I'm saddened and dismayed to see this. Penalizing institutions because their research outcomes are politically undesirable poses an overwhelming danger to U.S. technology leadership. This must stop, in the interest of this country. I firmly believe this.

Still another month or so to apply to work with me: predicting the crystals and their properties on Titan!

I still strive to post about science but I am shocked that the richest man in the world is now working to destroy the EU for his personal profit, apparently working to ensure that the US would let this happen or even aid in the process.

I am puzzled by the universities who require a detailed postal address when submitting reference letters. I expect to receive a postal (paper) response soon.

looking for a 5y postdoc to work with Stephen Dale (scholar.google.com/citations?us...) and myself within a collaboration between the Acceleration consortium at UofT and the Institute for Functional Intelligent Materials at NUS.

Yes. This is increasingly a problem. Partly an issue of convention center cost, I would suspect, but it would be interesting to learn how different societies view this.

Great little crystal of bright orange scheelite. It would be surprisingly heavy if you held it due to the tungsten in this mineral. #MineralMonday #GeoscienceBluesky ⚒️🧪

#chemsky #compchemsky We updated the web page for our Theory Training Workshop, November 21/22, 2025, with several IMO really useful materials, almost to completion: hybrid3.duke.edu/workshops/20... The talks were remarkable, as were the tutorials. HUGE thanks to all speakers and tutors!

Yosuke Kanai starting off the second day of our HybriD3 Theory Training Workshop. Molecular and electronic dynamics. Happy to see everyone back on a Saturday at 9 am. The future of our field is bright :) #compchemsky

Forgot #chemsky #compchemsky

Weitao Yang kicking off our HybriD3 Materials Theory workshop this morning, with 60+ participants from the Carolinas, Virginia and elsewhere. Thank you!

The big day of our HybriD3 Theory Training Workshop is almost here! hybrid3.duke.edu/workshops/20... Thank you to everyone who is coming and looking forward to seeing you there! Thank you to NSF-DMREF, NCShare & Rhodes IID for support!

As far as the masked individuals in unmarked cars (my first post): I have not met them. But I have seen some videos from Durham, North Carolina, my home town. So this is close enough for me to comment. As I said, my firm view is that this needs to stop.

The point is that this practice of sowing fear needs to stop. Now. I am actually a citizen. But because of Justice Kavanaugh's words, technically I can be profiled. And no, the current profiling, as reported, does not appear to target me. But that does not make things better.

I have never lived in an America where immigrants needed to be afraid to be rounded up by masked individuals in unmarked cars according to their looks and their accents. I am not likely to be profiled. I think. But I carry my passport, as I always have.

Happy to see this tonight. Go TACC & NSF!

Happy to be part of this new paper today, with a pretty cool effect ... at room temperature, if one excited this material with circularly polarized light, the electrons/holes in the material "remember" for quite some time, as seen in subsequent emission. doi.org/10.1002/adfm...

And with some clouds …

Aurora North Carolinensis tonight.

#chemsky #compchemsky

I wonder if I should post more routinely that we do have monthly video meetings for anyone in the @fhi-aims.bsky.social community. The next one is tomorrow, Nov 12, 8:30 am EST. Time and coordinates are routinely posted in the Slack workspace. #compchemsky (in case any FHI-aims users are there)

Tandem perovskite solar cells tested by the US DoD for resiliency against cyberattacks. cleantechnica.com/2025/11/08/t... #solar #perovskitesolar #perovskite #solarcells #pv #nationalguard #usmilitary #resiliency #startups #innovation #affordablesolar #dod #defense #renewableenergy #energy #energy

In other news, my (routine) eye exam improved my outlook so much, this evening. Rainbows everywhere. (Each light source. Aka dilated pupils, following the exam.) And happy to confirm that green light is only a single spectral line, white light a broad spectrum. No need for a prism tonight.

Good reminder. Important in science.

Our MDAnalysis User Group Meeting 2025 is in full swing in sunny Arizona ! www.mdanalysis.org/pages/ugm2025/

They did it! 🎉 Our Duke Pratt School of Engineering first-year engineers (and my 360 advisees - I'm just the advisor) successfully freed me from an elf-themed escape room with 15 minutes to spare. Amazing. (And future engineering is in good hands.)

The 2025 results of the #DFTPoll are online www.marcelswart.eu/dft-poll/ind... #CompChem #ChemSky

Congratulations to @wentao-zhang.bsky.social , who passed his prelim exam with flying colors. No picture (should have thought of that) but truly remarkable work!

