Chemical Consumption

Since all things edible and potable are chemical in nature, Beaker figures that consuming things from a chemical lab can't be all that bad - after all they are (or at least should be) pretty pure.

Given the anorexic nature of Beaker (it is rumoured that, with a lot of local anaesthetic, his head can fit into a test tube!)it was reasoned that drinking D2O instead of H2O would allow for some gain of mass. Well, Beaker has done that before, so he reasoned that adding some flavour, in the form of alpha-cyclodextrin was more appropriate. He reported the taste to be initally quite sweet, then it tasted like potatoes.

Interestingly, this cyclic molecular host (alpha-CD) may find use in chewing gums owing to it's slow release of (organic) flavour molecules. Beaker believes this to be a nice example of supramolecular chemistry in everyday life.

It seems that D2O is quite innocuous until half of your body's water is deuterated. Once you get to this stage, according to http://yarchive.net/med/heavy_water.html, cell division becomes inhibited and you die.

So now Beaker is looking for new candidate molecules to consume...suggestions welcome!


Beakie :-)

Anti-Newtonian lab

Now that Beaker and I have officially intoduced our blog, I thought I would make my first individual post. I am the blogging chemist known as Bunsen, and I'm a female graduate student doing my PhD in organic chemistry. We have decided not to reveal our identities just yet in case this whole blogging thing turns out to be a complete disaster.

Well, here's my first lab story. I live on level 5 of the chemistry building, in one of the organic research laboratories. Some of the boys in my research group have been pulling apart dead hard drives, and removing the magnets. The magnets that come out of these hard drives are super strong.

This has led to two main observations:

1) Magnets are cool
2) They are even cooler if you can find something else magnetic to stick them to.

We had many many hours of fun sticking two magnets together and trying to pull them apart (this is really hard! They are some strong magnets!) When this got old, we took to using the magnets in more inventive ways. For example, one such evil lab mate of mine stuck a piece of my hair between two magnets, and then proceeded to stick my magnetic piece of hair to a lab stool. Being temporarily attached to a lab stool turned out to be pretty amusing, and so I didn't yell at said evil lab mate. I can get quite angry at times :-)

The discovery that followed is the basis for many hours of fun in the lab. Some genius discovered that the air conditioning vent that runs just below the ceiling in our lab is magnetic. We had magnets, and the ceiling was just waiting for some action. At first we just threw the magnets up and laughed when they got stuck to the vent. Then we took to sticky taping the magnets to random lab objects and then throwing these objects up. Now there is all manner of crap on the air conditioning vent. It may sound stupid, but seeing an empty chemical bottle/water container/random stuffed animals get thrown up in the air, and never come down is really hilarious! Who knew!

I thought it was necessary to share this discovery with everyone: What goes up doesn't always come down :-)

Bunsen

Sexy Science

Just when you thought that the words "sexy" and "science" could never be mentioned in the same breath, it seems that, according to http://sexyscience.blogspot.com/, these two are not mutually exclusive!

In any event, it's good to see people discussing the lighter side of chemistry, so word to The Science Diva for her page.

Beaker

Welcome to our blog!

Dear esteemed visitor,

Welcome to our first attempt at bloggifying! Our mission: To fill the web with chemical mayhem and other random stuff. Whilst we feel our way through the wonder of blogging, we appreciate your comments and feedback.

We are two graduate students at the School of Chemistry, University of Sydney in Australia. One of us is a synthetic organic chemist and the other an inorganic chemist. This is the basis for many hours of two-headed chemical mayhem, including doing fun and sometimes destructive stuff in our labs, as well as having endless debates about whether organic or inorganic chemistry is better.

It is our aim to bring attention to impressive synthetic feats, inept practitioners of synthetic chemistry, and general chemistry fun. We hope that this blog fulfils all your chemistry desires, and maybe you can learn a thing or two as well.

Yours sincerely,

Bunsen and Beaker =)



P.S. The bloggers welcome offers of post-doctoral positions from cashed up, hot shot academics around the world.