…and this is a 
I'm here for another long session of talks. Unfortunately, this is Big Chemistry day, and I'm struggling to keep up with the unfamiliar. I need more biology for it all to make sense!
Rudolph Marcus: From 'On Water' and enzyme caalysis to single molecules and quantum dots. Theory and experiment.
I was afraid of this. This Lindau conference has a primary focus on chemistry, and I am not a chemist…and I just knew there would be a talk or two at which I would be all at sea, and that was the case in Marcus's talk, which was all hardcore chemistry. I got the general gist — he's making an argument that you need both a solid grounding in theory in order to carry out computational chemistry, which seemed fairly obvious to me — but I confess that his discussion of the details of on-water catalysis, single molecule enzyme catalysis, and quantum dots lost me, through no fault of his. I don't have the background to follow the context of the discussion.
Kurt Wüthrich: Structural genomics — exploring the protein universe
This was more of that tricky chemistry stuff, but at least it was related to biology. Wüthrich studies 3D protein structures, specializing in using NMR of proteins in solution. He fave a little background, and talked especially about his particular interest in hemoglobin, an interest that continues — he currently works at catching EPO doping in athletes. The more interesting part of the work is his current contributions to analyzing the structure of proteins in the genome. He made the point that there are currently over 6 million gene sequences tucked away in databases, but we know the the 3D structure of only about 50,000 of them. He's part of a very large research consortium that is trying to fill in the gaps with high throughput, automated techniques.
Harold Kroto: Science, society and sustainability
If you've ever heard a Kroto talk, you know it is pretty much indescribable.
He did present all of chemistry in 30 seconds, but much of it was about about science education, science's role in society, and how science is going to be necessary to save the world. There was a good strong bit of promotion of atheism (he's one of us!), and an amusing tour of the Creation "Museum", which he visited recently. All I can recommend is that you keep an eye on the Lindau site — they will make the lectures available online at some time.
Physical Science
Comments
Posted by: Hauntedchippy | July 1, 2009 6:50 AM
Kroto you may remember was one of the people last year who demanded the Royal Society to remove (expell?) Michael Reiss.
Despicable business really, Reiss was a good anti-creationist.
Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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July 1, 2009 7:04 AM
Not really. Whether or not he had been misquoted or misrepresented, the whole affair made his role untenable. Nobody demanded that he be removed, but rather that he remove himself.
Right up until the moment he appeared to become sympathetic to their aims. (Even granting that this position may have been entirely manufactured by the media and exploited by devious creationists; it was too damaging to the education role of the RS.)
Kroto's work is of much more interest in this context, rather than old arguments about politics which are well and truly over and done with.
Posted by: Rev. BigDumbChimp | July 1, 2009 7:16 AM
Kroto sounds interesting and something a layman can digest. I'll be checking the Lindau site for that.
Posted by: Hauntedchippy | July 1, 2009 7:27 AM
In my book at least, this merits the term 'despicable business'. Sir Harold's exact words: "I warned the president of the Royal Society that his [Reiss] was a dangerous appointment a year ago. I did not realise just how dangerous it would turn out to be" "I am drafting a letter to other Nobel laureates - which would be sent to the Royal Society - to ask that Reiss be made to stand down.'"One can make the argument (indeed Lord Winston did) that the Royal Society did more damage to it's reputation by the shrieking response that was (as it turned out) unjust.
True this is old news, but there seemed to be surprised exclamation that Sir Harry is an atheist in the above post and I thought that this piece of history could offer some context.
Posted by: Coturnix
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July 1, 2009 7:39 AM
I picked my talks - only Kroto and Agre this morning. I knew I would not understand the real chemistry.
Posted by: recovering catholic | July 1, 2009 8:38 AM
PZ says of the chemistry talk: "I don't have the background to follow the context of the discussion."
Take a lesson, creationists, IDiots and other pseudobiologists!
Posted by: Chris Davis
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July 1, 2009 8:48 AM
The issue was not the details of what Reiss said - which was just more of the usual accommodationism - but how it was interpreted: 'Country's Chief Scientist Says Creationism Should be Taught in Schools' were the tabloid headlines, and the god-botherer sites went doolally.
Like the 'Was Darwin Wrong' mess before it, this stuff is dangerous. There's a cold war on.
