Stereo Chemistry
86 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months ago - ★★★★★ - 67 ratingsStereo Chemistry shares voices and stories from the world of chemistry. The show is created by the reporters and editors at Chemical & Engineering News (C&EN), an independent news outlet published by the American Chemical Society.
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Episodes
The small-molecule drug renaissance
February 09, 2024 19:00 - 19 minutes - 28.3 MBAs the science of drug discovery has grown in scale and gotten more complicated, so have the drug molecules themselves. But there’s a promising class of drugs made of just a handful of atoms that punch above their weight by leveraging the natural chemistry of the cell. Recent discoveries have opened up a new era of pharmaceutical chemistry that some people are calling a golden age. In this episode of C&EN Uncovered, reporter Laura Howes explains this exciting field of research and its impli...
C&EN Uncovered: The ocean floor is littered with valuable minerals. Should we go get them?
December 11, 2023 20:00 - 15 minutes - 37.5 MBResting on the bottom of the ocean are potato-sized nodules of valuable minerals that are more or less up for grabs. Multiple corporations and some nations are racing to build deep-sea drones that can withstand the extreme conditions at the seafloor and bring these 1-20 cm nodules to eager buyers on the surface. Many of the metals in these nodules are critical for green technologies like batteries. But these nodules are also an important part of ecosystems we are just beginning to unde...
C&EN Uncovered: The race to report on the Nobel Prizes
October 31, 2023 18:00 - 19 minutes - 36.2 MBThe Nobel Prize announcements are big events at Chemical & Engineering News. But we find out the winners at the same time as everyone else. Then, the race is on for our reporters. This year, staffers Laurel Oldach and Mitch Jacoby took on the task of covering the science prizes. In this episode, they reflect on this year’s winning research in chemistry and medicine and share what it’s like covering the most prestigious prizes in science. C&EN Uncovered, a project from C&E...
C&EN Uncovered: Looking back on 100 years of chemistry
September 29, 2023 18:00 - 13 minutes - 32.2 MBThe first issue of C&EN was published in 1923 with the stated purpose of “the promotion of research, the development of the chemical industry, and the welfare of the chemist.” The world of chemistry has grown a lot since then, and the magazine has been there to report on it all. To celebrate our 100th anniversary, C&EN reporter and informal historian Alex Tullo has sifted through thousands of issues of the magazine, and in this episode, he guides our host Craig Bettenhausen on a tour th...
Jennifer DiStefano and Jared Mondschein on the transition from the bench to the policy office
September 13, 2023 16:14 - 25 minutes - 58 MBEarly-career scientists are increasingly gravitating toward science policy, but the transition from the research bench to the policy office can be a tricky one. What can that path look like, and how can chemistry knowledge translate into a successful science policy career? In this bonus episode of C&EN’s Bonding Time, Mark Feuer DiTusa sits down with recent science PhD graduates and science policy professionals Jennifer DiStefano and Jared Mondschein to hear about their intertwined journeys,...
C&EN Uncovered: Making hydrogen is easy; making it green is a challenge
August 11, 2023 13:41 - 13 minutes - 39.6 MBHydrogen might be the key to a clean energy future, but only if it can be made without fossil fuels. Most hydrogen today is made from methane. With generous government tax credits and enthusiasm for sustainable technology, the race is on for green hydrogen. Craig Bettenhausen, our usual host, guides C&EN associate editor Gina Vitale through the hydrogen rainbow and how the periodic table’s number 1 element could become the number 1 fuel. C&EN Uncovered, a new project from C&EN...
Mining metals and minerals from seawater
July 25, 2023 15:00 - 23 minutes - 33 MBThe modern world runs on electronic devices and energy systems that are powered by valuable elements such as lithium and uranium. There are a limited number of terrestrial mines that produce energy-critical elements, which makes the supply of these materials prone to disruption. So researchers are looking to an unconventional source: seawater. Almost every element on the periodic table can be found in global oceans–but most are dissolved in ultralow concentrations. In this episode of Ster...
