Some fast evening fun. Let's say that I have a very specific magic power that I can analyze particular food supplements just via Internet. For example, magnesium bisglycinate. I found a Belgian website with different brands and analyzed them using magic, see picture and a thread 🧵 #chemsky

Happy International Day of Women and Girls in Science 👩‍🔬🧪 ✨We spoke with five inspiring women from our community who are making science more accessible through their projects and outreach. Read here: ccdc-info.com/4quSjkH #WomenInScience #GirlsInSTEM #WomenInChemistry #ChemSky

The supplements saga: today's update. We 20 samples so far, finished analysis for 9 of them. 5 are faulty, 4 are good. Out of 5 - 3 have big problems, 1 intermediate, 1 minor.

PERSON OF THE DAY. 10 February 1923. German-born Wilhelm Röntgen died (aged 77). He produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays which earned him the 1st Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901. It’s one of the greatest diagnostic medical advances of all time.

We had a #MineralMonday today with hydromagnesite, which is the good thing. The bad thing that we were analyzing a food supplement that should not contain this mineral at all... A shocked student, after we found a second faulty supplement - "I thought it is well controlled" #chemsky © mindat.org

On this map, I would like to highlight @chemixapp.bsky.social , who is making a bridge between chemists and Indonesian K-pop fandom (according to the map).

Too late, it seems:

3D printing is contagious. I printed few skulls for our anthropology department sometimes ago, and now they bought their own printer.

During lunchtime I am introduce labmates to the beautiful word of food #supplements by reading the labels with a serious expression on face an trying not to laugh. It is really difficult! So far I defined three (+ one bonus) categories of producers/brands 🧵1/2

Without naming your job, tell me something you say over and over again at work. Can you show me what was in the reaction?

"Rest assured, only what is listed on the label will be found in the supplement." For the fuck sake, I just wrote you that your product does not contain what is on the label and contains two compound that are not on the label. Next mail contains 3 paragraphs explaining me what is organic salt...

There is a category of articles: "We made ZnO nanoparticle from some plant shit". Such articles do not have practical sense, because you can get ZnO almost from any sugar-ish stuff. But usually difficult to fail - mix plant with some Zn salt, heat, wash, measured something, publish in Sci.Reports.

Actually why I asking questions - because I needed help to count to two. That could be not a easy task... For example, if one have unicorn-1,2-disulfonic acid and he wants to crystallize in from H₂O/MeOH. But it is a strong acid and it crystallized as salt - unicorn-1,2-disulfonate, ²⁻. #chemsky

A case when reaction went really sidewise and initial components decided to react not just between themselves, but also with a catalysis and a solvent. On a bright side - no phosphine oxide! First CSD Communication of the year. #chemsky #crystallography www.ccdc.cam.ac.uk/structures/S...

If you are interested in minerals, sometimes you read something like “This mineral smithite was named after prominent Prof. Robert “Stonehead” Smith”. But wait, the mineral was rather _surnamed_ after a surname, that about minerals that was actually _named_ after given name(s)? * long🧵 🧪🌋 1/n

Guess where the software is used by the languages :)

We received some crystalline samples from Canada 🍁. #crystallography

Here GBI reports a independent one-bowl multi-gram synthesis of aluminum fluoride glyphosate complex. The title compound was characterized by elemental analysis, show presence of Al, C, H, P and N. Serious adverse effects are expected after continuous overconsumption. #chemchat #chemsky

D​awe, Katrusiak, Nangia and Berry: Acta Crystallographica Section B welcomes three new Co-editors ##CoEditors##StructuralScience##CrystalEngineering@Laurier...##IUCrhttps://journals.iucr.org/paper?S2052520626000685

Fortunately, US is really reliable supplier when you need a unreliable food supplement - we got a hit with wrong composition!

Crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale 1 of 1st women elected Fellow of RoyalSociety 1945. 1st woman tenured professor @ucl.ac.uk 1st woman president IUCr & BritSciAssoc. Elected Womens Eng Soc member 1946 in recognition of “brilliant & important work" b #OTD 28 Jan 1903 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kathlee...

It is important to go and ask questions: sometimes you got answers, sometimes you got answers and cake.

Based on real events. #crystallography #chemchat

This is a special one for me. Getting any paper published in a peer-reviewed journal is amazing (especially as a corresponding author) but to be published in JACS is something else! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Are you a #Crystallographer and thinking about going to @iucr2026.bsky.social? Do you have a project/idea/discussion point about Crystallography outreach? Then submit an abstract by 15th Feb to MS15 'Engaging all with crystallography' event.fourwaves.com/iucr-2026/sc...

