Stereo Chemistry

As COVID-19 continues to spread, so does the effort to treat and vaccinate against the novel coronavirus that causes the disease. Around the world, scientists are working nonstop on the different therapies that they hope will quell the loss of life during this pandemic while, at the same time, setting us up to prevent future outbreaks. What's not clear is which, if any, of these treatments will wo...

Fifty years ago this week, an explosion on the Apollo 13 moon mission stranded three astronauts hundreds of thousands of miles from home. You probably know that Fred Haise, Jim Lovell, and Jack Swigert made it home safely (water landing shown, with two of the astronauts in white). You may not know the chemist behind the rocket engine that saved them, which began its life as an apparatus for measur...

Chemistry is going the way of computing: It's getting smaller and faster. High-throughput experimentation, or HTE, is part of this push. Borrowing from biologists and biochemists, HTE has brought in microplates and multichannel pipettes to miniaturize reactions, as well as robots to run those reactions rapidly without sacrificing precision. But it's also been around for decades. So why are so many...

As the novel coronavirus responsible for causing COVID-19 continues to spread, questions about the virus, the disease, and its impacts on our daily lives mount. To help you stay current with the science, policy, and business implications of this outbreak, C&EN has made all of its coronavirus coverage freely available at cenm.ag/coronavirus. And in the latest bonus episode of Stereo Chemistry, we d...

Stereo Chemistry talked with six chemists who spent a year in Washington on a policy fellowship to find out what they learned and what advice they would give to other scientists who are interested in science policy.  Check out Andrea Widener's AAAS policy fellows story on C&EN at https://cen.acs.org/policy/Lessons-learned-from-a-year-in-Washington/98/i4 . And learn more about the AAAS Science and...

Climate change is on the public's mind, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and protests and rallies involving young people around the world. In the latest episode of Stereo Chemistry , host Kerri Jansen talks to early-career researchers developing the tools and knowledge we'll need to thrive in a changing climate. These scientists are part of a generation who...

M&A, the FDA, and an empty elevator. In this bonus episode, C&EN reporters Ryan Cross and Megha Satyanarayana share their takeaways from their time at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference a few weeks ago. Read more about JPM 2020 here: https://cen.acs.org/business/investment/JP-Morgan-Healthcare-Conference-slow/98/i3 Image credit: Credit: Megha Satyanarayana/C&EN

Although the Wuhan coronavirus is currently dominating headlines across the globe, influenza kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year. In the US, millions of people roll up their sleeves annually for a flu shot. But this ritual is confusing for many. Why is it that most vaccines are effective for a lifetime while the flu vaccine is only effective for a year? And why do we sometime...

Late last year, C&EN contributing editor Mark Peplow toured a new battery company's R&D facility in Sweden. That company, called Northvolt, aims to produce the world's greenest lithium-ion batteries, to help meet the growing demand for electric vehicles. Ride along with Mark to learn more about the company, its work, and its goals in the first bonus episode of Stereo Chemistry . Check out Mark's f...

The discovery of the ozone hole in the mid-1980s sent shock waves through the scientific community and society at large. As scientists scrambled to make sense of the unprecedented phenomenon, a clear culprit emerged. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—once thought of as near-miraculous compounds that revolutionized refrigeration—were suddenly revealed to be one of the biggest environmental dangers known t...

For its latest episode, Stereo Chemistry handed its recorders over to kid journalists interviewing grown-up chemists about cutting-edge research. Listen in as the children get answers to questions about DNA, environmental clean-up, and even C-H activation. The kids' reporting was part of an outreach event called Science Storytellers that took place during the American Chemical Society National Mee...

Rocket propellant research had its heyday in the mid-20th century, when the space race and the Cold War meant chemists had plenty of money and long leashes. Few of their most interesting ideas ended up in working rockets, but they charted new areas of chemical space, some of which, like boron chemistry, have proved useful in other fields. Geopolitical shifts, along with a growing emphasis on healt...

