What makes a good chemist?

Bibiana Campos Seijo, editor

Chemistry World, Email: Chemistry World

I was listening to a programme on the radio a few days ago (BBC4, you'll be glad to hear) about the banking crisis in the UK. During one of the sections of the programme the presenter asked the interviewee: 'in your opinion, what makes a good banker?' The interviewee struggled to answer the question so the presenter changed tack and asked instead 'what makes a bad banker?' Funnily enough, the interviewee was not short for an answer then.

Obviously, we are in the middle of a global financial crisis so we can all agreethat at this point in time it is probably easier to describe a bad banker than a good one. It's a pity, however, that one's job should be defined by what you do wrong and not by what you do right. So I wondered: how would we chemists fare if the question had been about us? Chemistry and chemical are terms that, on occasion, have had a bad press and for some carry a certain negative connotation, but I refuse to follow the presenter's line of reasoning and define what makes a good chemist by first defining what makes a bad chemist. I definitely want my discipline to be defined by what is good about it. So the question for me is: what makes a good chemist?

Excellence in problem solving and a mind for analytical detail are attributes that immediately spring to mind, together with a good degree of tenacity and perseverance; indeed, anybody who has spent any time in the lab completing a research project or a PhD should have these in spades. Being open is another vital characteristic that a chemist must exhibit; and by this I mean open to share one's ideas and knowledge with others but also, and this is very different, open to ideas from others. Loving what you do, working well as part of a team, and following government and industry regulations are also important. An attribute that is becoming increasingly relevant is the ability to communicate: chemists need to be able to articulate their knowledge and thought processes and impart them to others. Writing papers, proposals and bids; giving presentations and lectures; attending congresses and networking with colleagues are all essential parts of the job these days so good oral and written communication skills are now vital.

Interestingly, many of the attributes I've mentioned are not exclusive to chemists; they are common to all good scientists. So I wondered: is there an attribute that is unique to us? I found some of the information I discovered doing a quick Google search quite baffling. To give you an example, one website said that, besides many other qualities, some of which I have already mentioned, a chemist must be humble. Why should a chemist - as opposed to a physicist or a biologist, or an artist, a lawyer or a politician for that matter - be humble? Others amused me. One site suggested that a good chemist must be 'aware of the limitations of science'. Patronising or what? The most satisfactory answer for me in terms of that exclusive attribute is around the reproducibility of results. A good chemist should be good at replicating other people's results and equally their results should be easily replicated by anyone else. 

But can I challenge you to define in 140 characters (it's the digital age after all) what, in your opinion, makes a good chemist? Tweet us @ChemistryWorld or email chemistryworld. 

I fear 140 characters simply won't be enough...

Bibiana Campos Seijo, editor

Chemistry World 
Email: Chemistry World

Kathmandu Symposia on Advanced Materials 2012 (KaSAM–2012), May 9-12, 2012

Invitation letter from Prof Adhikari to attend KaSAM-2012.

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Dear colleagues and friends

I am delighted to inform you that Nepal Polymer Institute (NPI) has taken initiatives of hosting the series of Symposia on Advanced Materials targeting at the interaction of the South Asian Scientists, students and young researchers with those from the rest of the world with the motto of Cross-linking Science with Virtues. The next Kathmandu Symposia on Advanced Materials (KaSAM – 2012) will be organized during May 9-12, 2012 in Kathmandu in association with Tribhuvan University , Kathmandu; Kathmandu University, Dhulikhel, and Rouen University, Rouen ( France ). NANO and BIO are focal points for discussion during the KaSAM – 2012. We will arrange a special workshop All About Bamboos dedicated to ecological, economical and technological aspects of Bamboos on May 12, 2012 as a part of this congress.

On behalf of Nepal Polymer Institute (NPI) and the organizing committee, I would like to invite you to participate and contribute in the symposia and workshop delivering a lecture during KaSAM - 2012.

We believe that this series of conference will serve as an excellent forum for the discussion of recent trends in materials science and engineering. In this connection, your contribution to the success of the forthcoming congress will be highly appreciated. I would appreciate it greatly if you could accept our invitation and send the tentative title of your presentation. We eagerly look forwards to hearing from you at your earliest convenience.

Please accept my sincere thanks in advance for your kind cooperation. Please visit www.nepalpolymer.org for more information.

Please help us to publicize this event among your friends and colleagues by forwarding the attached FLYER. Any support from your side would be highly appreciated.

We look forwards to welcoming many of you in Kathmandu during KaSAM. I also request you not to be irritated by this mail in bulk.