Ahah it sounds like an ancient relic, nice. I like reciprogram, which makes us reciprogrammers and sounds very professional.

A little spoiler for a long thread (coming soon): Can you name minerals that where named after given name(s) of people and not their surnames or combination? Can you guess how many such minerals? #mineral #geology 🌋 #crystallography #science 🧪

Pick up the nearest book. Turn to page 42, post the second sentence. “The brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis) can get up to ten feet long, but usually sticks to between three and five feet.” “Pests. How humans create animal villains” by @beebrookshire.bsky.social

Bagette Lab presents world-first solid-state (crossed) soft-matter battery 🔋 with unprecedented specs: - 800 Wh/kg capacity - temperature range from -60 to 200 C - 1000000 cycles - 2 hours charging time, so you have time to enjoy your lunch 🥗 and wine 🍷

With our small contribution to crystal structure of the complex. Since the article was (practically) accepted near Halloween, we could, in principal, use this style of representation:

Without looking it up, what's the most cited paper to date and how many times was it cited (ballpark) #ChemChat 🧪

The 2026 photochemistry week @unamur.bsky.social will take place on February 9-12 at our chemistry dpt, Univ of Namur 🇧🇪. Thanks Prof. Ryan Gilmour (@uni-muenster.de) 🇩🇪, Prof. @sami-lakhdar.bsky.social 🇫🇷 and Dr. R. Losa. Open to all master, PhD and post-doc researchers from Belgian Universities.🗓️⏬

Temperature dropped. Not dropped to something, just dropped, or rather felt down. My parents’ place last morning.

And again the situation: - That little potential project looks interesting, let’s have a look if somebody already… - Jim Kaduk At least this time we still have a lot to do.

In these hellacious times, would anyone be interested in some nice peaceful times on twitch, working through problematic crystal structures? #chemsky

Greetings from our Cheesmistry Department! #chemchat

I asked ChatCSC* a difficult (for me) question and got right answer in just 5 minutes! A power of NonAI! *Chinese-Speaking-Colleague

And now we will try to fit a molecule of a guest into gamma-cyclodextrin. The thing is that the guest molecule is longer then one molecule of cyclodextrin... #crystallography

One rare of cases when I am "Dr."-ing myself, it is when I am contacting a German company at first time.

A super-narrow-nerdy question! It is uncommon, but there are minerals that are named after given names of the people and not after their surnames and combination. Guess for which letters of Latin alphabet there are _no_ such minerals? #geology #mineral #crystallography and #chemsky, why not.

Following coverage over the weekend of Sir Paul Nurse's comments that suggested that the only reason that a Fellow should be expelled from @royalsociety.org is scientific misconduct, I have written to him to explain the risks such an attitude poses of increasing sexual harassment in STEM.

So, we have not only a meat rock aka Rhodochrosite, but also a chocolate rock - Xocolatlite. @mineralcup.bsky.social, can we have some food for next year? Well, this year already :) #mineral #mineralnames www.mindat.org/min-38843.html

Geologists as usual... www.mindat.org/min-55225.html #mineralnames #mineral

Yeah, we got a nice crystals overnight in a NMR tube! In DMSO… At 19 degrees C in the room… Guess what it is. #chemchat #crystallography

Two! Two PhD in the house, and it took us two weeks to realize to how place cutlery basket in dishwasher correctly.

The GingerBread Instruments is back after last year hiatus (blame on flamingos). #chemchat, can you determine the wallpaper group? #crystallography #BraggYourPattern

A little puzzle for #chemchat #chemsky: Usually you need a expensive equipment with a lot long abbreviations (HPLC-ESI-TOF-MS-TGA-PXRD-NMR) to show that a food supplement is a rubbish. But sometime just a label is enough. Can you spot what is wrong with these Mg bisglycinate supplements?

Geologists - we will name this new #mineral Tinnunculite after a magnificent kestrel (Falco tinnunculus)! Dear reader, in fact they named it after shit of this bird, see link. www.mindat.org/min-47018.html I maybe wrong, but geologists named more minerals after excrement that after flowers.

So pleased our review honouring Angelo Gavezzotti has been published! This work was driven by Aurora Cruz-Cabeza and her students, so I’m delighted to be a part of it. Happy New Year! link.springer.com/article/10.1...

Entry 4: The Wine Schlenk. We need some more entries in the ad-competition folks, 75% of the ads so far were made by the editor. New deadline for submissions is the 10th of January. Here are the guidelines: www.reddit.com/r/Immaterial...