C&EN Uncovered: Can tires turn green?
July 07, 2023 14:00 - 16 minutes - 22.7 MBBe they powered by fossil fuels, batteries, or hydrogen, cars are here to stay. So what can be done to make tires greener? In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, C&EN reporters Alex Scott and Craig Bettenhausen look at where the rubber meets the road, literally. Scott examined efforts to make tires more sustainable in a recent cover story for C&EN. He found people working on the movement and fate of tiny specks of tire-and-asphalt dust in the environment as well as large-scale efforts to sh...
Here’s what happens when wastewater treatment facilities fail
June 06, 2023 17:00 - 26 minutes - 51.2 MBWhen two wastewater treatment facilities in Baltimore, Maryland, broke down in early 2021, the surrounding waterways began filling up with sewage. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, C&EN business reporter Craig Bettenhausen takes the pod to visit the Back River Plant and Patapsco Plant in the Chesapeake Bay watershed to demystify how these facilities treat wastewater and take a deep dive into the chemistry behind enhanced nutrient removal systems. Chemical engineers, environmental advocate...
Bonus: Executive producer Kerri Jansen hands over the mic
May 30, 2023 19:48 - 20 minutes - 28.1 MBStereo Chemistry’s longtime host Kerri Jansen is stepping down from her role as executive producer of the podcast. Jansen has been with Stereo Chemistry since it began in 2018, and has played an integral role in the production of C&EN’s flagship podcast. In this bonus episode, Jansen talks with C&EN’s interim coeditors for audio & video, Ariana Remmel and Gina Vitale, about some of her favorite episodes from the Stereo Chemistry archives. A transcript of this episode is now available at htt...
C&EN Uncovered: The battle for Lake Maurepas
May 16, 2023 15:00 - 13 minutes - 25.4 MBCarbon capture and sequestration is the trapping of CO2 emitted by industrial processes and depositing it beneath the Earth’s surface. Spurred on by tax credits offered by recent federal legislation, companies are racing to implement the technology in geologically suitable locations such as in Louisiana. However, the community around Lake Maurepas, Louisiana, has resisted efforts by Air Products to greenlight such a project under the lake. In this episode, C&EN reporters Craig Bettenhaus...
C&EN Uncovered: Lithium iron phosphate comes to North America
March 21, 2023 15:00 - 17 minutes - 25.9 MBLithium iron phosphate (LFP) batteries are cheaper, safer, and longer lasting than batteries made with nickel- and cobalt-based cathodes. In China, the streets are full of electric vehicles using this technology. But LFP never caught on as a chemistry for electric vehicle batteries in North America. In this episode, C&EN reporters Craig Bettenhausen and Matt Blois talk about the promise and risks of bringing lithium iron phosphate to a North American market. C&EN Uncovered, a new project f...
Microplastics pollute our drinking water: What are the risks?
February 21, 2023 19:00 - 27 minutes - 40.5 MBResearchers reported finding microplastics in drinking water nearly 5 years ago, prompting California lawmakers to require monitoring of the state’s drinking water for the tiny particles. But in 2018, there were no standard methods for analyzing microplastics. So California regulators reached out to chemists and toxicologists from all sectors to develop those methods. They also sought assistance in developing a health-based limit to help consumers understand what the monitoring results mea...
C&EN Uncovered: What exascale computing could mean for chemistry
January 31, 2023 19:00 - 17 minutes - 28.3 MBAt Oak Ridge National Laboratory, a supercomputer named Frontier has broken the exascale computing barrier, meaning it can calculate more than a million trillion floating-point operations per second. In this episode, C&EN reporters Craig Bettenhausen and Ariana Remmel discuss how Frontier works and what that kind of power could mean for computational chemistry. C&EN Uncovered, a new project from C&EN’s podcast, Stereo Chemistry, offers a deeper look at subjects from recent cover stories. Re...
