Scientists

The people here, that Belle and I tried to set up? They're getting MARRIED! In AUGUST!(!!!!!!)(In all honesty, it's not like we were thinking "Clearly, soulmates." I don't know what Belle was thinking, but I was thinking hey! You're both single and in the Uttermost Frozen North! You both like books! I've been on worse dates! Here's an introductory email! They eventually ran into each other at a party - I think - and managed the rest themselves.)All the same, I am ridiculously delighted. It's nice to have a tiny part in spreading some happiness around. I wish them both a long, happy life together with lots of exuberant dogs and fat babies.(I don't think I can go. It would take me about 24 hours just to get there, one way, from Mountain Town. And Tatoe has terrible separation anxiety right now, even if I leave him with Dr. S, his own father. Alas. I very much hope Dr. S and I can take a vacation there next summer though. In fact, I am going to try to convince him, and then start saving up. Then we could stop in some connecting city, wander about, see some friends and sights, and fly the rest of the way the next day. And stay longer than a day.)Dear Universe: Please now arrange for Belle to meet to a kind, compassionate, intelligent, thoughtful, single, passionately-interested-in-her person of the male persuasion, somewhere around his thirties, who also lives conveniently near the southwest corner of Canada. Thank you.*i.e. one try, one success.

Beth Halford and I sat down to have a quick chat about the life of postdocs, based on her really interesting article in this week's C&EN. It was really fun and the edited recording is below:Timepoints:0:00 - 2:00: What's been the background of postdocs?4:30: The happiness of postdocs6:30: The postdocs that Beth knew7:00: Crowdfunding a postdoc (CJ grossly underestimates the cost of a FTE)8:55: PIs and their postdocs9:50: Should we pay postdocs more? Beth on Paula Stephan11:00: $16/hour12:00: Why do a postdoc?13:30: The finances of postdocs15:11: Jessica Breen's cogent comments on delaying life milestones?17:15: Are postdocs really broader?19:45: The postdoc arms race22:17: The longest postdoc you've heard of23:55: When will the arms race be over?27:55: What should postdocs do about getting a job?Thanks to Beth for a great conversation!

Mary Beth Mulcahy is a Ph.D. chemist and a Chemical Safety Board investigator. She was kind enough to offer me some of her time for an e-mail interview. What follows is an e-mail interview; it has been formatted for the blog and is basically unedited.Can you tell us a little about your background? Dr. Mulcahy: Public school education mixed with a paper route, fast food jobs, and Science Olympiad in high school eventually led me to a major in chemistry at a private liberal arts school called Colorado College in Colorado Springs. By a chance meeting with someone at a party the last month of my senior year in college, I landed a high school teaching job in a small mountain town that eventually lead me to a teaching job in New York City. After three years of teaching, I went back to tackle a PhD in physical chemistry at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The National Science Foundation provided the funding for a post-doc in Bariloche, Argentina at the Centro Atómico. After returning from my post-doc, I taught high school again for one year before working for a biotech company and then ultimately the CSB.How did you end up working at CSB? Dr. Mulcahy: When I started graduate school at 25 I suppose I thought I would get a PhD and be a professor, but somewhere along the way I realized that I did not want that career path. When I came back from my post-doc, I took a job at the high school where my husband was teaching because they really needed someone and I thought it would be fun to teach again. If anyone out there ever forgets why they got into science in the first place, I highly recommend he or she get a part-time job teaching high school science and then spend the entire year doing interesting demos and experiments with the students that get at real-life problems. (I say part-time because teaching is an incredibly time-consuming job and I do not think one could get the full enjoyment from it if he or she had a full teaching load.)While I thoroughly enjoy teaching and definitely see myself doing it again toward the end of my career, I really wanted to see what I could do with a PhD. I took full advantage of ACS's help for the unemployed chemist and attended a national meeting for free (I think ACS still lets unemployed members attend for free) where I listened to a seminar on how to use the web to find a job (this was an amazing seminar put on by someone from Google I believe), participated in a kind of speed-dating type round table session to get exposure to other career options for a chemist, and communicated with a mentor that the ACS connected me to. Then, I started searching for a job using two methods I repeatedly read would not work--I cold called companies and answered Craigslist job posts. I was able to secure three interviews and two jobs using the methods.I originally saw a CSB job posted on Craigslist and the description intrigued me. The CSB at that point was clearly looking for a chemical engineer who had worked in a chemical plant or refinery, but the CSB was also looking for interns. Never one to pass up an interesting opportunity, I applied for the internship and ultimately obtained the position almost a full year after I originally applied. So that year I believe the CSB had two 22 year-old interns, one 23 year-old intern, and me who was over thirty and had a PhD. Still amuses me to think that is how I got here.What do you do from day-to-day at CSB? Dr. Mulcahy: To explain what I do day-to-day I need to give a little background on what the Chemical Safety Board does. At the CSB we conduct root cause investigations of chemical accidents. At first glance, you might think a root cause would be technical in nature such as identifying the corrosion mechanism that lead to the failure of a pipe or storage vessel. More often than not, the corrosion mechanism (or hazard) is well known and awareness of its existence was not enough to preclude the accident. As a result, we focus on finding a correctable failure in the

