Making ends meet; Mr. Fantastic, hedgehogs and the dance of the bonds

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·ScienceBlogs Kategorien·Vorträge / Lectures

Today's talk by MIT chemist Richard Schrock was about a discovery that was applied in part to a long-standing chemical problem. There was no efficient method for forming large molecular rings until Robert Grubbs from Caltech and Schrock arrived on the scene. The method that accomplished this was called olefin metathesis. For their achievement, Schrock and Grubbs shared the Nobel Prize in 2005 with French chemist Yves Chauvin. Just as the Nobel Prize for GFP was long anticipated in the community of biochemists, the Nobel Prize for metathesis had been long anticipated in the community of organic chemists. Nobody was surprised when Grubbs and Schrock received it.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 02.07.09 · 16:25 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

A many-colored glass; the glow of life and the joy of discovery

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·ScienceBlogs Kategorien·Vorträge / Lectures

Last year's chemistry Nobel Prize was one of the most softball predictions ever made for the Nobel Prize. The Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP) has become so widely used in chemistry, biology and medicine that it is easy to forget that someone had to discover it and develop the technology. Every year Roger Tsien's name used to be on everybody's favorite candidate list along with Martin Chalfie's and Osamu Shimomura's. Then last year, he along with Shimomura and Chalfie finally put the tortuous process and spilling of ink to rest.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 02.07.09 · 11:22 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

The dinner companion

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Medizin·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009

When you first meet Aaron Ciechanover, he appears to have the distracted air of a man who feels slightly inconvenienced to be in whatever situation has been apparently imposed on him. But this preoccupied demeanor belies a mind which is ready to hold forth on a disparate variety of topics with infinite verve and enthusiasm and which is not reluctant to be politically incorrect, provocative and utterly honest. And it hides a broad smile which is very readily revealed at the mention of a favourite incident or fact.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 01.07.09 · 23:36 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Ordering the best appetizer platter; Harry Kroto's many passions

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009

When I visit my favourite restaurant for lunch or dinner, I usually order a legitimate food item from the main course. But once in a while, just to indulge, I order a sample platter of appetizers. The appetizers don't always provide the deep satisfaction that I get from eating a proper, expensive food item. But they provide me with a different kind of unique satisfaction; they give me a glimpse of what's new, what's possible. They provide a view of the diversity that can emerge in a plate of bite-sized chunks. And through their frequent novelty, they give me hope that there are new possibilities on the horizon. These appetizers constitute occasional but necessary fodder. Sir Harold Kroto's talk was one of the most satisfying platter of appetizers I have sampled, and I had not even ordered it.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 01.07.09 · 18:45 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Wo war der Käseigel?

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·ScienceBlogs Kategorien

Lange, sehr lange schon hat mich keiner mehr zu einem Diaabend mit seinen Urlaubsbildern eingeladen. Dabei ist das doch immer recht spannend. Denn an solchen Abenden lernt man selbst beste Freunde noch ein wenig besser kennen.

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Autor: Beatrice Lugger· 01.07.09 · 18:09 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Der nette Laureat

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Deutsche Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 2

Peter Agre muss so ziemlich der netteste Nobelpreisträger sein, der mir je begegnet ist. Bisher stand mir nur ein Argument zur Verfügung, um diese These zu untermauern: Eine sehr nette Plauderei mit anderen Studenten an der Emory Universität letztes Jahr. Mittlerweile habe ich derer zwei.

Heute "interviewte" ich den so schlagfertigen wie intelligenten Mann 40 Minuten lang in einem ungezwungenen, unterhaltsamen Gespräch. (Das Wort "Interview" ist deswegen ein Euphemismus, weil es sich tatsächlich eher um eine Plauderei handelte, als um knallhartes Fragenstellen.) Agre entdeckte eine grundlegende Bestimmungsgröße flüssiger Homoestasen bei Säugetieren, die Wasserkanäle beziehungsweise Aquaporine.

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Autor: Jessica Riccò· 01.07.09 · 17:15 Uhr· 2 Kommentare

Mister Chemist 2009

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Kultur·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 1

These well trained chemists in swimming trunks had luck. Shortly after their bath in the Lake Constance it started to rain.