Bonus: Carolyn Bertozzi and Barry Sharpless reflect on winning the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry
December 06, 2022 21:00 - 12 minutes - 22.2 MBIn this bonus episode of C&EN’s Bonding Time, we hear from 2022 chemistry Nobel laureates Carolyn Bertozzi and K. Barry Sharpless, who shared the prize along with Morten Meldal for their work on click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry. After a November symposium honoring the US-based Nobel awardees at the Embassy of Sweden in Washington, DC, the two chemists discussed their long history of collaboration, how winning the 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has changed their lives, and how they ...
BONUS: Click and bioorthogonal chemistry win Nobel Prize in Chemistry
October 05, 2022 21:43 - 9 minutes - 14.3 MBThe 2022 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal and K. Barry Sharpless for their development of click and bioorthogonal chemistry which are used by chemists around the world to track biological processes and produce pharmaceuticals. In this special episode of Stereo Chemistry, hosts Gina Vitale and Ariana Remmel delve into the science behind the prize and talk with organic chemist Antoni Riera to discuss the applications of the award-winning chemistry. C&EN c...
Lithium mining’s water use sparks bitter conflicts and novel chemistry
September 13, 2022 15:00 - 35 minutes - 48.6 MBReplacing gas cars with electric ones is a main pillar of plans to fight climate change. But the lithium-ion batteries used in electric cars come with a cost. Communities near the Salar de Atacama in Chile, where about a quarter of the world’s lithium is extracted from salty aquifers, say mining companies pose a serious threat to the local environment and their access to water. Mining companies strongly dispute those claims. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, we’ll explore the environmenta...
Bonus: For John Goodenough’s 100th birthday, we revisit a fan-favorite interview with the renowned scientist
July 25, 2022 15:00 - 38 minutes - 53.1 MBFamed lithium-ion-battery pioneer and Nobel Prize–winner John Goodenough has achieved yet another milestone—a century on Earth. Goodenough celebrates his 100th birthday on July 25, 2022. In honor of the occasion, Stereo Chemistry host Kerri Jansen and C&EN reporter Mitch Jacoby revisit their 2019 interview with the renowned scientist, recorded at his office at the University of Texas at Austin just prior to his Nobel win. In the expansive and candid conversation, Goodenough tells Stereo Chem...
Bonus: Jess Wade on Wikipedia and work-life balance
June 21, 2022 16:00 - 55 minutes - 79.5 MBThis month, Stereo Chemistry is sharing an episode of the podcast ChemConvos featuring an interview with materials scientist, self-described “Raman spectroscopy enthusiast,” and prolific Wikipedia editor Jess Wade. On ChemConvos, hosts Henry Powell-Davies and Medina Afandiyeva seek to uncover the story behind the scientist. In this episode, the trio discusses not only Jess’s work as a research fellow at Imperial College London but also how she manages burnout and the importance of a supporti...
Bonus: The sticky science of why we eat so much sugar
May 31, 2022 19:00 - 34 minutes - 47.8 MBOur bodies need sugar to survive. But most of us consume way more than we actually need, and many foods and beverages pack a dose of added sweeteners. So why are we eating all of this extra sugar? This month, Stereo Chemistry is sharing an episode of the podcast Tiny Matters that examines that question. In the episode, hosts Sam Jones and Deboki Chakravarti explore sugar’s impact on our bodies and trace how a genetic mutation that helped our distant ancestors survive is influencing our healt...
Bonus: There’s more to James Harris’s story
April 27, 2022 17:00 - 45 minutes - 62.7 MBChemists may know James Harris as the first Black scientist to be credited with codiscovering an element. In fact, we referenced this in a previous episode of Stereo Chemistry about making superheavy elements. But beyond this memorable factoid, details about the accomplished nuclear chemist are scarce, and most sources repeat the same superficial information. Kristen Frederick-Frost, curator of modern science at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, wants to change that. Aft...
Bonus: The helium shortage that wasn’t supposed to be
March 24, 2022 18:00 - 14 minutes - 20.5 MBHelium shortages can derail research and threaten expensive instruments that depend on the gas to operate safely. In late 2020, analysts predicted—and we reported—that pressures on the global helium market were likely to ease as new production capacity came online. Today, helium users are again facing price spikes and limited supplies, driven by a variety of factors including political instability in Europe and technical malfunctions at key suppliers. In this bonus episode of Stereo Chemistr...
