should be addressed by your PI.
As a rule of thumb we make it compulsory for potential students (especially undergrads) joining our research group to speak extensively with most of the people in the group, in particular with the person who is responsible for teaching them stuff. If anyone feels that they will have a problem working with the student, our PI won't take them into the group.
As a student who's about to join a group, doing so is also advantageous. Warning signs that should make you reconsider joining a research group include:
The group is too large for the PI to engage directly. (>>10 for example)
The PI has lots of administrative duties (e.g. HOD, deanery etc)
The graduate students don't seem friendly to each other.
The group is physically split into different labs on a permanent basis.
There are no group research meetings.
The PI's focus is too heavily skewed towards publications instead of learning.
The project you will be assigned is simply to help a graduate student produce results.

I think those are very good guidelines. What is your pHd in and what was your thesis about?

To relay my own story, I had a very succesful undergraduate research career in which I won a few awards, and got to coauthor a paper. I was working on making organic semiconducting polymers for solar cells which I thought could have a major impact on the world. The grad student I was working for graduated and then went on to a postdoc at Scripps I believe but I was passionate enough about it that I decided to pursue my own grad studies in the same lab. Unfortunately the lab really went down hill after there, a lot of people left, and the only two remaining grad students were going on their 7th year. It was not a friendly or fun place to work and the PI, who was actually a very nice guy, was too much of a pushover to get his lab together.

 

[maomaoIYP]

I think those are very good guidelines. What is your pHd in and what was your thesis about?

I was a chemist working on organometallic reaction pathways. I enjoyed the decade I spent in research but ultimately it's just not a particularly feasible career path. I'm now a paper pusher in a government agency working on implementing nuclear energy.

 

[Entropy912]

I was a chemist working on organometallic reaction pathways. I enjoyed the decade I spent in research but ultimately it's just not a particularly feasible career path. I'm now a paper pusher in a government agency working on implementing nuclear energy.

Ah that's awesome, another organic chemist in the mix! So were you more of a computational chemist than a bench chemist? I know what you mean as far as career path. As someone who works in an industry that employs a lot of chemists, I can say that the majority of the organic chemists we employ have backgrounds more in natural product synthesis and catalysis than mechanism elucidation.

 

[Alcoremortis]

Wow the guy running your lab has 15 undergrads doing research? That man is a saint, at my university it was very difficult to do undergrad research, at least in chemistry.

Grads, my friend. Grads.

There's only, like, four or five undergrads. And two high school students.

Though, I won't deny that my PI is a saint. XP

 

[Entropy912]

Grads, my friend. Grads.

There's only, like, four or five undergrads. And two high school students.

Though, I won't deny that my PI is a saint. XP

You said half were grads so I assumed the other half was undergrads. I forgot about the postdocs like someone mentioned. And high school students? That is absolutely unheard of where I went to school. Good on him, most of the labs I've seen aren't really that concerned with developing young scientists.

 

[Smiley90]

We had a high school student in our lab once.

She lasted all of one day.

And that was that.

 

[RumblingRosco]

We had a high school student in our lab once.

She lasted all of one day.

And that was that.

We have one or two high school students work with us each summer for 7 weeks through a program our department operates. The students get paid like $3,000 with free housing and meals. Fairly rigorous application process. All of the students have been solid. Mine from two summers back was better than most undergrads. These are like top of their class high school students though.

 

[maomaoIYP]

Ah that's awesome, another organic chemist in the mix! So were you more of a computational chemist than a bench chemist? I know what you mean as far as career path. As someone who works in an industry that employs a lot of chemists, I can say that the majority of the organic chemists we employ have backgrounds more in natural product synthesis and catalysis than mechanism elucidation.

I'm not an organic chemist, formally organometallic chemists are inorganic chemists, but we do everything from ligand synthesis to inorganic synthesis. My lab work was less oriented towards multistep synthesis, but more of isolating intermediate species and observing transients. Once I've identified my intermediates and transients I would chart their place in a proposed reaction pathway using computational methods. It if sounds as though I could do quite a large scope of things, you would be correct, but unfortunately once I graduated into the industry I still had a hard time getting a job in research because industry research requires mostly pure organic or analytical chemists. So I gave up that path of endless chasing papers and worrying about tenure and chose a more financially secure path instead.

 

[Alcoremortis]

You said half were grads so I assumed the other half was undergrads. I forgot about the postdocs like someone mentioned. And high school students? That is absolutely unheard of where I went to school. Good on him, most of the labs I've seen aren't really that concerned with developing young scientists.

Huh, really?

I did two summers when I was in highschool, thought nothing of it. One was at my current school, in fact.

