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The Science Thread

á´…eparted

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I suspect I am the only organic chemist on the forums (who's an active poster) so this might not be easily understood, but I found one of the coolest papers I have read in months yesterday!

Generating carbyne equivalents with photoredox catalysis | Nature

The paper is on carbyne analogs. Simply put, carbynes are thought of as far far too high energy and unstable to be useful, even for simple bond forming events with no regard to stereochemistry. The closest thing to this are carbenes, which are very unique and high energy forms of carbon that act both as nucleophiles and electrophiles at different stages in the reaction, often with good orthogonality. They have immense synthetic utility, and there is a lot of super cool chemistry surrounding them.

This research group in Spain got published in Nature for this work. This is a BIG deal. Nature is regarded as one of the biggest (if not the biggest) general science journal in the world. Publications on stuff like dark matter, search for life on other planets, CRISPR, and other top-tier scientific works get put here, and the standards needed to land a publication here is pretty darn high.

The implications here for further research are huge. Not only has it been shown that it's possible to generate C-centered diazoradical (which is effectively the carbyne), but it can be easily generated from fairly simple bifunctional highly orthogonol reagents. The diversity of possible products, and the easy integregration of carbene chemistry (which occurs following the carbyne mechanistic step) which allows for stereocontrol of the products highlights enormous synthetic utility.

In essence, a whole new class of reactive chemistry has been cracked. This is a once or twice a decade occurrance. I can not wait to see what further research spawns from this!!!
 

Yuurei

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I suspect I am the only organic chemist on the forums (who's an active poster) so this might not be easily understood, but I found one of the coolest papers I have read in months yesterday!

Generating carbyne equivalents with photoredox catalysis | Nature

The paper is on carbyne analogs. Simply put, carbynes are thought of as far far too high energy and unstable to be useful, even for simple bond forming events with no regard to stereochemistry. The closest thing to this are carbenes, which are very unique and high energy forms of carbon that act both as nucleophiles and electrophiles at different stages in the reaction, often with good orthogonality. They have immense synthetic utility, and there is a lot of super cool chemistry surrounding them.

This research group in Spain got published in Nature for this work. This is a BIG deal. Nature is regarded as one of the biggest (if not the biggest) general science journal in the world. Publications on stuff like dark matter, search for life on other planets, CRISPR, and other top-tier scientific works get put here, and the standards needed to land a publication here is pretty darn high.

The implications here for further research are huge. Not only has it been shown that it's possible to generate C-centered diazoradical (which is effectively the carbyne), but it can be easily generated from fairly simple bifunctional highly orthogonol reagents. The diversity of possible products, and the easy integregration of carbene chemistry (which occurs following the carbyne mechanistic step) which allows for stereocontrol of the products highlights enormous synthetic utility.

In essence, a whole new class of reactive chemistry has been cracked. This is a once or twice a decade occurrance. I can not wait to see what further research spawns from this!!!

I myself am no chemist but my best friend is a brilliant biochemist. ( HATED studying organic chem for some reason) and he's been talking about this. I get the basic idea.
 

Yuurei

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My mistake. My friend hates INorganic chemistry. Crystals and such, says it is a difficult thing to study-because they do not forn in a oredicatable way like organic matter.
 

Fluffywolf

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My mistake. My friend hates INorganic chemistry. Crystals and such, says it is a difficult thing to study-because they do not forn in a oredicatable way like organic matter.

They don't? I would've thought crystals formed according to newtonian laws, at least that was my layman's assumption. So does that mean your friend is saying crystal forms on a particle level and is influenced at the quantum level?

Sounds interesting if so. I might look into that later when I get the time.
 

Lord Lavender

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Science is a marvel and something to truly be fascinated by. Its full of really cool and interesting stuff and explains so much about our universe. Plus its a minefield of possibility and exictment for a aspiring polymath as science can be used to apply math, help generate ideas for fiction,help you generate that certain pitch in music e.t.c.
 

Coriolis

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They don't? I would've thought crystals formed according to newtonian laws, at least that was my layman's assumption. So does that mean your friend is saying crystal forms on a particle level and is influenced at the quantum level?

Sounds interesting if so. I might look into that later when I get the time.
I overlooked this comment before. From what I understand, crystal growth is governed primarily by thermodynamic considerations, with atoms taking up positions that minimize energy. Crystals are highly ordered, except to the degree that they contain defects, which they generally do to one degree or another. (Not a chemist of any kind, but I work with crystal growers quite frequently.)
 

Snow as White

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i just finished my biology class last semester and one of the small, throwaway kind of things, that i thought was incredibly interesting was how very little energy gets captured between trophic levels.

i had never thought of energy intake that way before and it's given me a lot to think about, especially going forward with nutritional choices.
 

SurrealisticSlumbers

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Really wish I'd taken more science at college... Never really got to dive deep, and didn't exactly feel compelled to, because of my course of study, which was music at community college and theatre at uni, and those are actually demanding majors. So, to add 200-level sciences to the mix seemed daunting. I enjoy reading studies and doing my own research, flipping through the Scientific American and that sort of thing - none of which I'm being graded on :)
 

Yuurei

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I overlooked this comment before. From what I understand, crystal growth is governed primarily by thermodynamic considerations, with atoms taking up positions that minimize energy. Crystals are highly ordered, except to the degree that they contain defects, which they generally do to one degree or another. (Not a chemist of any kind, but I work with crystal growers quite frequently.)

Yes, this sounds about right.
I should have been more specifuc in that-the majority-of my freinds dislike of the study is that it is difficult to recreate certain crystals to soecifications.
Most likely because of what you mentioned about defects. I imagine that it’s much like trying to clone humans; too many variables.
 

Yuurei

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Really wish I'd taken more science at college... Never really got to dive deep, and didn't exactly feel compelled to, because of my course of study, which was music at community college and theatre at uni, and those are actually demanding majors. So, to add 200-level sciences to the mix seemed daunting. I enjoy reading studies and doing my own research, flipping through the Scientific American and that sort of thing - none of which I'm being graded on :)

College sadly turned me away from studying science in groups. I took one physics class and it was boring. yes, the professor managed to make physics boring! Here I thought that this was something to truly...defy, physics?
 

Coriolis

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Yes, this sounds about right.
I should have been more specifuc in that-the majority-of my freinds dislike of the study is that it is difficult to recreate certain crystals to soecifications.
Most likely because of what you mentioned about defects. I imagine that it’s much like trying to clone humans; too many variables.
Success of crystal growth depends highly on the purity of starting materials, and keeping growth receptacles and environments clean and free of contaminants. This includes making sure they are made of materials that will not interact with the species involved in the growth process.
 

Yuurei

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Success of crystal growth depends highly on the purity of starting materials, and keeping growth receptacles and environments clean and free of contaminants. This includes making sure they are made of materials that will not interact with the species involved in the growth process.

Hm. Said freind oftens complains about poor sanitation, organization, and mantenance of the clean room, as well as quality-or lack there of-of quality materials. The6 cut a lot of corners to keep things cheap.
 
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