This is a workshop with IONiC VIPEr.
-Adam Johnson
You have to imagine this being sssung...loudly (and poorly) to the tune of Captain Jack Sssparrow. Yes, the LC is having some fun at the workshop. But there is also some really incredible work being done. You can check the ssschedule here for the details, but I wanted to give you a little update.
I hoped to have a catchy title for this CoLuMn - one that I could spell with elements - but as Anne pointed out, the new elements don't provide much help for spelling!
Last week, the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) announced provisional names for elements 113, 115, 117, and 118, formerly known as Uut, Uup, Uus, and Uuo, respectively. With the additions of nihonium (Nh), moscovium (Mc), tennessine (Ts), and oganesson (Og), the seventh row of the periodic table is now complete. The names will become permanent after a five-month review period ends in November.
Adam may have just written about his experience using Lit Discussions. I want to follow up with my experience moving almost exclusively to Lit Discussions.
Way back in January of 2014 at a snowy project meeting of the leadership council held in Easton, PA, I had an idea. That's actually not quite true, my brother-in-law, Ian O'Bryne, had an idea. He thought we had developed a great website full of tremendous content, but we needed to find ways to bring people back to the site on a regular basis. I liked the idea, but I wouldn't say that it was met with widespread enthusiasm.
I've missed over 9,000 shots in my career.
I've lost almost 300 games.
26 times I've been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed.
I've failed over and over and over again in my life.
And that is why I succeed.
- Micheal Jordan (Nike Culture: The Sign of the Swoosh (1989), Goldman, R; Papson, S., 49)
I’ve heard great things over the years about the “Blue Solids” learning object. Things like “it’s a great ‘introductory’ solid state literature discussion,” or how the students really like the paper because it is easy to read.
As this semester comes ALMOST to a close, I’ve begun to think about my Inorganic course this semester. What was the most successful? What would I have changed? What was I most excited about?
Today (March 31st) is Robert Bunsen's 205 birthday. While many of us know him best as the scientist that developed the burner that bears his name, I can't help but wonder if the generation of chemists we are currently training will soon forget his name. I can't think of a single lab experiment at my institution where a Bunsen burner is used. And I imagine the same is true at many other institutions. And for safety reasons, I am perfectly fine with that. But it sad that he may soon be forgotten. Sure, he had some other very significant contributions to chemistry.
