The Chemportal

During the period that one of my last courses, biochemistry, was in session, I remember an occasion where I had stopped by the professor’s office to point out an error in the grading of a test.  He was friendly, in a very excitable mood, and had raised my grade by an extra 10 percent in addition to the percentage that would have been added even if the grade change was incorporated.  He then proceeded to ask me about how the course was and then promptly moved on to the next subject which seemed to preoccupy him with great excitement….the future of biochem. 

He asked me what I envisioned to be be the future area which biochemistry would be sure to encompass; the current accomplishments of biochemistry consists of all aspects of human physiology, in essence, he had explained that biochemistry had already mastered this area for several decades now and that future textbooks are going to cover all areas of…….the human psychology.  And it’s going to be comprehensive and masterful in its exactness just as good as how contemporary biochemistry texts interpret human physiology.

Maybe he isn’t the only biochemist who is so excited about this topic.  Francis Crick had endeavored in this field until his death.

He claimed that wars would always occur, unless the biochemistry of the human psychology would be elucidated fully.

I remember reading Kary Mullis’ autobiography and a chapter from this book describing the event of getting a physics article published in Nature , despite the fact that he was a chemist.  Kary Mullis was the chemist who came up with the PCR technique.  The article that was published consisted of his musings on time travel from what I remember…….he apparently wrote it while in a drug induced state.  According to his autobiography, Nature was quite embarrassed in publishing the article and for indicating the author as a physics professor.

So do Chemist’s prefer Nature or Science?  They both seem to be more biology oriented, not much pure Chemistry going on besides what may be more closely ascribed to as molecular biology.  Both of them cost a fortune, I just paid over ten dollars for latest copy of Nature.

Rummaging through some old favorites, I found some some sites that I had employed during my undergraduate years which were….interesting. Here are two….

Tanabe-Sugano diagrams via Java applets

An interactive program for assignments that require investigations into Tanabe-Sugano diagrams.

Chemlab at Dartmouth

This site actually includes tutorials on the techniques that are employed with various labware and instrumentation e.g. digital spectrometer and volumetric flasks!