Without fail, the name John Goodenough crops up during Nobel Prize season. Many scientists believe he's deserving of chemistry's top honor. The University of Texas at Austin materials scientist is credited with developing a material that led to mass commercialization of lithium-ion batteries, the technology that powers our smartphones, laptops, electric vehicles, and other gadgets big and small. T...

In our last episode of Stereo Chemistry , we talked to chemists who had survived accidents at the bench to learn what went wrong and what lessons we could share to improve lab safety. In this episode, we're looking at what it takes to build a culture of safety. That is, what can organizations do to let researchers know that their safety is not only valued, but expected? Hosts Jyllian Kemsley and M...

Research science is full of hazards. Chemists and safety professionals do their best to minimize the danger, but accidents do happen and the stakes can be extremely high. So how can chemists ensure that when things do go wrong—or when they nearly go wrong—that we learn from those experiences to work toward a safer future? Communication is key. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, we talk with four...

In the aftermath of a building fire, investigators study the scene for clues to the fire's cause. They look for burn patterns and suspicious materials while chemists search charred debris for traces of flammable liquids. But investigating fires is not as straightforward as it once was, because investigators now know more about the complexity of how fires burn. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry,...

Robots in the ocean are giving scientists more details about processes above and below the surface that affect our weather, our food supply, and more. They're also helping chemical oceanographers understand and record the effects that climate change is having on our waters. The past 2 decades have seen a growing fleet of uncrewed research vessels and a proliferation of chemical sensors, which toge...

In honor of the International Year of the Periodic Table, Stereo Chemistry explores the stories behind some of the elements in this episode. C&EN and ACS on Campus hosted periodic table pub trivia during the ACS Spring 2019 National Meeting in Orlando, Florida. Inspired by the event, its participants, and its questions, host Kerri Jansen investigated what it takes to make a new superheavy element,...

Being a chemistry professor is Jen Heemstra's dream job. How she got there was a bit of a nightmare. But now she's running her own team at Emory University and has become a social media celebrity by sharing her experiences and leadership advice on Twitter. She credits her personal tragedy and professional setbacks for making her who she is today. In the latest episode of C&EN's Stereo Chemistry po...

They say love is a many-splendored thing, and we have to agree. In the latest episode of Stereo Chemistry , love unites rotovap romance, intimate feelings formatted for the Journal of the American Chemical Society , and the slow but tireless march of equality. C&EN spoke with five chemistry couples about their love stories, as well as what advice they have for those trying to give love a chance in...

RNA should be a terrible drug target. It's long, noodle-like structure lacks the nooks and crannies that small molecule drugs use to grab onto proteins and thereby control them. But a decades-old disregard for RNA is starting to change. In August 2018, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first-ever RNA interference (RNAi) drug, which uses a double-stranded RNA molecule to prevent the...

Closing out the inaugural year of Stereo Chemistry, host Kerri Jansen and C&EN reporter Tien Nguyen share a collection of stories about ways of distilling complex chemistry. Join us for a resonant take on organic chemistry reactions, an abridged explanation of some Nobel Prize–winning work, and the story behind a chemical earworm. A script of this episode is available at cen.acs.org/education/scie...

The smell of old books. The crinkle of the yellowing pages. While admiring the wonders of libraries, have you ever wondered how paper ages and why some sheets last longer than others? Paper conservation scientists have. Stereo Chemistry caught up with a slew of these researchers after hearing about a special collection of books at the U.S. Library of Congress. The more than 1,000 volumes in this c...

Even scientists can have superstitions: a lucky shirt, a supernatural paper towel, an elaborate ritual to keep the NMR running smoothly. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, we're sharing superstitions from our listeners to celebrate Halloween. Join host—and proud black cat owner—Kerri Jansen as she explores the not-exactly-scientific notions of the chemistry world. View a transcript of this episo...

Deborah Blum's new book, "The Poison Squad," comes out Sept. 25. The author and award-winning science writer sat down with us to discuss the crusading chemist—and crazy experiment—behind the book's title and America's first food safety regulation. To register for C&EN's Nobel Prize prediction webinar, visit https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/acs-webinars/popular-chemistry/predicting-nobel-4.html "...