Peroxide test strips

A list of small, useful things (links):

• The latest from Stellen für Chemiker
• The latest from All Things Metathesis
• Great Mark Lorch post about thermite and self-heating drinks
• Retraction Watch story about a professor with a retraction problem and gambling debts
• I feel like finding senior professors at casinos is a somewhat rare thing
• Really wonderful post by Ken Hanson about graduating his first PhDs.
• Good post by Beth Haas on "The Bus." 
• Sustainable Nano on the recent NAS report on sexual harassment in the sciences
• Fun post by Kat Day on kitchen science and strawberries.

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!

Maybe it's the working conditions?

There's a trucker shortage, the Washington Post reports: 

...As the nation faces a historically low level of unemployment, trucking companies are doing what economists have said firms need to do to attract and retain workers: They’re hiking pay significantly, offering bonuses and even recruiting people they previously wouldn’t have considered. 

But it’s not working. The industry reports a growing labor shortage — 63,000 open positions this year, a number expected to more than double in coming years — that could have wide-ranging impacts on the U.S. economy. 

In interviews with more than 60 trainees, recruiters and people who explored trucking but decided not to take the job, most said they feel that higher pay will help but that the industry’s problems are much deeper than that. 

Trucking remains one of the most dangerous professions in the country. There were more than 1,000 fatalities among motor vehicle operators in 2016, according to the Labor Department, meaning being a commercial driver is nearly eight times as deadly as being a law enforcement officer. 

...Trucking jobs require people to leave their families for weeks at a time and live in a small “cabin” with a hard bed. Divorces are common, veteran drivers say, and their children forget them. A life on the road is often costly and unhealthy. Drivers sit for hours a day in diesel trucks and pull into truck stops that typically serve greasy hot dogs and chili. 

Weight gain and heart disease are common, says Gordon Zellers, an Ohio physician who spends half his time examining truckers and administering drug tests, which increasing numbers of CDL applicants fail. 

As it has trouble recruiting new workers, the industry also is struggling to hold on to drivers. Turnover in the trucking industry has skyrocketed to 94 percent, according to the American Trucking Associations, meaning most drivers at the major trucking companies don’t spend more than a year in their jobs. That reflects a combination of poaching and quitting....

That's some pretty intense turnover. I haven't thought about trucking yet....

The life of a trucker, long story short, seems miserable, especially the part about being away from your family for a month at a time. I was trying to figure out how much I would have to be paid to take a job as a trucker, i.e. the amount of money I would have to make before I would start to get tempted. It was many multiples of the $42k that the Bureau of Labor Statistics suggests that the median trucker makes. (I recognize that number is not the likely wage that a long-haul trucker makes.) 

Are there famous cases of sabotage in the chemical or pharma industries?

An odd story from Tesla Motors (via the New York Times): 

Now Tesla’s chief executive, Elon Musk, suspects his company might have a more unusual problem: sabotage. 

In an email sent to employees late Sunday night, Mr. Musk said a disgruntled worker had broken into the company’s computer systems in an attempt to disrupt manufacturing. 

“I was dismayed to learn this weekend about a Tesla employee who had conducted quite extensive and damaging sabotage to our operations,” he wrote. “This included making direct code changes to the Tesla Manufacturing Operating System under false usernames and exporting large amounts of highly sensitive Tesla data to unknown third parties.”

That seems problematic for Tesla - I wonder how long it will take to fix this issue? I imagine that there are relatively few situations where pharma or chemical industry insiders found themselves tempted enough to act on negative impulses... 

This week's C&EN

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

• Cover: cool stories of pharmaceutical manufacturing
• a good set of stories for the fine chemical nerds out there 
• Burning pipes from the California wildfires caused benzene contamination in groundwater?Weird. (article by Elizabeth K. Wilson) 
• Interesting article by Alex Scott on a Swedish startup competition
• Fascinating concept of topological molecules (article by Neil Savage)
• Barry Sharpless, Priestley Medalist (article by Bethany Halford)
• Polymer gets rid of green-pepper compound from wine (article by Mitch Jacoby)

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 9 positions

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 9 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.

View From My Hood?: Shanghai edition

(got a View from Your Hood submission? Send it in (with a caption and preference for name/anonymity, please) at chemjobber@gmail.com; will run every other Friday.)

