158/ #chemsky ⚗️🧪

🚨FEE WAIVERS!🚨 Sign up for our info sessions on Nov. 4 and Nov. 11th - anyone who registers and attends will get an application fee waiver! chemistry.uchicago.edu/graduate-pro...

Happy 3²/4²/5²!

It so was hard to imagine having successful career in science as a disabled PhD student that eventually I just left. Who could have guessed that years later I would help create a magazine issue dedicated to highlighting Trailblazing disabled chemists! cen.acs.org/people/profi... #DisabledInSTEM

What if the Moon were made entirely of electrons? Watch the latest What If? video collaboration with @minuteearth.bsky.social! youtu.be/DiWFXv9N0Vs

It's been a long time coming, but I've finally made some improvements to RealOrganicChemistry.org, including adding literally over a million practice problems for stereochemistry and line-angle drawing. The original collection of reaction examples is still there. Feedback is welcome. More to come!

Resharing in case it's useful at the start of the new semester!

New York Times story with profiles of researchers whose grants were terminated. [Gift Link] www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/o...

HAPPY 20TH ANNIVERSARY TO THE ALL-TIME BANGER THEY'RE TAKING THE HOBBITS TO ISENGARD m.youtube.com/watch?v=2X-A...

The 2025 @acs.org Fall Meeting in Washington, D.C. while D.C. is in the midst of a take-over by the Trump administration. In spite of the circumstances, ACS is not allowing any speakers to switch to virtual presentations. This threatens the safety of vulnerable community members. ⚗️ 🧪 #AcademicSky

Just to give the TL;DR on this one: *The* main purpose of the EO is to move funding priorities and decisions away from experts and career professionals over to political appointees. With the ultimate power held by Vought / OMB.

Sign of the times- Michigan State, one of the biggest astronomy programs in the USA, is not accepting ANY applications for its graduate program this year 😖 🔭🧪🎢

It is an extraordinary loss of intellectual expertise that the American people invested millions in developing Every scientist who earns a graduate degree in the US is the product of an investment by the public This is like setting money on fire

There are worse things I could be known for.

It's hard to capture the National Organic Symposium in words. But @cenmag.bsky.social made my try, because it was the conference's 100th birthday ( it doesn't look a day over 49) and also it's my job to capture things in words which is why they paid for me to be there: cen.acs.org/acs-news/mee...

I can't stress enough how close U.S. science is to the cliff. "Numbers released in May by the National Science Foundation (NSF) indicate that if Congress approves the cuts to the agency proposed by the White House, the number of early-career researchers it supports could fall by 78%" (@science.org)

If you know people who are thinking about going to medical school, financing and thus access has been significantly impacted. www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-re...

A 4th of July like no other in our lifetimes, unfortunately. But despair is not an option:

really cool time to be an Assistant Professor

Laser Danger xkcd.com/3108/

really hope this event overlaps with NOS Minneapolis in 2027

At a conference and during yesterday’s downtime I bought like $100 of snacks at Trader Joe’s to bring home (because I live far from civilization).

Headed to the National Organic Symposium today and thinking back to the first NOS I attended in 2015. While there, I met an enthusiastic student from Germany who would soon be wrapping up his PhD and was thinking about next steps.

"ChatGPT users had the lowest brain engagement and “consistently underperformed at neural, linguistic, and behavioral levels.”" I've long suspected people who want to rely on ChatGPT for creative stuff just don't want to use their brains. Turns out, indeed they do not. time.com/7295195/ai-c...

Looked down from lab into the chemistry building atrium and saw Rob Lowe on a college tour with one of his kids.

Today, we have a graduate school panel. There’s still time to join the Remote Supergroup for Chemistry Undergraduates if you want! #chemsky

From the SI of doi.org/10.1021/acs.... : "If you don’t notice any bubbles in the separatory funnel then the students did not add NaBH4, no matter how much they argue with you."

Remember folks, women are too emotional to be president.

Shot/chaser

I made a survey over at Mastodon and found that Fusilli are mostly right-handed spirals, but about a third of the brands is left-handed. So far there seems to be no racemic Fusilli brand. Pasta producerst have achieved a degree of enantiomeric purity chemists can only dream of. 🧪 #chemsky

really cool time to be an Assistant Professor

The free Remote Supergroup for Chemistry Undergraduates (RSCU) is starting for this summer on June 5! All are welcome, so please reach out if you’d like to join our weekly meetings with research talks, career/grad panels, equity chats, networking, and more. #chemsky Keep reading to learn more:

Seems legit.

Really appreciated this video on PFAS.

Just really bleak to open the first new episode of my favorite podcast in over a year and immediately hearing the host advertise ChatGPT as free for college students to help them get through "the worst part of the school year."

gift link www.nytimes.com/2025/05/13/o...

Trump's budget would slash funding for North Country airports, eliminate all LIHEAP heating assistance, and shutter the Northern Border Regional Commission. www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/5...

One of the things I miss about grad school/postdoc is having a research idea and, more often than not, being able to just go try it out on a whim.

Every lab equipment website is like "here is something that may or may not be the piece of glassware you want. There is no photo, and we will give you one (1) measurement that could be the inner diameter, outer diameter, or something else entirely. It costs five hundred dollars."

Every lab equipment website is like "here is something that may or may not be the piece of glassware you want. There is no photo, and we will give you one (1) measurement that could be the inner diameter, outer diameter, or something else entirely. It costs five hundred dollars."

In the days of Zoom classes circa 2021, I had a student raise their virtual hand in class and ask if they could be excused because there was an earthquake happening.

A wide-angle look at the ugly principles behind the current attacks on US science:

Indiana Jtwos and the Temple of Doom

For the last day of my organic class, we discuss the synthesis of the ionizable lipids used in mRNA vaccine nanoparticles – the patented route is all o-chem II reactions.

For the last day of my organic class, we discuss the synthesis of the ionizable lipids used in mRNA vaccine nanoparticles – the patented route is all o-chem II reactions.

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

This year I changed to a flipped course for Organic I & II, using in-class time for group work. I've shared the problem sets from these classes on my website as a resource for students/instructors.

This year I changed to a flipped course for Organic I & II, using in-class time for group work. I've shared the problem sets from these classes on my website as a resource for students/instructors.

I'm reporting on what's happening at NSF for @cenmag.bsky.social! If you're a researcher who had an NSF grant that was previously approved for funding but is now in limbo because of what's happening at the agency, my signal is kvasquez.12. Always open to discussing options for anonymity.