Posted by: Bosch's Poodle | July 1, 2009 9:03 AM
A friend and I are going to visit the Creation Museum next week. I really hesitate to give those clowns any of my money but I think, on balance, the more exposure they get the better it is for us. We'll take some pictures and videos and post them to the internet and, if we're lucky, maybe there'll be some kind of Michael Moore-style confrontation and we'll get kicked out. One can only hope.
Posted by: Hauntedchippy | July 1, 2009 9:24 AM
Accomodationism had nothing to do with it, he was not making any compatibility arguments (though I'm sure he does subscribe to accomodationist views, he is a priest after). I think it was the Guardian who first broke the story with a headline like this. Michael was perhaps being a bit naive with his topic of choice, but he deserved the benefit of the doubt until the facts were established and we should certainly take issue with the media for spinning what was a reasonable discussion into a witch hunt (in which several eminent scientists, including Kroto, leapt right into all guns blazing). Certainly, Kroto et al could, and should, have conducted themselves in a greater manner. I could not agree more. However New Scientist spun it themselves to generate controversy whereas Reiss was a victim of the media's contempt for science and (as a consequence) a few overzealous members of the Royal Society.Posted by: Bernard Bumner
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July 1, 2009 9:34 AM
Ah, fair enough.
(It certainly was a divisive business, but it is worth noting that Lord Winston was hardly an objective voice.)
Posted by: Brigit | July 1, 2009 10:13 AM
I would have loved to see both Marcus's and Wüthrich's talks. I had to read a massive amount of Wüthrich's papers while preparing for the A exam, and would have loved to see him 'in action'.
Posted by: Eli Whitney | July 1, 2009 10:52 AM
I love the Kroto! My A level Chemistry class received a very inspiring talk from him before setting off for university. 6 years later, and with numerous conferences and seminars under my belt - he is still quite simply one of the best orators I have seen (heard?) :-) Got to love Bucky balls eh?
Posted by: Pablo | July 1, 2009 10:59 AM
Would have loved to heard Rudy Marcus. Gotta love someone with a theory named after them (and BTW textbook writers and simplifiers of science, Marcus Theory was NEVER the Marcus Hypothesis which then graduated)
Posted by: Glen Davidson
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July 1, 2009 11:20 AM
Someday someone's going to make a breakdown of visitors to that house of idiocy, and find that practically all visitors have been evolutionists laughing at it. Well, that's how it seems, given how many reports about it we've had.
Seriously, it's probably a good thing that we check it out, as we have to deal with the people who believe that shit.
Agreed with #1, Reiss shouldn't have been hounded out like he was, and I would bet that he never would be in the US. The quote-mining used against Reiss was of creationist quality and extent.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/mxaa3p
Posted by: gdlchmst | July 1, 2009 12:24 PM
Rudolph Marcus! The man single handedly made much of theoretical chemistry possible. I would have loved to meet the man. Has anyone ever told you how lucky you are, PZ?
Posted by: ThirtyFiveUp | July 1, 2009 12:57 PM
PZ posted:
Well, just say to yourself, God did it! No further discussion.
Posted by: Jadehawk, OM
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July 1, 2009 1:12 PM
that reminds me of an old article from The Onion about a KKK rally that would have been canceled for lack of attendance if it weren't for undercover journalists...
Posted by: Sili
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July 1, 2009 4:15 PM
Sir Harold is very big of bringing science to the masses and educating kids.
I had the great pleasure of hearing him at the IUCr meeting in Florence (prolly the only thing I understood ...).
His little video of fullerenic meditation was quite cute.
Posted by: MrFire | July 1, 2009 5:31 PM
I'm an organic chemist, and some of this stuff makes sense to me, so I'll offer here a (over-simplified and over-generalized?) translation of 'On-Water Catalysis' for anyone who not overly scientific but is nonetheless interested:
Water is considered to be a very polar solvent, and is good at dissolving charged entities such as ions (typically salts), due to its own strong dipole, H-bonding, etc. Many (though by no means all) organic solvents are immiscible with water and form heterogeneous, two-phase mixtures.
Normally, organic reactions take place in organic solvents, because (i) the reagents are generally insoluble in water, and (ii) water tends to be quite reactive with a number of organic functional groups, creating side-products and lowering your chemical yield (i.e. reaction efficiency).