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.

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List: 4 positions

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 4 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.

View From Your Hood: Berkeley sunset edition

Credit: @christine_m_le

Via Twitter user @christine_m_le: "Can’t get enough of these epic sunsets at @UCB_Chemistry."

(got a View from Your Hood submission? Send it in (with a caption and preference for name/anonymity, please) at chemjobber@gmail.com; will run every other Friday.)

Where do you go, in the middle of your career?

Over at Wandering Scientist, Cloud is thinking and musing about her career:

...It isn't that my career is going badly... it is more that I feel like I've lost the plot of my career. For years, the goals I was aiming for were obvious. But right now, they aren't. I am unsure what I really want to aim for. That's OK: I have a good job at a good company, working with people I like. I don't necessarily see much scope for advancement at this particular company, but that may not actually be a problem. As one of my peer mentors pointed out today, there are other things I could do to get growth. 

The question I have to answer is: growth toward what? That is less obvious to me right now. Strangely, I think I am OK with that, too. I don't have an urgent need to change anything. I might take a little time to think about what my long term goals should be, pick some of the more low key growth ideas my peer group came up with, coast along for a bit without any urgency on them, and see which things sprout...

At this moment in my career, I don't feel the same way, in that I think I know what I am growing towards, and I know that there is a real, definite (and rather scary) set of diverging paths coming in the next three to five years. If we are successful, it will be good for us (and, I hope, good for my career.) But it could go poorly, and it wouldn't be good for us, or for me. 

What do people in the middle of their careers do? Fake-it-til-you-make-it? Strategize constantly? Pick a goal and work towards it? Or do they just keep persisting? 

(Oh, yeah, and how often do you have an existential crisis between 35 and 50? Once a year? Once a month?) 

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs List: 168 positions

The Medicinal Chemist Jobs list (curated by Joel Walker and myself)  has 168 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. 

15 new positions at Organic Chemistry Jobs

Over at Common Organic Chemistry, there's 15 new positions posted for June 4.

The Process Chemistry Jobs List: 161 positions

The Process Chemistry Jobs List has 161 positions.

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

Want to chat process jobs? Try the open thread. 

What's the outlook for IP law?

From the inbox, a good question and observation. First, what is the long-term outlook for intellectual property law for chemists (in terms of patent agent positions and IP lawyers?)

On that note, it appears that there isn't much data. You will be amused to know that the Bureau of Labor Statistics sees lawyers growing at 8% for 2016-2026. (Chemists, readers of this blog will know, are expected to grow at a rate of 6% for the same time period.) Here's a BLS paper that doesn't really have much data about the field, but might be worth a perusal anyway. 

Here's our anonymous writer's observation: Check out the number of people who have been taking the patent agent exam: 

2017: 2346

2016: 2424

2015: 2495

2014: 2799

2013: 2766

2012: 3365

2011: 2716

2010: 3120

2009: 3357

2008: 3634

2007: 3192

2006: 2923

2005: 2673

Looks like we are in a local minima? (Sure can see a lot of activity during the Great Recession!) Hard to know what this means 10 years from now. 

Anyone have a good suggestion of sites for contract synthesis work?

An anonymous person writes in, asking if there are any collaboration sites for freelance synthetic work. Does Science Exchange or any of these other sites have places for chemists to hang out their shingles? 

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List Start (3 positions) and Open Thread

The 2019 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 3 positions.

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

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List finished with 552 positions.

Want to talk anonymously? Have an update on the status of a job search? This will serve as the open thread.

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

The 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (final number): 552 positions

The final count for the 2018 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List (curated by Andrew Spaeth and myself) has 552 positions.

The 2017 Chemistry Faculty Jobs List finished with 590 positions.

Does anyone want to guess as to whether or not the 2019 Faculty Jobs List will have more or fewer positions than 2018? I am taking the under, even as I feel that we were far more diligent in tracking down positions in 2018 than in 2017.

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

See Arr Oh's Chemistry Bumper Cars list for 2018 is here.

Want to talk about starting your new group? That open discussion is here.

