"Is Science Dangerous?"

I read this paper by Lewis Wolpert today. I think it was a talk that he gave and this is the transcript. Anyway, you can agree with him or not, it is up to you. But,  I think there are really important points in his speech. I try to stay away from "controversial: issues. So, I won't comment on what parts I agree with him and what parts I don't. It is worth reading.

You can read it free here:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1569503/#!po=87.5000

My "first" exposure to organometallic chemistry - #chempaperaday

Although I have always been interested in inorganic chemistry, I avoided reading organometallic chemistry papers as much as possible. The reason was that I really loved inorganic chemistry. Especially synthetic methods and coordination chemistry. Well, this summer, I started to read and study basics of organometallic chemistry and this semester I am taking a course where we learn A LOT about it. I now find the field really interesting and open to progress.

We spent almost a month of olefin metathesis and were expected to read tens of papers by the pioneers of the field. I will list them all below and I suggest that you read them ALL. You will notice that they are much better than ANY textbook. Amazing papers, written in such a wonderful way that everything makes so much sense. I will not write the titles of them though. The first list includes papers by Hoveyda, Schrock, Katz, Grubbs about his "First generation" and "Second generation" catalysts, ligand effects, type of olefins, mechanisms of the reactions, some organic synthesis papers where the catalysts were used efficiently etc. The second list is solely on Z-selective olefin metathesis papers by Grubbs, Schrock and Hoveyda (2011-present). I will give the DOI for those ones since I only have PDF's on my computer. I don't really want to open them one by one and write the details. I am sure you can easily find them.

JACS 1976, 1903

JACS 2001, 6543

JACS 2003, 10103

JACS 1992, 5426

JACS 2003, 14901

JACS 2003, 11360

JACS 2000, 1828

JACS 2002, 10779

ACIE 2007, 3860

JACS 2002, 773

ja202818v

ja203488e

ja210225e

ja301108m

ja4010267

ja4046422

9001_ftp (Angewandte)

c3sc52806e

om200150c

nature09957

ja205002v

ja210946z

ja210349m

ja303220j

ja304827a

ja404208a

ja403188t

8395_ftp (Angewandte)

2726_ftp (Angewandte)

1939_ftp (Angewandte)

1968_ftp (Angewandte)

Update: #chempaperaday and other things...

It's been a very long time I haven't written any posts. Well, the Fall semester started and it's been incredibly busy. I teach two lab sections, grade papers, hold office hours, answer tons of emails from students (this was unexpected!), take my own courses and study for them AND do the assignments! I also try to keep my research alive and move on to further steps in my "projects." 

If anyone is wondering, #chempaperaday is still alive and I do read papers almost everyday. The problem is most of these papers are related with my research and I do not want to write about them. Obviously,  I am trying to make new compounds. So, just by following the papers I read, one might figure out what I am onto (more or less). That's why I will keep them to myself.

I have read other papers too. But, as I mentioned above I have been busy and trying to figure out my new life schedule. So, I couldn't really focus on the blog. Tens of different blog post topics and ideas have come to my mind while I was dealing with all those stuff. Now that I am more comfortable with my schedule and more organized, I will write posts more often. The next post is coming tonight!

Thanks if you are reading here.