Sarah Reisman and Melanie Sanford on how organic chemistry is changing and how they’ve learned to choose priorities
February 15, 2022 15:00 - 23 minutes - 33.1 MBBeing a chemistry professor is a juggling act. But sometimes professors have too many balls in the air. How do they know which ones to grab and which to let drop? In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, C&EN's Leigh Krietsch Boerner sits down with organic chemists Sarah Reisman and Melanie Sanford to hear how they decide what projects to work on, what sparks joy for them in the lab, and what being an organic chemist really means to them. A transcript of this episode will be available soon at ...
Jose-Luis Jimenez and Kimberly Prather on the intersection of aerosol science and the COVID-19 pandemic
January 18, 2022 19:50 - 25 minutes - 35.7 MBImagine you’re an atmospheric chemist. There’s a pandemic. And public health officials release information about how the virus spreads from one person to another—information that directly contradicts your knowledge of how tiny particles move in the air. What do you do? In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, Jose-Luis Jimenez and Kimberly Prather talk to C&EN editor Jyllian Kemsley about how they’ve handled that situation over the past 2 years. They share their frustrations with public health o...
Jessica Ray and William Tarpeh on clean water, turning trash into treasure, and life as assistant professors
December 21, 2021 16:00 - 27 minutes - 39 MBHow do we build water systems that are sustainable and also equitable? On this episode of Stereo Chemistry, Jessica Ray and William Tarpeh talk with C&EN reporter Katherine Bourzac about how they use their chemical engineering know-how to develop simple systems for filtering toxic chemicals from our water and harvesting useful chemicals from urine. They also discuss finding ways to thrive as assistant professors and building support networks as Black junior faculty. A transcript of this ep...
David Liu and Stuart Schreiber on the science that motivates, fascinates, and tells us who we are
November 23, 2021 15:00 - 33 minutes - 47.4 MBWhat motivates a creative scientific mind? How does an accomplished scientist pinpoint new subjects to explore? How is the field of chemical biology evolving? In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, we probe those questions with scientists and serial entrepreneurs David Liu and Stuart Schreiber, both pioneers in developing tools that use chemistry to explore biology. A transcript of this episode and links to past C&EN coverage of David Liu and Stuart Schreiber are available at bit.ly/3D4L4HB....
Preview: New season coming on Nov. 23
October 26, 2021 18:00 - 5 minutes - 8.09 MBStereo Chemistry’s new season will launch on Nov. 23, featuring eight chemistry greats in conversation with . . . each other. In each episode, two sensational chemists will pair up for in-depth conversations moderated by a C&EN reporter. Listen now as show host Kerri Jansen reveals the lineup with new Stereo Chemistry team member Attabey Rodríguez Benítez. Image credit: C&EN/Shutterstock Want to contact Stereo Chemistry? Email [email protected]
BONUS: Molecule-building tool wins Nobel Prize in Chemistry
October 06, 2021 21:55 - 7 minutes - 7.42 MBThe 2021 Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to Benjamin List and David W. C. MacMillan for their development of asymmetric organocatalysis, which has proved to be a powerful tool for building molecules. In this special episode of Stereo Chemistry, host Kerri Jansen, C&EN reporter Leigh Krietsch Boerner, and C&EN editorial fellow Emily Harwitz delve into the science behind the prize. Merck’s Rebecca Ruck also joins the Stereo Chemistry crew to weigh in on how organocatalysis has impacted drug deve...
BONUS: Astronaut Leland Melvin’s journey from chemistry to the cosmos
September 21, 2021 18:00 - 37 minutes - 51.6 MBThis month, Stereo Chemistry is sharing an episode of Third Pod from the Sun, a podcast from the American Geophysical Union, featuring an interview with retired astronaut and former professional athlete Leland Melvin. In the episode, Melvin describes how an early—and explosive—interest in chemistry grew into a scientific career at NASA and two missions to the International Space Station. Find more stories from Third Pod from the Sun at thirdpodfromthesun.com, Apple podcasts, and wherever...
