Just over 22 years ago I delivered the big one. Now here he is delivering ducklings at Easter.

Hatched about an hour ago. The question is duck or drake?

Much excitement in my household today. And well timed by the new addition, it being Easter Sunday.

Found this tiny piece of uranium glass on the beach. The amazing green fluorescence under the blacklight is unrelated to its radioactivity. It is caused by an electronic transition in the linear uranyl [O=U=O]2+ group; the most common structural feature of uranium in it highest oxidation state. 🧪

These aren't Easter eggs. Testing different construction sequences and decorations on C-70 fullerene models. Black for the bonds, green for the pentagons. 🧪 #SciArt #Chemsky #Papercraft

Local store getting ready for new UK legislation on unit pricing. Reminds me of being a crystallographer, when the computer returns a calculated density of x megagrams per cubic meter. I'd get stuck trying to imagine a cubic meter sized crystal! What would you fix with a kilo of cyanoacrylate?

Exploring different, but simple ways of using paper to model chemical structures. This is C70 fullerene. It has a significantly larger interior cavity than C60, and an axial D5h point symmetry. 🧪 #Chemsky #SciArt #Papercraft

It's a very rough model of C70, if carbon atoms are placed on every corner. #SciArt #Papercraft

I'm quite confident I have the right components; just need the glue now!

Enjoyed making these. The five Möbius deltahedra. Non-convex, acoptic, face-transitive polyhedra made from equilateral triangles. Each edge of each triangle lies on a mirror plane. They have the same #symmetry as the Platonic solids, and are related to triangular tessellations on a sphere. 🧪 #SciArt

Designing deltahedra as models for #chemed #STEMed. Trying to find "good" nets. While there are 2 distinct nets for the tetrahedron, apparently there are 43380 for the icosahedron! It seems easier to assemble nets that wrap, than more condensed variants. 🧪 #SciArt #iteachchem

Slightly squiffy 3D build from paper loops. This bipartite network is a model of the unusual niobium monoxide (NbO) structure (NB purple, O yellow!). The structure can be considered as a 1/4 depleted NaCl structure, where the cubic symmetry is preserved. 🧪 #SciArt #ChemSky

🧪 Schottky defects occur in ionic crystals. They are pairs of point defects, where a vacancy at a cation site is matched by a vacancy at an anion site, preserving the charge balance. Here's my two dimensional paper representation of a Schottky defect in sodium chloride. #SciArt #SciComm

Real crystals are never perfect. This is a two dimensional paper representation of a Frenkel defect. It's a pair of point defects, where an atom is displaced, leaving a vacancy and an interstitial. 🧪 #SciArt

I was getting bored of making regular convex deltahedron as paper models for chemists. Delighted with this non-convex distraction. A highly symmetry (icosahedral) 120- faced Möbius deltahedron. I'm sure mathematics is art. 🧪 #SciArt

Testing my net for the bicapped square antiprism. Forth time lucky! 1 missed folding an edge. 2 missed folding another edge. 3 forgot to pay attention to the sequence (made a non convex deltahedron). 4 seems okay. Maybe there's an easier net? #SciArt

I've converted 1 sheet of A4 cardstock into a representation of C60. Never worked with it, but it had quite an impact on me. 1991 I saw Harry Kroto recount its discovery, and I can't overstate what a revelation this was. A new allotrope of carbon...all my textbooks were wrong! 🧪 #SciArt #papercraft

On our way to the Cairngorm plateau at the weekend. Actually glad that I'm no longer leading the way. Parental success!

Working on some decorated deltahedra. There are many molecular species whose shapes are represented by these interesting polyhedra. 🧪 #SciArt #MathArt #papercraft #ChemSky

It's a frosty evening in Carrbridge tonight. The bridge here is over 300 years old.

Changed the aspect ratio again. More spiky this time. #SciArt #mathart #papercraft

Me, homework 1985, write about "one one my idols"! Didn't have any, couldn't to do it, detention. Today, son has the same homework. Me: Who are you going to write about? Son (no hesitation): Alistair McIntyre. Huge smile on my face. Alistair was a wonderful friend and neighbour who passed last year.