Sincerely yours,

Dr. Rameshwar Adhikari

KaSAM – 2012 Convener

Kathmandu Symposia on Advanced Materials 2012 (KaSAM – 2012), May 9-12, 2012

Please visit www.nepalpolymer.org for details.

Ethical Considerations for Authors and Reviewers

Important thing to consider while writing a manuscript. Prepared by ACS under publishing your research 101.

From ACS:

Ethical behavior in research and publication form the foundation of scientific discovery and communication. Simply put, experiments should be performed and communicated honestly and with integrity, and attribution should be given to acknowledge the contributions of others.Our editors examine some specific ways in which these principles apply during the publication and peer review process and highlight some of the common problems that arise from both authors and reviewers. 

For reviewers.

NAST organizing 6th National Conference on Science and Technology in Nepal

NAST is going to organize 6th National Conference on Science and Technology on June 6-8, 2012 in Kathmandu, Nepal. Few details are listed below.

Conference Theme: “Economic Growth through Science, Technology and Innovation".


SCIENTIFIC PROGRAM: The scientific program of the conference will include invited key note addresses, plenary lectures, oral and poster presentations. Sectional sessions will be held for paper presentations as categorized in the following disciplinary areas.

   Physical Sciences (including Earth Science and Astronomy)
· Chemical Sciences
· Biological Sciences
· Mathematical Sciences (including Statistics)
· Agriculture and Animal Sciences
· Engineering and Technology/Energy
· Medicine and Health Sciences
· Biotechnology and Food Technology
· Forestry, Environment and Climate Change
· Information and Communication Technology
· Science Education and Public Understanding
REGISTRATION:

Nepali Participants

Institutional: NPR 3000.00/- person
Individual: NPR 1500.00/- person

Foreign Participants

SAARC Countries: US$ 200.00/ person
Other Countries: US$ 500.00/ person
The fees can be paid by bank transfer (T/T or M/T), bank
draft/voucher or money order (D/D) payable to the NAST.
Bank: Nepal Rastra Bank, Thapathali
A/C No. B.O. 610146


CALL FOR PAPERS
by April 12, 2012 (Chaitra 30, 2068).

FOR DETAILS

Awesome Chemistry Videos of 2011

I have put together some of the awesome chemistry videos which were published in the year of 2011, definitely of my choice. ENJOY. Have a wonderful new year ahead.

1. Soft Robot from Whitesides group at Harvard University.



2.Conductive Silver Ink from University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign

3. Will it blend? Glow Sticks?

Life's Trek Brings Scientist to U.S. from Nepal

There were fewer than 1,000 people in the tiny Nepalese village of Tanahun district when Jefferson Lab SRF Scientist Pashupati Dhakal grew up there. He was the son of the village's school principal. And at that time, the local school only went through middle school. Had he stayed there, it would have been a two-hour trek by foot to the nearest high school. Instead, he moved in with his grandfather in Pokhara, a popular tourist destination in Nepal.

                             

"This," he said with a sweep of his hand toward a stunning computer screen shot of the Himalayas, "is the view I woke up to every morning."

Impressive, indeed. Almost as impressive as Dhakal's abilities in math, which came to him early and were nurtured throughout his education. His first physics teacher at Tribhuvan University, where he did his undergraduate work, was, in Dhakal's words, "brilliant" and lured him into the field.

"Studying with him made up my mind," he recalled. "That's when I said 'I want to be a physicist.'"

He stayed on at Tribhuvan University for his master's degree, which he received in 2002, after presenting his dissertation titled, "Thickness Dependence of Chemical Potential in Degenerate Semiconductor." When he graduated, he had the highest score in the department and received a gold medal from Gyanendra Bir Bikran Shah Dev, the king of Nepal.

Dhakal was offered a two-year teaching position for undergraduates and some graduate students while a professor went on sabbatical at the same department where he had completed his master's degree. "I learned even more by actually teaching physics," he noted.

As that job was ending, he applied to 10 schools in the United States and had five offers. He chose Boston College, not only for its physics department, but because he wanted a cosmopolitan atmosphere, and he had a friend from Tribhuvan University that had preceded him there. "I'd seen enough mountains," Dhakal said with a laugh. "I was ready for a city."

 The flight from Nepal to the U.S. took 36 hours and brought him, literally, to the other side of the world. From what he knew about the U.S., he thought he'd be eating sandwiches all the time. Discovering Boston's ethnic groceries and restaurants was a relief. In fact, his friend's wife cooked him a traditional Nepalese meal on his first day.

