American Chemical Society: home of Molecule of the Week. This week: Cryptoxanthin with structure "identical to that of β-carotene except that it has a hydroxyl group" (but of course you knew that). I wish they had a little widget for my blog.
Check out the lead story: "Relax with a Radical." Just what I need. The site is available in 7 languages (including English). Wow! I love hanging out with chemists. I don't want to be one, just hang out and sort of listen over their shoulder. I'm looking for a graphic design and/or writing gig with a chemical company. Let me know if you hear of anything. I am, basically, interested in working with any scientific research-based company. I just love those freaky scientists. They do the most interesting things and are so creative.
In the 90s I had a brief temp job at ICI at the research facility in New Jersey where they fool around with foam. The lab manager actually took me on a private tour to show me what they do and I got to meet the top researcher. He was a pleasant loner who often hung out at the lunch table with the technicians. He showed me a bit of what he was doing. Such a nice guy. I often saw him walking around campus clutching a sheaf of papers and smoking a pipe. One of the technicians told me he had no idea why this researcher hung out at his table because they just talked about basic chemistry stuff. (They also laughed a lot.) Reminded me of Einstein's comment that he got some of his best ideas talking to children.
When I told my onsite ICI manager that I was interested in research, she transferred me to a physics lab with a spare computer where I did whatever it was I was doing at the time (not physics, I can tell you that). However, I was too shy to ask what all the machines were for. I settled for sneaking looks at the operators and wondering what the heck they were doing. It looked so cool. Every now and then someone would bring in rigid foam samples and the team would do things to them with the machines. All just like in high school science class with notebooks and everything. Talk about applied knowledge!
Perhaps that's what I love so much about science. It's where creativity meets applied knowledge.
Remember now! If you hear of any artist/writer jobs at a science company, hook me up!
No comments:
Post a Comment