Bild Christian Fleming / www.lindau-nobel.de

Autor: Beatrice Lugger· 01.07.09 · 15:12 Uhr· 1 Kommentar

The friendly laureate

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Medizin

Image source

Peter Agre has got to be one of the nicest scientists I have ever met. Until now I had only one data point to support this conclusion; a very enjoyable chat with him along with some other students last year at Emory University. Now I have two. Today in an informal, entertaining, witty and informative 40-minute exchange I "interviewed" the man who discovered one of the fundamental determinants of fluid homeostasis in mammals; the water channels or aquaporins. The word 'interview' is really a misnomer since the interview was much more of an informal conversation with a very friendly and witty person.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 30.06.09 · 22:55 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

School's out at Lindau

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Politik

In three weeks' time, 280 high-school chemistry students from all over the world will meet in Cambridge in the UK for their most gruelling academic experience to date: the 41st International Chemistry Olympiad.

Founded in eastern Europe in the late 1960s, in part to increase contact with other countries, the Olympiad competitions are held every year in chemistry, physics, biology, maths and, more recently, informatics. Standards are high. Those 280 students have come through tough selection procedures in their home nations, each country putting just four entrants forward. In the UK, for instance, 2000 chemistry students were whittled down to about 20 via a two-hour exam, and the final four were those who came top in a subsequent three hour theory and three hour practical exam.

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Autor: Matthew Chalmers· 30.06.09 · 18:51 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

But is it chemistry? The curious case of Roger Kornberg

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Kultur

Image source: Nobel Foundation

Every year as Nobel Prize winning season approaches, one sees a flurry of predictions about prizewinners materializing on blogs. I have played the prediction game myself for a couple of years. When I was in graduate school one of my professors offered to give extra points to anyone in the class who could predict that year's winner. I had a gut feeling that the structure of the ribosome might get it (I think they still might get it). The prize did indeed go to the determination of a biological structure, but it went to Peter Agre and Roderick McKinnon for their work on water and potassium channels respectively.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 30.06.09 · 16:44 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

The other Walter Kohn

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Technik

Image source

Since Walter Kohn's talk in this year's meeting is about a topic completely unrelated to his Nobel Prize winning research, it is worth contemplating briefly on the great impact of his major contribution to chemistry and physics.

Kohn was originally trained as a physicist under the tutelage of Julian Schwinger at Harvard University. Schwinger had been a child prodigy and was known in the world of physics in the same way that a supremely talented virtuoso violinist might be known in the world of music. He was always impeccably dressed and drove a fancy Cadillac. His talks and papers were densely mathematical and used to leave listeners and readers flabbergasted. There were few people who could keep up with him when he gave a talk, frequently lasting for three or fours hours. However, as brilliant as he was, one physicist noted that his talks were like a virtuoso violinist's highly polished performances, more technique than physical insight. Nevertheless Schwinger essentially fathered the field of quantum electrodynamics along with Richard Feynman, Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Freeman Dyson. Schwinger, Tomonaga and Feynman were awarded the Nobel Prize for their efforts in 1965.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 30.06.09 · 13:30 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Lindau, day two: Drugs, Warming and Calcium

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Medizin·Naturwissenschaften·ScienceBlogs Kategorien

Waste is not usually a popular topic for polite conversation. Biochemists also avoided it for many years, thinking of protein degradation as a general process that simply gets rid of unwanted biological waste. It was not until Aaron Ciechanover, Avram Hershko and Irwin Rose discovered the ubiquitin-based protein degradation system that the specificity and centrality of this process in life was recognized. Ubiquitin, as the name indicates, is a small protein that is ubiquitously expressed in eukaryotes. It binds to unwanted and broken down proteins and peptides and labels them for recognition by the proteasome, where they are broken down. Both ubiquitin and the proteasome have emerged as key features of living systems. They underscore the notion that death is as important as life. Not only have both of these become important in the study of biological processes but the proteasome has also emerged as a possible target for drugs.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 30.06.09 · 11:15 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Oberflächlicher Erfolg

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Deutsche Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009

Gestern Nacht wiegte mich die Stimme des Chemie-Nobelpreisträgers 2007, Gerhard Ertl, in den Schlaf. Ich möchte aber gleich anmerken, dass sich Ertl nicht in meinem Hotelzimmer befand. Mein Fernseher lief und dort lief ein Interview mit ihm... auf Deutsch natürlich.