In graduate school, he was interested in condensed matter physics studying the very exotic properties of materials in ultra-cold temperatures and very high magnetic fields. Working with his Ph.D. supervisor, Michael Naughton, he became skilled in several experimental techniques as well as the theoretical knowledge on condensed matter physics. Dhakal finished his Ph.D. in August 2010 after presenting his dissertation, "Angular Magnetoresistance Oscillations in the Molecular Organic Conductor (DMET)2I3: Experiment and Calculation."

In between there had been important business at home to tend to. In 2006, he returned to Nepal to meet, Sangita, the woman who would become his wife. In his culture, he explained, it is not a singular man and woman who are marrying, but the extended families. Sangita's brother-in-law and Dhakal's uncle were friends and thought they would make a perfect couple. In keeping with his home country's tradition, the couple met once and talked about their educations and plans for the future.

"In western culture, you think love must come first, but we marry and let the love grow," he said fondly. When Dhakal joined Jefferson Lab'sSRF Institute in the fall of 2010, Sangita stayed behind in Boston to finish her own education and received her nursing degree in December, after which she joined him here. Their daughter, Swarupa, is a few months old now.

"She's one of the nicest babies," he crooned with a new father's smile, "and she's a good sleeper."

Dhakal is teamed with scientists Gianluigi Ciovati and Ganapati Myneni – researching the superconducting properties of niobium, which he described as being "the heart and soul" of SRF, or superconducting radiofrequency technology. He is studying how it changes with heat and surface treatment procedures which are used during the fabrication of SRF cavities. The second part of his work involves researching ways to improve the quality factor of SRF cavities (Q0), which is limited by the so called residual loss. This means finding ways to reduce, eliminate or manage impurities and contaminates while fabricating and processing SRF cavities.

"A new kind of clean, ultra-high vacuum induction furnace has been recently acquired to avoid contamination on niobium cavities during the heating process," he explained of a portion of the process necessary to prepare the cavities. "We have preliminary results, which look very good. They are showing signs of improvement."

When evenings and weekends roll around, Dhakal enjoys following sports on TV. "I watch anything," he said with a laugh. Learning the American games was tricky; it took him a while to figure out that U.S. football players touch the ball with their hands instead of just their feet.

His parents have been visiting, to help out with the new baby and Dhakal had the opportunity to take them to New York City. "I took them to the 86th floor of the Empire State Building and said to them, 'This is the real America.'"

By Judi Tull
Feature writer

http://wwwold.jlab.org/news/OnTarget/BelowTheFold.html#item3

Chemistry activities in Biratnagar, Nepal

Department of Chemistry, M.M.A.M.C., Biratnagar, Nepal organized an "one day seminar".  This is the third seminar after launching M.Sc./ PhD programme of Physics and Chemistry in 2009.  

Dr. Jagadeesh  Bhattarai, associate Prof from CDC, TU, honored Mr. Tulasi Prasad Niraula, who achieved the best poster award in the International Conference of Advanced Materials and Technology for sustainable Development, 21-23 October, 2011 by garland with Tika. Similarly, Prof. Dr. Sujeet Kumar Chatterjee honored Miss Alina Shakya, who was also the best poster award winner in the same conference. 

Mr. Tulasi Niraula, the Ph.D. scholar, gave seminar presentation on "Conductivity study of surfactants in mixed solvent media". Also, Mr. Sujit Kumar Shah, the Ph.D. scholar gave a presentation on basic information of surfactants. Both of these Ph.D. research scholars are working under the guidance of Prof. Sujeet Kumar Chatterjee and Dr. Ajaya Bhattarai. 

Dr. Jagadeesh Bhattarai presented his talk on "Research Activities on Corrosion in Nepal: An overview". Prof. Dr. Sujeet Kumar Chatterjee shared his view about the research work in the department of Chemistry. He talked about the low cost work research. He emphasized about the devotion of time during the research work. 

During the programme, participants were welcomed by Mr. Balaram Pant (chemistry faculty) and Dr. Ajaya Bhattarai presented the activities of chemists of the eastern part of Nepal. Mr. Narendra Kumar Chaudhary (chemistry faculty) gave vote of thanks. The program was chaired by Mr. Ghanashayam Shrivastav. The programme was announced by Sabita Gautam Dahal, head of the department of Chemistry, Manamohan Polytechnique Institue, Morang. 

Mr. Rajesh Karki presented a laptop to the head of the department of Chemistry. The laptop was purchased with the collection of funds from 38 chemists. List of donors is given below.

Some photos from the program below.