Monthly Archives: November 2006

Browsing habits for chemists

Totally Synthetic posted his blog stats today (Blogging… ) so I thought I’d post the ones that Jim Downing has set up for us. Apart from anything else I like the graphics. Days of week Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri … Continue reading

Posted in chemistry | 2 Comments

Mystery Molecule and Jack Dunitz on Fluorine

Jack Dunitz (one of the greatest chemical crystallographers) visited our lab today. I had told people beforehand that I would ask him what the mystery molecule was and prophesied that he would get it immediately. He did. This gives me … Continue reading

Posted in general, programming for scientists | 13 Comments

Blogging Blogging…

TotallySynthetic has just posted Blogging…  where he exults over the growing chemical blogosphere. I share this enthusiasm. He also implies the reinforcement effect – if you have N blogs that are linked there are N*N links and this makes the … Continue reading

Posted in "virtual communities", chemistry | 3 Comments

Is Natural Product Synthesis Interesting?

This is a slightly provocative post – I would welcome comments. When the Nobel prizes were announced this year there was consternation in some of the chemical blogosphere that the chemistry prize had gone to a biologist (see links in … Continue reading

Posted in chemistry | 8 Comments

Could an Open chemistry journal fly?

This post addresses the Closed world of chemistry publishing and offers some not very optimistic comments. I subscribe to the CHMINF-L list which serves the chemical information community. Much of the traffic is about specific (usually commercial) chemical information services … Continue reading

Posted in chemistry, open issues | 2 Comments

Mystery Molecule: have I given away too much?

In many detective novels the murderer makes a fatal mistake. Sometimes they don’t realise this, sometimes they try to cover their tracks. On the Internet you can’t cover your tracks – “The Moving Finger writes: and, having writ, Moves on: … Continue reading

Posted in chemistry | 1 Comment

Negotiating Open Access – a mutual success

I was recently invited to write a review for a closed access journal run by a commercial publisher. The subject of the article [in confidence] was dear to my heart and the journal is largely aimed at a community of … Continue reading

Posted in open issues | 7 Comments

Org Prep Daily – Help! An Open Opportunity for Chemistry

Milkshake runs a superb blog (Org Prep Daily) which does exactly what it says on the tin. Here is an example of a post (6-amino-4-chloro-2-methylpyrimidine). Take a look – you don’t have to be a chemist to get the idea … Continue reading

Posted in "virtual communities", chemistry, open issues | Leave a comment

Mystery Molecule: the trail is getting colder

It’s three days since the mystery molecule was announced and although I’ve had local interest in Cambridge there’s only been one external post. You must know that in police work it is critical to make rapid progress in the first … Continue reading

Posted in chemistry | 2 Comments

Mystery Molecule: more suspects

There has certainly been some speculation in our real-life community about the molecule! I am assuming that there are some other chemists out there who are speculating. Please give us some feedback – if you do maybe there will be … Continue reading

Posted in chemistry | Leave a comment