From the inbox: Guilford College invites applications for a full-time, one-year position in the Chemistry department beginning August 15, 2013. Teaching responsibilities include one organic chemistry lecture and three organic and general chemistry laboratories. A Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry is preferred, but ABD applicants are encouraged to apply. Applicants should electronically submit a cover letter, current vita, statement of teaching philosophy and areas of scholarly interest and research activities, transcripts, and contact information for three references at http://guilford.peopleadmin.com. (Posting Number: F00015)Best wishes! Click here for details.

From the inbox, a visiting assistant professor position:Cumberland University seeks applications for a visiting assistant professor position in chemistry as a sabbatical replacement. Demonstrated excellence in teaching, scholarship, and university service are highly desirable. Duties include teaching chemistry courses from general chemistry to upper division courses at the undergraduate level, university committee work, recruiting, and assessment. Click here for details.

Good morning! Between May 21 and May 22, there were 9 new positions posted on the C&EN Jobs website. Of these, 8 (89%) were from Kelly Scientific Resources.It's a cure all, too:* Reynolds American is looking for a B.S. chemist/flavor scientist (emphasis mine):R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company is seeking an experienced Flavor Scientist with knowledge in flavor chemistry to support the development of tobacco products consistent with RJRT's Growth, Innovation and Harm Reduction Platforms. The Flavor Scientist is responsible for developing new and innovative taste profiles to support project initiatives and for the sensory assessment of tobacco products. Requirements: BA/BS technical degree required in chemistry, biology or food science with three or more years relevant work experience or MS in related science field with relevant work experience. This position requires smoking to assess the sensory characteristics of cigarettes; therefore, is open to current smokers only.That's pretty awesome. (Q: "How did you get your job?" A: "Well, I'm a pack-a-day smoker.") *Yes, I recognize the song is about chewing tobacco, but I just love the song so. A broader look: Monster, Careerbuilder, Indeed and USAjobs.gov show (respectively) 247, 13, 2779 and 14 positions for the search term "chemist." LinkedIn shows 110 positions for the job title "chemist", with 9 for "research chemist", 15 for "analytical chemist" and 2 for "organic chemist."

Once, when I was a small child, I did something appalling and my mother said, "And how do you think that makes me feel?"I looked her straight in the eye and said "I think it makes you feel like a failure as a mother." (She never asked that question again.)There are some mornings where my children take turns shrieking - once, for a record four hours! Of course, the more they scream, the less I want to interact with them. Clearly, I am doing it all wrong. If only I would come running / get out markers now now now/ read a long book/ wrestle on the floor this very moment, this wouldn't happen.(Or they'd turn into the whiny, spoiled, rude, attention-seeking, no-respect-for-boundaries nine-year-old I met at the Arboretum, who managed to be completely intolerable for a full 45 minutes despite the fact that we were all OUTDOORS.) But what actually happens on bad days is: I say, "I need ten minutes to finish my work"; Bug pushes Tatoe; intervene; feed Tatoe; go back to the thing I was trying to do; Bug steals Tatoe's toy; Bug screams; carry Bug to timeout; feed Tatoe again; change Tatoe's diaper; let Bug out of timeout; Bug pushes Tatoe again; take Bug to timeout; clean up smashed cornflakes; give Tatoe water; let Bug out; try to finish the thing I was trying to do; intervene again; give Bug a snack; try to FINISH ONE THING SO HELP ME; sit on the couch ignoring the screaming; repeat from start. Except I'm not conveying the part where at least one child is shrieking the whole time.(And by work I mean unimportant things like MOVING and BILLS and things that must be done during business hours.) Usually the day goes downhill from there.I hope, as the children get older, there might be fewer days where I feel like a complete failure as a mother.