In an water/organic solvent heterogeneous mixture (e.g. with toluene), water molecules have an interesting way of lining up at the interface: for various thermodynamic reasons, a proportion of them poke through the interface, freely projecting into the organic solvent phase like shoots growing out of soil, and providing an intensely polar locus for any organic reagents that stray too close to the interface.
Now, as the reagent or reagents proceed with the reaction, they must attain and pass through an energy barrier known as 'transition state'. Imagine trying to snap an elastic band: you start out slack (ground state of the reagents) then as you pull on the band it gets taut and increasingly resistant. At some point, the strain reaches a maximum - this is analogous to the transition state. After this point, the band snaps and goes back to being slack, but is now different from the original state. This would be analogous to ground state reaction products.
It so happens that in many cases this 'transition state' is highly charged. This kind of makes sense, since you are snapping bonds on the reagent(s), shuffling electrons, etc. Anything that is able to stabilize this charged transition state will be lowering the maximum energy barrier, and will be therefore making the reaction go much faster: it's easier to sprint over 6-inch bumps than over 6-foot mounds. Generally, anything that lowers this maximum energy barrier, while itself remaining unchanged after the reaction, is called a catalyst.
As mentioned earlier, water is able to stabilize charges, and so it follows that reagents at the interface (and dissolved in the organic phase) will encounter those projecting water molecules, reach a much lower-energy, stabilized transition state, and therefore react much more quickly.
Remember, water by itself is not good at dissolving organic reagents, or will react with them, and so this technique tries to combine the best of both worlds: solubility in the organic phase for the reagents to properly mix, and polarity from the water molecules that poke through the wall between the two phases.
Posted by: MadScientists | July 1, 2009 11:10 PM
Thanks PZ; I'll be looking forward to seeing Kroto's presentation. :)
By the way, grrlsientist still needs people to vote for her to win a trip to the frozen wastelands of the underworld. Or was that the world down under?
Posted by: Lubos | July 2, 2009 5:10 AM
hi, just began to read your blog recently... it's a nice surprise to know that you are also here in lindau. actually, i had a lunch with the economist (scientific part) editor yesterday, we discussed kroto's talk and then i mentioned your name and showed him this blog. his answer was: i've seen this man before, right, he was sitting just next to me during the morning session... the world is small, so hopefully i will be able to meat you (even though finding someone among 600 other people)...
Posted by: John Morales | July 2, 2009 5:30 AM
MrFire,
Thank you, and I'm slightly surprised that I did understand that. I must say, however, that I very much doubt your average punter will.
You're probably desensitised through exposure, but I assure you that you're still employing jargon that needs (at the very least) high-school level chemistry to follow! That means the overwhelming bulk of the population are highly unlikely to understand your simplification. :)
Really. I'm not bullshitting you, and if anything I suspect I understate the case. Sad, I know.
Posted by: John Morales | July 2, 2009 5:33 AM
Um, re my above, I should've appended ellipsis. I did read it all. :)
Posted by: MrFire | July 2, 2009 10:03 AM
You're welcome, John. Decided I'd try to contribute some science rather than my occasional moaning :)
And sorry for still throwing around the jargon. I'm pretty enthusiastic about this stuff and I think it's really cool, so if I get another chance I'll really try to do a better job of communicating it ;)
Posted by: Berner | July 2, 2009 12:14 PM
I'm really curious now about that computational chemistry talk. When I was working on my undergrad degree I did lots of research on catalysis via the Gaussian (Quantum Chemistry software) and VASP (Vienna ab initio simulation package: Molecular Dynamics) codes.
Posted by: Carmen | July 2, 2009 4:56 PM
@MrFire-I liked your explanation, particularly the elastic band part. But then, I also have organic chemistry training (which I tend to downplay while I'm doing my current job). I've been disappointed to read that PZ and Bora knew they weren't going to "get it" at some of the chemistry talks.... do you think chemists have an inherently harder time communicating their work- that the bar for what is jargon is set differently than for biology or physics or whatever?
Posted by: Carmen | July 2, 2009 5:00 PM
@MrFire-I liked your explanation, particularly the elastic band part. But then, I also have organic chemistry training (which I tend to downplay while I'm doing my current job). I've been disappointed to read that PZ and Bora knew they weren't going to "get it" at some of the chemistry talks.... do you think chemists have an inherently harder time communicating their work- that the bar for what is jargon is set differently than for biology or physics or whatever?