Old science: The five platonic solids (of which we think only three were known to Plato) are perfect polyhedra. They are the only 3D shapes that are; vertex-transitive, edge-transitive and face-transitive! These 'faceless' versions are my alternative representations. 🧪 #SciArt

Same dodecahedral shape, different aspect ratios for the faces 2:1, 1 :1, 1:2. Just messing about, could be #SciArt #mathart

Representation of melting. 🧪 #SciArt

Went a bit off-plan ( I've always been easily distracted). Accidentally made these. Was clumsily calling them open-ended prism-stellated platonic-polyhedra. Very pleased to find they are in Heinz Strobl's Snapology work.🧪

A pleasant spot, looking across the Firth of Clyde this evening.

The Gents toilet floor, University of Glasgow. Very sharp, very clean, a great example of the p4m plane group. 🧪 #symmetry #maths

Holidays are always a good time to mess about. Been exploring dynamic paper models; this open-ended pan-symmetric hepta-cube has 3 degrees of freedom, and some of the conformations are flat! 🧪 #SciComm #Geometry

Getting there slowly (I blame the day job), 100 should be enough!

Hey Scientists and Technical people of BlueSky. I was going to make an open ended pansymmetric heptacube, but got distracted. What is the name for this tetrahedral variant? 🧪 #SciComm #Science #Math #Papercraft #ChemSky

Plastic Tsunami #Sciart #infographic

“It’s been an amazing journey - gaining new experiences, unlearning and learning new things.” A big congratulations to everyone that graduated this winter season, you’ve achieved an incredible milestone. This is just the beginning of an amazing journey. @uofgalumni.bsky.social

Time to build. Simple shapes which show a concerted motion; squeeze one diagonal and the other extends. Just need to make a few more.

Hello #ChemSky people. I'm trying to re-engage after a hectic Semester. #ITeachChem For the record: GenChem labs;Yr-1 Atoms, elements and QM ideas;Yr-2 Quant chem labs;Yr-3 Administrator (2 exams to go);Yr-5 Lanthanide and actinides;PGT Neutron scattering. All done, and so am I.

The best advice I gave today: "Don't put a piddock in your pocket."

I've a lecture course on f-block chemistry comming up. This ferrocerium fire starter is an excellent demonstration of just how electropositive lanthanides are.🧪

Today's beans have arranged themselves in the p4mm plane group. And I'm thinking it would have been a better lesson if I'd given students objects and specified a plane group in which to arrange them. Hindsight!🧪

Ignoring the developmental and genetic differences in my beans, can you tell what I've been teaching? That's right, "How to identify a plane group", and this layout is p4. 🧪

Molecules I've made (in model from). My very first synthesis in a research context; 4-Ethoxyiodobenzene. The paper described a "yellow oil", for me, colourless crystals that blocked the condenser. Downside; having to muck about with the vacuum distillation. Upside; more pure than those guys. 🧪

Self-indulgent, but found my old Cochrane's student model kit. Making molecules to which I have a connection. From those PhD days (~1992) I made this rhenium(I) trithiacyclononane tricarbonyl cation (unpublished). Spectacular proton NMR, magnetic inequivalence, an AA'A"BB'B"CC'C"DD'D" spin system.🧪

Bit of a renovation project. Designed by Prof L.F.Fieser, originally sold by Aldrich, these vintage molecular model kits allow students to understand "... conformational and steric effects as well as geometric relationships". #ChemEd 🧪

First I find this.

Not all of the molecular model sets I've recently acquired are tatty and grubby. I believe this is a Catalin space-filling model with Bakelite atoms. Oh the excitement, it's like Lego from the 1940s, what shall I make? 🧪 #SciComm

This is camphor; a rigid and chiral ketone. It finds little use these days, but you may encounter it as a component of the taste of Rosemary.🧪#SciComm

This is Anethole; the flavour of aniseed. Soluble in ethanol, but not in water, you see this compound as the cloudy precipitate when you pour your Ricard/Sambuca/Ouzo/Raki over ice. 🧪 #SciComm

This decision is inexplicable. I'm very angry that the science is continuing to be ignored by those elected to represent us. It will cost us all, dearly. www.theguardian.com/environment/...

Adjacent to this iconic mountain today; Buachaille Etive Mor. Secretly quite pleased when eldest decided it was too midgy to continue, and we could retire to The Green Welly. #Scotland

This is Zingerone. A much better name than the legal IUPAC one; 4-(4-hydroxy-3-methoxyphenyl) butan-2-one! Cooking ginger chemically transforms the gingerol molecule into sweeter and more flavoursome zingerone.🧪 #SciComm