Einige Worte konnte ich aus seinem Redefluss identifizieren, zum Beispiel "Elektron", "Atom", "positiv" und "negativ". Daraus folgerte ich, dass er über seine preisgekrönte Forschung im Bereich der Oberflächenchemie berichtete, die aufzeigt, wie grundsätzliche molekulare Prozesse an der Berührungsfläche zwischen Gasen und festen Stoffen stattfinden. Ich dachte, dass es sehr ungewöhnlich wäre, so ein gutes, altmodisches Interview im britischen Fernsehen zu finden. Dann schlief ich ein.

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Autor: Jessica Riccò· 30.06.09 · 07:00 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Chemist or physicist?

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009

Walter Kohn shared the 1998 Nobel prize for chemistry, but in his 86 years he has never taken a university course in the subject. That was not by choice, as Kohn described to me when I caught up with him earlier today: it was due to the Second World War.

Although born an Austrian, Kohn automatically became a German citizen in 1938 when his country was taken over. He had just turned 15 and was angry that events had forced him to cancel his birthday party. Four years later, having fled Austria (initially for the UK), Kohn wound up in Toronto where the family that eventually took him in introduced him to a professor who advised Kohn to enrol in a demanding maths and physics programme at Toronto University.

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Autor: Matthew Chalmers· 29.06.09 · 22:53 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Der Klimawandel ist echt und wir können euch retten

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Deutsche Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Vorträge / Lectures  ·  Kommentare: 5

Der zweite Vortragsteil des Vormittags hatte mit den Laureaten Rowland und Crutzen einen starken Focus auf Treibhausgase und Klimawandel gesetzt. Rowland und Crutzen haben 1995 zusammen mit Molina den Nobelpreis für ihre Errungenschaften um die Chemie der ozonlochschädlichen Flurchlorkohelenwasserstoffe in der Stratosphäre. Von ihrer Schwerpunktsetzung haben sich Rowland und Crutzen ergänzt, allerdings gab es starke Überlappungen von Crutzens Einleitung und Rowlands Vortrag. Crutzen kommentierte das mit "but I have the better slides."

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Autor: Paula Schramm· 29.06.09 · 16:15 Uhr· 5 Kommentare

Surface success

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·ScienceBlogs Kategorien

Last night, I was lulled to sleep by the sound of 2007 chemistry laureate Gerhard Ertl's gentle voice. Ertl wasn't in my hotel room, I hasten to add. I had switched on my television and there he was on local network giving an interview... in German, naturally.

I managed to identify a few words, such as "electron", "atom", "positive" and "negative" and so assumed he was discussing his prizewinning work in surface chemistry, which explained how fundamental molecular processes at the gas-solid interface take place. I thought to myself that it would be highly unlikely to come across such a good, old-fashioned technical interview on a UK television channel. Then I fell asleep.

This morning, from the window of a bus, I spotted Ertl in the middle of a roundabout -- this time in the form of a giant black and white portrait in a gallery erected to publicize the 59th Lindau meeting.
Finally, there he was in the flesh - kicking off the meeting with a half hour talk about, you guessed it, surface chemistry.

