The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 182 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 182 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

The Computational Drug Discovery Chemistry Jobs List: 20 positions

The Computational Drug Discovery Chemistry Jobs List has 20 positions. This list is curated by Joel Walker. 

22 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 22 new positions posted for June 19.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 166 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 166 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

What's Wrong with This Picture?: sodium azide edition

I think you got it wrong, guys. 

Lead follies

In a very interesting paper in the Journal of Chemical Health and Safety titled "The state of the arts: Chemical Safety - 1937 to 2017" [1], longtime DCHAS-L correspondent and art/chemical safety expert Monona Rossol tells about her history in the arts and safety, including this rather hair-raising story:

A number of sculpture students, including myself, got acute lead poisoning when we were taught to make "dripped lead sculpture". We melted junk yard lead indoors without ventilation, cast it into bars, and used an acetylene torch to remelt the bars and drip the lead into our molds. We thought we had some kind of flu that caused the vomiting and diarrhea. No one in the art department, including me at that time, knew that an invisible fume of tiny lead oxide particles is emitted into the air when lead melts. And since the first effects of lead exposure are to lower the IQ, it may explain why I still remained in art school. 

Yikes! Artists do funny things for art.

1. Rossol, M. "The state of the arts: Chemical safety - 1937 to 2017." J. Chem. Health Saf. 2018, 25 (2), 18-27.

Warning Letter of the Week: fourth time's the charm edition

A greeting from the Center for Drug Evaluation and Research to the chairman of the board of IDT Australia:

2. Your firm failed to ensure that laboratory records included complete data derived from all tests necessary to assure compliance with established specifications and standards. (21 CFR 211.194(a)). Our review of your laboratory records revealed that you failed to report non-conforming test results on multiple occasions in multiple parts of your operations.

Analytical TestingDuring testing of [redacted] exhibit batch [redacted] in March 2016, three consecutive identity test failures occurred. The fourth test passed and you reported this conforming result. You did not include the three failures in the data package submitted to the quality unit for review or your application submission for this product. You did not conduct an investigation into the non-conforming results. At the time of the inspection, you were unaware that your analysts had not reported the failing results to your quality unit for review.

Surely those first three tests didn't mean anything.  

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 8 positions

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 8 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? Try the open thread.

Otherwise, all discussions are on the Chemistry Faculty Jobs List webforum.

The Academic Staff Jobs List: 25 positions

The Academic Staff Jobs list has 25 positions.

This list is curated by Sarah Cady. It targets:

• Full-time STAFF positions in a Chem/Biochem/ChemE lab/facility at an academic institution/natl lab
• Lab Coordinator positions for research groups or undergraduate labs 
• and for an institution in Canada or the United States

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions.

Want to chat about staff scientist positions? Try the open thread.

Job posting: research scientist, Carbon Recycling International, Kopavogur, Iceland

From the inbox, Carbon Recycling International is searching for a research scientist:

Main responsibilities and tasks: 

• Independent research on laboratory and plant scale
• Catalyst development and testing 
• Chemical synthesis 
• Purification and analysis...

M.S./Ph.D. in chemistry or chemical engineering desired. Link here. Best wishes to those interested. 

This week's C&EN

A few of the articles in this week's issue of Chemical and Engineering News: 

• Cover: Sam Lemonick, on recycling plastics
• Michael McCoy on the recent American Chemistry Council meeting; lots of trade war talk
• I hope Martina sang "Independence Day" - it's a classic.
• Elmer's sales have gone up 40% because of slime?!?!? (article by Alex Tullo) 
• WuXi building a bioreactor plant in Massachusetts (article by Jean-François Tremblay) 
• Cool Saturn-shaped molecule made by the Toyota group (article by Bethany Halford) 
• ACS Board actions (article by Linda Wang)
• Some d00d yapping about social media for mid-career professionals.

