Current State of Affairs

So this is our fishtank...it is empty, except for a collection of paper fish that we put in there to simlulate a thriving aquatic environment. Less realistic is the (barely visible) collection of pigs gathering around a candle. While fish probably don't want to live in this barren container, they certainly would NOT like to live in a coffee mug belonging to one of Bkrs office buddies. These are clean by his standards, I have once seen four shades of green (fungus) in there.

Bkr

Chemistry Fishtank

Our research group needs a group pet or something...we don't even have any plants in our office. As a consequence, I have designed a fishtank incorporating quickfit glassware and fishtanks into one large fish playground! Food can be added via dropping funnel and, providing large enough joint size, the fish can roam around through the condenser.

Images of the current (empty) fishtank in our office will be posted shortly.

Bkr

What chemists do when they're not in the lab

I saw U2 last week! They were really awesome. I was allowed out of the lab just this once so that I could go and see them.

Here's Bono

and here's The Edge

Well that's enough of the real word. More lab mayhem coming soon!

Bunsen

Sci-wine

Chemistry is so 'vogue' these days that it's now featuring on wine bottles! Here's a Penfolds wine bottle that my lab mate found which has a periodic table AND a random chemical structure on the bottle. It appears to contain a five membered ring of some sort, with some very suspect looking bonding.




A periodic table on a wine bottle! It's ingenious! Maybe we could add some periodic trends on there too. This would certainly help the first years remember atomic radius and electronegativity trends alot better.

Bunsen

Beaker in a tight spot!

Hmmm yes.....Beaker has been a very bad muppet scientist! He has been arrested! This involves impenetrable keck clip hand cuffs, and a test tube on his head! Beaker has been accused of several crimes such as:

1) Leaving dirty syringes lying around so that they corrode
2) Releasing smelly substances into the lab
3) Blocking up all the needles in the oven
4) Not doing his lab chores




Let this be a lesson to all of you. Don't make the science police angry or your head will end up in a test tube!

Bunsen

Bunsen cooks Beaker

Nano-(insert wanky name here)

A self-confessed arachnophobe, I totally detest spiders... Having said that, I will now reveal the chemical structure of the smallest known arachnid, known as nanospider. I thought I'd contribute to the already burgeoning list of stupidly named molecules I've encountered including nanokid, nanoscholar and nanocar (Nano Lett. 2005, 5, 2330).

The cis-2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9-octaethylazacyclononane molecule (note the cis-stereochemistry of all the ethyl groups) incorporates 8 flexible ethyl legs as well as a pair of electronic eyes (I know spiders have eight, but meh..whatever) located in an sp3 hybrid orbital. In contrast to the Lewis structure I have given, Spartan predicts four of the spiders legs to be above the mean plane and four below it....making for a really uncoordinated look...so yeah...lets just ignore that! Nanospider loves organic media - it can spin graphitic webs of beautiful symmetry and high strength in no time ;)

The first person to prepare nanospider (pls send 1H NMR and ESI-MS spectra) will receive a free cookie from me...and if that wasn't motivation enough, you can be third author (after bunsen and myself) on the resulting Nature paper!

Bkr

bloggedy blog

Here are some other chem blogs which Bunsen and Beaker have found.

The Chem Blog

TotallySynthetic.com

Sodium podium

I think it's time to acknowledge the power of sodium metal. This is one cool element. I dare say it's a little promiscuous. It'll give up that electron to anyone who wants it! Yes, today we had a sodium fire. It was not the first. This lab has seen many a sodium fire. Last year I had to play fire fighter and put one out in the sink behind my bench. That was quite scary, as the waste non-Cl solvent container nearly caught on fire. Lucky it had just been emptied.

Today we were getting rid of some old Na noodles that were left in the bottom of a THF bottle. On inspection by a reliable post doc, it appeared that the noodles were no longer active. So this morning, we tipped them out into a plastic bowl. All was fine until a small tuft of smoke appeared. As we all lent over the top of the bowl to inspect the situation, the whole thing burst into flames. My guess is that that sodium wasn't dead after all! It was just hiding under a layer of NaOH. Sneaky. We all pottered around trying to find something to smother the flame with. We settled on a lab book, but this was too small to cover the whole bowl. By this stage, the flames had burnt several holes in the bottom of the bowl. In the end it just ran out of puff and burnt out. The sodium metal really taught that plastic bowl a lesson.



Here's a before and after shot.



And of course, it's now stuck to the vent.



Sodium is one reactive metal. If you don't watch yourself you might lose a head or two. I almost had some eyebrow singe action today. If it wasn't for my super sharp reflexes, I may be a few eyebrows short.

Bunsen

Nanoputians

Chanteau's nanoputians paper (J. Org. Chem. 2003, 68, 8750) has been quite inspiring both to us and our chemistry collegues. In short, they spend their time making random humanoid-resembling molecules like "nanoscholar" and "nanokid".

Two things came to our minds:
1. How on earth do research groups get funding for doing this kinda stuff?
2. What if we could make moles and moles of nanopeople to make molecules for us - this means that we could spend all our time blogging instead of doing reactions! However, this may make synthetic chemists (like us) obsolete - so maybe it's best this doesn't occur.Bunsen and Beaker =)