Letters written to Francis Crick and from Crick to others have resurfaced. The letters highlight rivalries between Watson and Crick at Cambridge University and Maurice Wilkins and Rosalind Franklin at King’s C0llege, London, with the specter of Linus Pauling in the background. The British researchers wanted desperately to find the DNA structure before Pauling–but not […]

Safety in science laboratories, especially chemistry laboratories, should always be a foremost concern. There is always more that can be done to assure that students in science laboratories, both research and teaching, can carry out experiments without accident. This week Chemical & Engineering News, the magazine that goes to all members of the American Chemical […]

How many of you have had students use the ideas of others inappropriately? Plagiarism has become easier on the Web and many people are not aware of what proper behavior is. A nice collection of online tools for detecting plagiarism is available at http://www.guidetoonlineschools.com/online-teaching/plagiarism#q. These will be useful if you have made clear to students […]

. As recently as a few years ago it was popular to regard nanoscience and nanotechnology as fads that would pass. I recall, for example, being chided by some for using the term “nanoscale” in a first-year college chemistry textbook. But this is one fad that is not passing–at least as measured by the rapidly […]

The Camille & Henry Dreyfus Foundation has established the Jean Dreyfus Boissevain Lectureship, which  provides an $18,500 grant for a primarily undergraduate institution to bring in a leading researcher to give a series of lectures in the chemical sciences. In addition to presenting lectures, the Jean Dreyfus Boissevain Lecturer is expected to […]