Pipette tips

A list of small, useful things (links):

• The latest from Stellen für Chemiker
• The latest from All Things Metathesis
• I found this Derek Lowe post about Lilly to be hilarious. YMMV
• Fascinating post by Ash on science and faith.
• There are people who forge scientific paper acceptances? How awful.
• Interesting post at Sustainable Nano about microscopy of cells.
• Good article about the relocation of laboratories.
• This article in The New Yorker was just phenomenal. No words for how good it was - what a story. 

An open invitation to all interested in writing a blog, a hobby that will bring you millions thousands hundreds tens of dollars joy and happiness. Send me a link to your post, and I'd be happy to put it up.

Have a good weekend!

Liquid hydrogen cyanide grenades?

But it looks so innocuous!
Credit: Reddit user why_da_herrrooo

Via Twitter, this funny/scary Reddit post from a year ago, where someone posted a picture of this object on the right, and it was found to be a Japanese hydrogen cyanide grenade from World War II.  (emphasis mine):

I let me uncle know what everyone said it probably is and he said he's surprised he's not dead. This being he said that the rubber seal had been disintegrating over the years that's why you can see flakes floating around in the picture, that the rubber seal that had been disintegrating into the bottle and he had just been re-sealing the sides with glue. He said he moved it into another location not near his house and will call some officials tomorrow on what to do with it. He's not too concerned in the meantime as he has had it on his shelf in his bedroom for the last 50 some years and nothing's happened yet.  

Thank you all for the responses he was actually planning on opening it and switching the contents to a more secure container, that's why he actually showed it to me to see what his next "project" was. You all probably saved a life so I really appreciate it!

Well, that would have been bad. Glad it worked out all right.  

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 173 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 173 positions.

Want to help out? Here's a Google Form to enter positions, but if you want to do the traditional "leave a link in the comments", that works, too.

Want to chat about medchem positions? Try the open thread.

Positions I'm not including: positions outside the United States, computational positions (this will likely change), academic positions (likely never.)

The Computational Drug Discovery Chemistry Jobs List: 15 positions

The Computational Drug Discovery Chemistry Jobs List has 15 positions. This list is curated by Joel Walker. 

19 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 19 new positions posted for June 4.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 166 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 166 positions.

Want to help? Here's a form to fill out.

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

Not a good mixer for drinks

Credit: David Kochman

Other potential warnings for a bottle of 2-mercaptoethanol:

1. DOESN'T SMELL GOOD
2. NOT A GOOD HAND LOTION
3. DO NOT ADD TO CHEESE DIP

(picture by David Kochman) 

Ed Breen, killer of moonshots

Also in this week's C&EN, this is quite the article about Ed Breen, current CEO of DowDuPont (article by Alex Tullo): 

DowDuPont CEO Ed Breen says he prefers small, short-term R&D projects that quickly yield marketable products to moonshots that are risky and more expensive. 

Breen took over as DuPont CEO in November 2015 and quickly inked an agreement to merge with Dow Chemical. At the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference in New York City on May 31, Breen discussed his company’s R&D strategy. 

Breen said that he scaled back ambitious projects as soon as he was in charge at DuPont. “When I got to the company, we killed almost all of what I’d call the moonshot projects,” he said. “And, by the way, the moonshots cost the most money. I didn’t feel comfortable with most of them.” 

...Additionally, in late 2015, Breen recast DuPont’s Central R&D organization, famous in the chemical industry for its devotion to long-term projects, into a smaller organization, Science & Innovation.

Short-term profits first! I look forward to looking at his track record 5 or 10 years from now... 

This week's C&EN

A few of the articles from this week's issue of C&EN: 

• Cover: The latest on chemical vapor deposition (article by Mitch Jacoby) 
• Britt Erickson on replacing methylene chloride in paint strippers
• Jean-François Tremblay on Taiwan's biotech scene
• I really enjoyed this article, and I did not know about Chi-Huey Wong
• You gotta check out this TNT replacement - got nitrogen? (article by Bethany Halford) 
• The Chemical Safety Board is in ill-health, which is a shame. (article by Glenn Hess) 
• Also, I didn't hear that the chairwoman resigned recently... (article by Jeff Johnson)
• Interesting letter to the editor about marijuana.