It’s that time of the month again — the third (usually) Wednesday, when I do my Virtually Speaking Science gig. This afternoon at 6 p.m. eastern time I’ll be talking again to Naomi Oreskes, historian of science and co-author of Merchants of Doubt,an account of how a small(ish) cadre of cold-war scientists became hired guns for Big Tobacco and the anti-climate change brigade. Naomi and I spoke in 2011 about the threats posed by the spread of “scientistic” argument — the use of a science-like language, couched in the rhetoric of disinterested skepticism, to obscure critical knowledge for public audiences. Well, flash forward a year and a half, and we come to an America in which we have experienced years of devastating drought, superstorm Sandy, this week’s tornado, and the breaching of the 400 ppm atmospheric carbon threshold, and it’s time to talk again about the cost of denialism and the misuse of perceived authority by our still-thriving doubt peddlars. The tornado provides a great touchstone in fact — as Naomi and I have been emailing back and forth on the question.  What’s happening is that there is a growing body of increasingly firm research on the impact of climate change on all kinds of circumstances.  Changing and possibly deepening patterns of drought are pretty clearly on the table.  A boost in the number of severe hurricanes too.  Significant ice melt and sea level rise too. But what will happen to tornado patterns as climate change proceeds is still unclear.  So what to make of that lacuna? Here’s my take (not to put any words in Naomi’s mouth):  If you are a rational person, you say we need more research on that particular concern, but the broad pattern is clear:  human-driven climate change is in progress and it is causing a host of changes that directly conflict with the way we’ve rely on our built environment and on all the things we do (grow cereals in the midwest, e.g.) needed to keep our societies going.  And we’ll get back to you on the twisters, asking you to bear this thought in mind:  if you are a betting person, how much do you want to wager on the possibility that increasing the amount of heat trapped in the lower atmosphere won’t kick up some extra nasty storms? We won’t confine ourselves to climate and the weather, by the way.  Merchants of Doubt has given me a frame for looking at a lot of news, and I see the same desire to conceal useful knowledge the doubtists serve in the somewhat different technique of simply blocking research that might be used to produce inconvenient truths.  See, e.g. the NRA – led ban on research on gun violence and the  the recent Republican proposal to forbid the US Census from doing anything but a decennial count, thus eliminating, among other things, our ability to measure unemployment. So come on down.  Listen live or later here.  Y’all can head over to the Exploratorium’s Second Life stage as well if you do that virtual world thing. Image:  Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Christ in the Storm on the Sea of Galilee, c. 1596.

How’s this for a catch 22: A judge has ruled that a North Texas lesbian couple can’t live together because of a morality clause in one of the women’s divorce papers. The clause is common in divorce cases in Texas and other states. It prevents a divorced parent from having a romantic partner spend the night while children are in the home. If the couple marries, they can get out from under the legal provision — but that is not an option for gay couples in Texas, where such marriages aren’t recognized. This is another one of those laws in which both rich and poor are enjoined from sleeping under bridges: [Texas District Court Judge] Roach said the clause doesn’t target same-sex couples, adding that the language is gender neutral. “It’s a general provision for the benefit of the children,” the judge said. And, of course, the husband’s attorney talks the same line — we’re only in it for the kids: Paul Key said his client, Joshua Compton, wanted the clause enforced for his kids’ benefit. “The fact that they can’t get married in Texas is a legislative issue,” Key said. “It’s not really our issue.” Just remember:  the state can’t touch our guns (or require tornado shelters) because of freedom…but adults’ private decisions about whom to love must suffer the full brunt of state power. Feh. Image: Mary Cassat, Jules Being Dried by His Mother, 1900.

Imagine reading an article on private spaceflight in New York magazine and coming across this interesting tidbit (emphasis mine):Virgin Galactic’s CEO is a 39-year-old American named George Whitesides, who I met one evening after ISPCS. The son of a legendary chemist, he is himself a nonscientist who decided to devote his life to space one night in Tunisia, while studying women’s rights in the Islamic world on a Fulbright scholarship, when he found himself walking on the shore of the Mediterranean beneath an impossibly starry sky. He’s worked for Virgin for three years—recruited by Branson from NASA, where he served as the administrator’s chief of staff—but has been a customer for almost a decade: He and his wife, self-described “space geeks,” were among the first to set down a combined $400,000 for Virgin’s then-rather-speculative flights. It was meant, even at the time, to be a delayed honeymoon. George Whitesides (the senior?) is known to all as a character -- somehow not a surprise that his son would be radically different as well.[The article is worth a read -- sounds like private spaceflight will be interesting and off-beat. I am, for the most part, a techno-optimist; I think that trends have always been towards popularizing technology that was initially only accessible to the very wealthy. All of that to say that I think that more people will be able to experience spaceflight than we ever imagined.]