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

Postdoctoral position: synthetic organic chemistry, UNC Chapel Hill

From the inbox, a postdoc at UNC:

Synthetic organic chemist position focused on the design and  construction of novel molecules for selective dopamine modulation. Each scaffold under investigation appears to interact at allosteric sites not the dopamine binding site, a novel approach to dopamine regulation.  This project is a collaboration with the Sibley Lab (NIH/NINDS), who are responsible for all assays and screening. Thus, this position is dedicated to the development of new synthetic methods and routes to the target scaffolds and their application to construct further analogues.  Research is conducted within the highly collaborative environment of the UNC Center for Integrative Chemical Biology and Drug Discovery. http://frankowskilab.web.unc.edu/

Best wishes to those interested. Full ad here. 

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.

There's a cuvette shortage?

Also in this week's C&EN, an apparent shortage of cuvettes (article by Marc Reisch): 

High-end cuvettes—straight-sided clear containers used to hold analytical samples in spectrophotometers—are in short supply from the German manufacturer Hellma Analytics. So far, though, only a few people have noticed. 

Evan Friedmann, vice president of Hellma’s U.S. distribution arm, says his firm is suffering from limited output of certain cuvettes designed for research. He chalks the problem up to delayed delivery of a new computer-controlled machine tool and strong demand for spectrophotometer accessories. “Hellma is currently seeing the highest order booking in our 96-year history,” he says. 

Cuvettes are typically used in pairs and need to be optically matched, says instrumentation consultant Ellen Miseo. Scientists use cuvettes to place solutions into ultraviolet-visible or fluorescence spectrophotometers to measure concentrations. They range in price from under $100 to over $500 each. 

Hellma has been struggling with the cuvette shortage since the end of 2017. In March, the company sent a letter to customers and distributors acknowledging a delay in the delivery of a new machine tool to its facility in Müllheim. It also noted a shortage of workers at the time “due to the nationwide flu epidemic.”

Interesting that the article notes that the shortage really hasn't hit in the US.  

This week's C&EN

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

• Cover: Lisa Jarvis on immuno-oncology and checkpoint inhibitors
• Bethany Halford, on a historical collection of pigments
• A San Jose State chemical engineering professor is developing a snake antivenom from opossum proteins. (article by Melissa Pandika)
• The Chemical Safety Board issues its report on the Arkema fires
• time to flood-proof your plants! 
• An amusing explainer on the ACS Board of Directors, by the current chair of the board, Dr. John Adams.

ArkPharm proprietors arrested for fentanyl distribution

Via Matthew Katcher, this story by Rick Kambic of the Pioneer Press (at the Chicago Tribune website)

Two suburban residents appeared in federal court Thursday morning on charges related to the sale of fentanyl and fentanyl precursors over the internet using unlicensed businesses. 

Wei Xu, 52, who goes by the alias “Scarlett Hsu,” lives in Vernon Hills and operated a business known as 1717 CheMall Corp. from a warehouse at 222 Terrace Drive, Mundelein, according to a news release from the U.S. attorney’s office. 

A multi-jurisdictional task force led by the Drug Enforcement Administration raided 1717 CheMall Corp. late Wednesday. Employees of neighboring businesses posted photos of the activity on social media, but the U.S. attorney’s office was unable to disclose what was recovered from the warehouse. 

Xu was charged with one count of knowingly distributing a controlled substance. Prosecutors said she used the company’s website to sell “fentanyl and other controlled substances” from the site’s “estore.” 

Federal prosecutors say Liangfu “Larry” Huang, 53, of Northbrook, ran a business known as Ark Pharm Inc., which operated from a warehouse at 1840 Industrial Drive, Libertyville, until recently moving to 3860 N. Ventura Drive, Arlington Heights, according to the federal complaint. 

Also via Matthew, check out the website.

Looks like you can't buy fentanyl "for laboratory purposes only" and escape the long arm of the law. [Nods] Good to know. 

40 mL vials

A list of small, useful things (links):

• The latest from Stellen für Chemiker
• The latest from All Things Metathesis
• Retraction Watch has the latest from Organic Letters
• Cool post from a Navy veteran on going to graduate school in the sciences
• Lowe's won't sell methylene chloride anymore
• Funny story from Retraction Watch on a Kim Kardashian-authored article
• Great post on quinine at chempics  

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!