I cannot write about this but the reposted post below concerns a deeply painful, awful legacy of my hometown. This is in German and the full story is also here: www.ns-euthanasie-erlangen.de/de/geschicht... Thank you to those at @fau.de and elsewhere for the difficult work of creating a memorial.

This find on BlueSky made me happy tonight!

Are you an US-based undergraduate student interested in materials science? I am thrilled to announce the 3rd edition of our #MateriAlZ Winter School held at Biosphere 2, Oracle, AZ (Jan 4-8, 2026). Free of charge! Please apply by October 31st, 2025: bit.ly/materialz2026

This is a pretty remarkable graph - especially it seems to match the value quoted to me in around 1985, when I was a teenager. My source then was a science book, by Isaac Asimov, who, yes, was a scientist. www.amazon.de/exakten-Gehe... If anyone still has the book, would be interesting to check.

For anyone near the Research Triangle (North Carolina): The groups of Yosuke Kanai and ours will be organizing a Theory Training Workshop - primarily intended for incoming graduate students or postdoc but open to anyone (subject to capacity): hybrid3.duke.edu/workshops/20... #chemsky #compchemsky

Welcome @alexandrovalab.bsky.social - #chemsky #compchemsky !

Happy about this paper on standardizing descriptions of perovskites, where the real credit needs to go to the team of colleagues that made this possible! Hopefully this will be used and adopted. doi.org/10.1038/s414...

#chemsky #compchemsky Happy Sunday. I wanted to make this case again for IPAM at UCLA. www.ipam.ucla.edu/news/nsf-fun... If you work in our field, chances are that an IPAM program contributed to the science you do at some point. AI/ML, molecular science, materials, ... Consider supporting them.

This article is an amazing find for the day. I read Payne-Gaposchkin's "Stars and Clusters" when I was a teenager and it may be one of the best books I ever read. Certainly in terms of how I remember it. With great depth, yet captivating and totally accessible for someone with no background.

I'm recruiting PhD students (Imperial Chemistry), for a >Jan 2026 start. 1) Designing antimicrobial peptides with machine learning and computational chemistry approaches 2) Machine learning surrogate quantum mechanical models (particularly Tight-binding and PPP) docs.google.com/document/d/1...

This is a pretty interesting article ...

We are very sad to announce the death of Professor Sir Peter Hirsch, FRS. Sir Peter was a great scientist, mentor, colleague and friend, and he will be much missed. www.materials.ox.ac.uk/article/prof...

I want to make a small comment on the recent H-1B proclamation (www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...). I understand that this proclamation alleges abuse. I cannot speak to the examples listed there but wanted to clarify at the outset that I have never witnessed such abuse in my personal experience.

Take a look at this opportunity if you're searching (I am not involved in any way): postdoc-pnnl.icims.com/jobs/10907/p...

On a positive note - Happy Pythagorean Triple Square Day :) #math #MATH www.npr.org/2025/09/16/n...

Today! Vote Taenite! www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote For years, my example of extremely slow equilibration, following Sergey Barabash's great 2009 paper on Fe-Ni / Fe-Pd / Fe-Pt alloys, of which I was a part. And this year, stunned that a friend *owns* a Taenite sample. Found out over dinner.

Need to take note of this #chemsky #compchemsky. For anyone in perovskites this GRC is a legend. (Sadly, for me too so far. Did not manage to go and need to make a better effort this time! Thank you @jpcorreabaena.bsky.social and other organizers!)

#chemjobs #compchem Assistant Professorship in Theoretical Chemistry at University of Cambridge www.ch.cam.ac.uk/job/52637

Truly happy to have been part of Danish Khan‘s excellent „defense“ (it was a rout!) at U of Toronto, with wonderful hospitality by Doktorvater Anatole von Lilienfeld, Alastair Price (photo) and the entire group.

Truly inspiring workshop by the Lennard-Jones Centre last week in Cambridge! ljc.group.cam.ac.uk/dft-2025 Thank you to the organizers for having @gabrielgraf.bsky.social and me there, @carbogno.bsky.social for some spectacular last-minute help, all of @fhi-aims.bsky.social, my group, collaborators,

Perovskite needs your help, #perovsky . Not much time left to vote in today's Mineral's Cup and it's close! www.mineralcup.org/2025/vote