 

[RumblingRosco]

Phew, finally submitted my first manuscript as a first-author based on my graduate research. Started this project almost two years ago, although quite a bit of that time was spent planning/conducting experiments that are going into my upcoming manuscripts... one of which is a sort of "sister" manuscript to this one and should be submitted within the year.

Obviously, I'll have to wait and see how the reviewers take it, but it feels good to be this far.

 

[opticalmace]

Phew, finally submitted my first manuscript as a first-author based on my graduate research. Started this project almost two years ago, although quite a bit of that time was spent planning/conducting experiments that are going into my upcoming manuscripts... one of which is a sort of "sister" manuscript to this one and should be submitted within the year.

Obviously, I'll have to wait and see how the reviewers take it, but it feels good to be this far.

Congrats. I hope to be in a similar situation within the next 2 weeks. Our timelines are about the same too!

 

[Smiley90]

We'll be submitting my first paper (and first first-author paper) within the next... uh... half year. lol. I have so much work I need to get done before then though...

 

[Entropy912]

Phew, finally submitted my first manuscript as a first-author based on my graduate research. Started this project almost two years ago, although quite a bit of that time was spent planning/conducting experiments that are going into my upcoming manuscripts... one of which is a sort of "sister" manuscript to this one and should be submitted within the year.

Congrats. I hope to be in a similar situation within the next 2 weeks. Our timelines are about the same too!

Congratulations guys, having a paper published in a major journal is a huge asset for finding a job later.

We'll be submitting my first paper (and first first-author paper) within the next... uh... half year. lol. I have so much work I need to get done before then though...

Hang in there Smiley!

 

[Azulsky]

This might not be the right thread, or it might.

What kind of tools do you guys/gals use to document research, projects, or log experiments?

I guess for context I do a bunch of self study/projects on my own time and I still find I enjoy pen + paper for most things but I am researching higher quality notebooks as the paper on these legal pads is crappy and looking at stuff from just a year ago it is already kinda deteriorating when I go to reference it.

I guess I could transliterate my notes to LaTeX and it would live forever. I have tried doing it straight digital but I like drawing my own figures/diagrams and my notes are graphical with arrows pointing to certain things, notes in margins, etc

 

[RumblingRosco]

This might not be the right thread, or it might.

What kind of tools do you guys/gals use to document research, projects, or log experiments?

I guess for context I do a bunch of self study/projects on my own time and I still find I enjoy pen + paper for most things but I am researching higher quality notebooks as the paper on these legal pads is crappy and looking at stuff from just a year ago it is already kinda deteriorating when I go to reference it.

I guess I could transliterate my notes to LaTeX and it would live forever. I have tried doing it straight digital but I like drawing my own figures/diagrams and my notes are graphical with arrows pointing to certain things, notes in margins, etc

I hand write all my notes. I then graph my results in Excel or SigmaPlot, but I out the graphs in a folder with a .txt file that has notes on the experiment. I'll also often scan or take a picture of my notebook page that corresponds with my graph and save the image to the same folder.

Probably not as streamlined as it could be, but it gives me the flexibility of handwriting with the safety of digital storage.

 

[Entropy912]

This might not be the right thread, or it might.

What kind of tools do you guys/gals use to document research, projects, or log experiments?

I guess for context I do a bunch of self study/projects on my own time and I still find I enjoy pen + paper for most things but I am researching higher quality notebooks as the paper on these legal pads is crappy and looking at stuff from just a year ago it is already kinda deteriorating when I go to reference it.

I guess I could transliterate my notes to LaTeX and it would live forever. I have tried doing it straight digital but I like drawing my own figures/diagrams and my notes are graphical with arrows pointing to certain things, notes in margins, etc

At work everything needs to be documented for regulation purposes so all experiments are recorded in digital lab notebooks. In school for my own research I used a high quality lab notebook with carbon copies to document experiments and a moleskine notebook for notes and ideas. Moleskine has these special notebooks that were designed to be used with the Evernote App. Basically you take pictures of your notes and upload it to the evernote. Haven't tried it myself but it sounds like it might be exactly what you're looking for.

 

[RumblingRosco]

Here's a random, probably simple question I have that maybe chemistry-GAF can answer. How the hell do you make a 5 N calcium hydroxide solution? I'm running a fermentation soon attempting to verify some results from a recently published paper in which they maintained the pH of their growth medium using 5 N calcium hydroxide. Well, the thing is, calcium hydroxide is hardly soluble in water... something like 1.5 g/L. I know that calcium hydroxide and water makes something referred to as "lime water" but that's about as far as my knowledge of calcium hydroxide goes. Any thoughts? Do I just dump in the appropriate amount of calcium hydroxide with water, mix it well, then separate out the water from the remaining solid? It just seems... not right.

Any help is appreciated. Hopefully I'm not making myself look too stupid by asking this.