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Autor: Matthew Chalmers· 29.06.09 · 16:00 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Lindau: Day one, Session one

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 1

9.00 A.M. We bicycle down the scenic streets to the Bodensee where the sessions is going to be held in the Inselhalle. The meeting begins in front of a packed audience in the Inselhalle. The region is known for apples and these grace the tables outside. Students and scholars from all nationalities are seen, eager to open their minds. Gerhard Ertl (Chemistry, 2007) begins his talk. Ertl received the Nobel Prize for his pioneering studies of reactions on surfaces.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 29.06.09 · 13:47 Uhr· 1 Kommentar

Alle Wissenschaft, aller Fortschritt ist Chemie

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Deutsche Postings·Naturwissenschaften·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009  ·  Kommentare: 1

Früher gab es einen Werbeslogan, der hieß: Alles Leben ist Chemie. Dieser war verpönt in der Zeit meines Studiums. Denn in den 1980ern war Chemie so negativ besetzt wie niemals zuvor und vielleicht auch niemals danach. Saurer Regen, verschmutzte Flüsse, Waldsterben ... all das. So war das mit dem schlechten Image der Chemie.

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Autor: Beatrice Lugger· 29.06.09 · 13:17 Uhr· 1 Kommentar

Komplexe Prozesse einfach erklärt von Gerhard Ertl

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Deutsche Postings·Nobelpreisträgertreffen 2009·Vorträge / Lectures

Heute Morgen ging es endlich los. Den Anfang machte der alleinige Preisträger von 2007: Gerhard Ertl. Mit Ihm haben die Organisatoren meiner Meinung nach eine gute Wahl zur Eröffnung der Vortragsreihe getroffen, steht er doch in der Tradition einer Reihe von Nobelpreisträgern: Wilhelm Ostwald (1909), Fritz Haber (1918) und Carl Bosch (1931).

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Autor: Oliver Schuster· 29.06.09 · 11:22 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Surfaces, ammonia, ozone and scientific destiny

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Naturwissenschaften

Ask an informed layman what he or she thinks is the greatest science-based industrial discovery or invention of all time and the person will likely name the computer, the transistor, the telephone, the incandescent light or perhaps even the blast furnace. But key as all these inventions were to humanity's progress, there is perhaps one industrial discovery that surpasses them in the sheer earth-shattering and fundamental change it brought about not only in the struggles of human survival but in the bedrock of our very existence on this planet. That discovery is the discovery of the means to artificially fix nitrogen to produce ammonia; the Haber-Bosch process that takes atmospheric nitrogen and turns it into ammonia by combining it with hydrogen, usually obtained from methane. The machine that would make this discovery possible was invented by two men who, akin to the fantastic prophets of biblical lore, literally succeeded in turning air into bread.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 28.06.09 · 23:44 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Diversity of talks; diversity of science

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Naturwissenschaften

A look at the program for the Lindau meetings this year indicates to me that the topics of the presentations and talks could be roughly split into three categories, by no means mutually exclusive. The kinds of topics that are covered also indicate the diversity of research that chemistry involves itself in.

1. Personal talks: These involve personal research and other perspectives. Notable among these are NMR pioneer Richard Ernst's interesting perspective on pursuing interests other than science and aquaporin discoverer Peter Agre's accounts of investigating water distribution and storage in natural systems by kayaking in the Arctic.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 25.06.09 · 16:20 Uhr· 0 Kommentare

Exemplifying Apprenticeship: The Lindau Meetings

Kategorie: Chemie / Chemistry·Englische Postings·Geschichte / History·Naturwissenschaften

The tradition of apprenticeship has long and august roots. Through the millennia, young men and women wanting to acquire knowledge have traveled far and wide to learn at the feet of the masters of the trade. In China, India and Europe for instance, it was customary for students to travel hundreds or thousands of miles to take up residence in a city or university where the best practitioner in their field was to be found. The students hungrily lapped up the knowledge that the master had to offer. In return their existence was intimately intertwined with that of their teacher, with many of them living in the homes of their teachers and helping out in daily chores.

The apprenticeship tradition was a necessary one in ages where electronic communication was non-existent, relatively few books and papers were published, and actual physical contact was the only way for someone to learn. The tradition guaranteed the existence of "schools" of thought, perpetuated from one generation to another. We see this tradition blazing across the history of civilization, from the famous Aristotelian school to the more recent twentieth century school of Arnold Sommerfeld in Munich.

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Autor: Ashutosh Jogalekar· 21.06.09 · 15:54 Uhr· 0 Kommentare