Archive for March, 2016

Does combining molecules with augmented reality have a future?

Monday, March 28th, 2016

Augmented reality, a superset if you like of virtual reality (VR), has really been hitting the headlines recently. Like 3D TV, its been a long time coming! Since ~1994 or earlier, there have been explorations of how molecular models can be transferred from actual reality to virtual reality using conventional computers (as opposed to highly specialised ones). It was around then that a combination of software (Rasmol) and hardware (Silicon Graphics, and then soon after standard personal computers with standard graphics cards) became capable of such manipulations. VRML (virtual reality modelling language) also proved something of a false start So have things changed?

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How many water molecules does it take to form ammonium hydroxide from ammonia and water?

Sunday, March 20th, 2016

This is a corollary to the previous post exploring how many molecules are needed to ionise HCl. Here I am asking how many water molecules are required to form the ionic ammonium hydroxide from ammonia and water.

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Research data: Managing spectroscopy-NMR.

Wednesday, March 16th, 2016

At the ACS conference, I have attended many talks these last four days, but one made some “connections” which intrigued me. I tell its story (or a part of it) here.

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Global initiatives in research data management and discovery: searching metadata.

Monday, March 7th, 2016

The upcoming ACS national meeting in San Diego has a CINF (chemical information division) session entitled "Global initiatives in research data management and discovery". I have highlighted here just one slide from my contribution to this session, which addresses the discovery aspect of the session.

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Discovery based research experiences: gauche effects in group 16 elements.

Wednesday, March 2nd, 2016

The upcoming ACS national meeting in San Diego has a CHED (chemical education division) session entitled Implementing Discovery-Based Research Experiences in Undergraduate Chemistry Courses. I had previously explored what I called extreme gauche effects in the molecule F-S-S-F. Here I take this a bit further to see what else can be discovered about molecules containing bonds between group 16 elements (QA= O, S, Se, Te). 

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