Comments for Grand CENtral

Comment on Guest Post: “#Chemclub” by Andrew Bissette by Andrew Bissette

Andrew Bissette — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:19:11 +0000

Hi all, thanks for your kind comments. I’m glad that #chemclub has proven useful to you!

Melody – that is a good idea. I’ve talked about something similar with various people over the past two months – the idea being to pick apart a particular paper each week in real depth. This seems to be a fairly regular thing on the chemistry blogs as it is (I really like BRSM’s ‘Woodward Wednesdays’ for this), so for now I’m just linking to those, but it’s definitely on my mind for the future.

Bethany – Twitter’s a surprisingly good way to learn to write concisely. I’ll keep an eye out for your 140-character reviews.

Comment on Guest Post: “#Chemclub” by Andrew Bissette by Glen Ernst

Glen Ernst — Tue, 14 May 2013 21:05:29 +0000

Andrew – Thanks for starting #chemclub and for sharing your vision for its near term future. When one is immersed in a particular area of research, it’s far too easy to have tunnel vision and miss a lot of interesting research in other areas. Moreover, it can sometimes be difficult to gauge what research is important or interesting outside of your area of expertise. The #chemclub community is a great way for chemists to share what they’ve found in the scientific literature with other chemists, across all disciplines.

Comment on Guest Post: “#Chemclub” by Andrew Bissette by Bethany Halford

Bethany Halford — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:28:51 +0000

#chemclub seems like a great challenge – Can you get to the heart of a paper in less than 140 characters? I’m tempted to try it with what I write about each week.

Comment on Guest Post: “#Chemclub” by Andrew Bissette by Jyllian Kemsley

Jyllian Kemsley — Tue, 14 May 2013 20:01:09 +0000

I love the idea of #chemclub, although it undoubtedly increases my time-management concerns related to Twitter. I went back to look at your past round ups, Andrew, and appreciated the pointer to the PNAS commentary about using the correct buffer when trying to reproduce results!

Comment on Guest Post: “#Chemclub” by Andrew Bissette by Melody Bomgardner

Melody Bomgardner — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:55:12 +0000

Hi Andrew,
I love the idea of #chemclub and #chemclub reviews. I was a long time member of a book group (fiction) and always thought a reading group made up of scientists would be great fun. If the group helps sort through the tsunami of published research, that would be incredibly useful. Maybe they could nominate a “journal article of the week” from the different branches of chemistry. I wonder how high the opionion dial will go on the commentary.

Comment on Guest Post: “#Chemclub” by Andrew Bissette by Carmen Drahl

Carmen Drahl — Tue, 14 May 2013 19:24:12 +0000

Andrew- thanks so much for this guest post. I find it really neat to watch all the various chemistry online communities take root, interact with others, etc. I would love to see more interaction of these communities with other strong sci-web communities, like #sciox or #reachingoutsci . I am a pessimist, but sometimes I feel like cross-talk tends to kick off more under negative circumstances (plaigiarism, fraud, accidents, etc).

Comment on Guest Re-post: “In defense of chemphobia” by Andrew Bissette by Andrew Bissette

Andrew Bissette — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:28:43 +0000

CoulombicExplosion – your comments about ‘folk’ use of the word ‘chemical’ are spot on.

Your solution seems reasonable and in many cases is desirable. It could potentially fuel the problem, though. Take artifical flavouring and colouring. I’m in favour of labelling these on the grounds of consent – if you don’t want to consume artifical flavours and colours, that’s fine. However, why would people avoid them? There are several reasons and not all fall into ‘chemophobia’, but I’d guess one common reason is the assumption that artifical = bad.

Other than that quibble, I generally agree with you.

Comment on Guest Re-post: “In defense of chemphobia” by Andrew Bissette by CoulombicExplosion

CoulombicExplosion — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 22:29:15 +0000

I’ll disagree with the use of “chemical” as an umbrella term for a synthetic substance. Andrew’s position (as I see it) is that the chemist’s definition of “chemical” (stable matter, basically) is too broad to be useful in general use. I’d argue that the chemophobe’s use of the term can also be too broad to be useful. Matt has gotten closer to my line of thinking. People are concerned with reactive/harmful chemicals. The tricky thing about categorizing the harmful ones as being synthetic is 1) not all synthetic chemicals are harmful and 2) harmful chemicals occur in nature as well.

I would suggest, especially to those marketing a product to chemophobes, to be more specific in what types of chemicals the product is free of. Is it free of pesticides? Artifical flavoring and coloring? CFCs? Is there a good reason not to provide this specificity? In my opinion, this approach would be more useful than letting the term “chemical” be hijacked and associated soley with the bad actors of the field.

Comment on Guest Re-post: “In defense of chemphobia” by Andrew Bissette by Matt

Matt — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:08:52 +0000

one more thing … this article in the washington post decries the use of “chemicals” (62 times) http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/at-chicken-plants-chemicals-blamed-for-health-ailments-are-poised-to-proliferate/2013/04/25/d2a65ec8-97b1-11e2-97cd-3d8c1afe4f0f_story.html and only mentions what these chemicals are towards the end of the article. This type of instance is a good chance for chemists to show that we stand with “chemophobes” in wanting safe work environments and using our expertise to show how that can happen.

Comment on Guest Re-post: “In defense of chemphobia” by Andrew Bissette by Matt

Matt — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 16:04:57 +0000

@Carmen, I can quickly lump your argument “How can I be sure that Company XYZ REALLY makes bottles that are safe for my baby? They only care about the bottom line” into one about reactivity. If its not safe for the baby, it is reacting with her body. People buy from mom and pop outfits and homeopaths and natural producers because they assume that their materials are inert. I still maintain that “inertness”/environmental and biological safety is our best line of compromise.