Monday, July 21, 2014

This week's C&EN

From this week's issue: 

Wonderful quotes on committees: This letter on open workspaces takes a funny turn towards the end:
...Teamwork and collaboration are important, but so is individual thought. The late science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein defined a committee as “a creature with three or more legs and no brain.” The National Aeronautics & Space Administration put it similarly: “None of us is as dumb as all of us.” 
James M. Castro
Helena, Mont.
Um, what's going on in Atlanta?: Andrea Widener covers the CDC anthrax debacle. I'd love to know what's going on and what internal employees think of it. It certainly seems dangerous, anyway.

The ACS Presidential race: An interesting slate of candidates (article by Sophie Rovner):
Candidates for president-elect are Peter K. Dorhout, dean of arts and sciences and a professor of chemistry at Kansas State University, Manhattan; William A. Lester Jr., a professor of the graduate school in the chemistry department at the University of California, Berkeley, and faculty senior scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and Donna J. Nelson, an organic chemistry professor at the University of Oklahoma.
I wonder if Professor Nelson's association with "Breaking Bad" (she was the show's technical adviser) will help or hurt her candidacy? I'll bet it will help.

3 comments:

  1. That reminds me: Has anyone hear from Tom Barton lately? What exactly did he get done? Anything?

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  2. Dear CJ, there is no need to worry - Pete, Bill, or Donna, I'll get them bent over the very same barrel. I hope this also clues in the anon @2:31.

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  3. From this same CEN issue - are you planning to cover the excellent graphic on p. 22 showing that 3/4 of science degree holders DON'T stay in purely science fields (vs. nearly half of engineering and computer students)? This one should be copied and sent en masse to policy makers and anyone else who's still unclear on the sTEm shortage myth.

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looks like Blogger doesn't work with anonymous comments from Chrome browsers at the moment - works in Microsoft Edge, or from Chrome with a Blogger account - sorry! CJ 3/21/20