BONUS: How body farms can help solve cases
August 24, 2021 16:00 - 23 minutes - 32.6 MBThis month, Stereo Chemistry is sharing an episode of Orbitals that features an interview with forensic chemist Shari Forbes, an expert in human decomposition who studies the odors of decomposition at a body farm in chilly Quebec. Research at body farms—research facilities dedicated to studying what happens to human bodies after death—supplies law enforcement with valuable information about the process of decomposition in various scenarios. A transcript of this episode is available at bit...
BONUS: Rare earths’ magic comes at a cost (Part 2)
July 27, 2021 17:01 - 33 minutes - 46.5 MB(Part 2/2) This month, Stereo Chemistry is sharing a pair of episodes from Distillations, a podcast from the Science History Institute. We rely on rare-earth elements to make many essential technologies like smartphones, medical imaging devices, and wind turbines. But how much do you know about where these extraordinary materials come from? In this two-part series, Distillations hosts Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago explore the source of rare earths’ “magic,” the costs of acquiring...
BONUS: Rare earths’ magic comes at a cost (Part 1)
July 27, 2021 17:00 - 27 minutes - 38 MB(Part 1/2) This month, Stereo Chemistry is sharing a pair of episodes from Distillations, a podcast from the Science History Institute. We rely on rare-earth elements to make many essential technologies like smartphones, medical imaging devices, and wind turbines. But how much do you know about where these extraordinary materials come from? In this two-part series, Distillations hosts Alexis Pedrick and Elisabeth Berry Drago explore the source of rare earths’ “magic,” the costs of acquiring...
BONUS: Celebrating LGBTQ+ excellence with My Fave Queer Chemist
June 29, 2021 15:00 - 48 minutes - 66.2 MBThis month, we’re sharing an episode of the podcast My Fave Queer Chemist. Hosted by graduate students Bec Roldan and Geraldo Duran-Camacho, the show celebrates the excellence of LGBTQ+ chemists everywhere. Stereo Chemistry is excited to share this recent episode featuring inorganic photochemist Irving Rettig. In the episode, Rettig discusses his background in art conservation, his experiences finding support and community in grad school, and his work promoting transgender-inclusive name c...
Ep. 41: Searching for Mars’s missing water
May 25, 2021 14:00 - 22 minutes - 31.2 MBMore than 50 years of missions to Mars paint a clear picture of a cold, dry, desert planet. And at the same time, photographs, minerals, and other data tell scientists that Mars once had as much water as Earth, or even more. Why are the two planets so different today? In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, we talk to scientists about the latest research on Mars’s water and where they think the water went. Listen to the end of the episode for an announcement about the future of Stereo Chemist...
Ep. 40: Reducing toxic metals in food
April 20, 2021 14:00 - 31 minutes - 44.3 MBToxic elements like lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium in food are not a new problem. But when they show up in pureed vegetables and other foods intended for babies, alarm bells go off. That’s what happened in recent months following a bombshell congressional report that found neurotoxic metals in baby food from multiple manufacturers. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, host Kerri Jansen and C&EN reporter Britt Erickson explore the fallout from that report and renewed efforts by baby food...
Ep. 39: How research on aging could keep us healthier longer
March 23, 2021 18:00 - 28 minutes - 39.7 MBLiving longer has been a human obsession for centuries, but while medical science has helped extend average life span, not all those extra years can be healthy. It turns out that aging is a major risk factor for disease. Follow along as host Kerri Jansen and reporter Laura Howes ask if instead of extending life span, we could extend health span and how modern science could make that a reality. An edited transcript of this episode is available at bit.ly/2NKNZkV. Help us shape the future...
Ep. 38: Nobel laureates Frances Arnold and Jennifer Doudna on prizes, pandemics, and Jimmy Page
February 16, 2021 15:00 - 30 minutes - 42.3 MBWhere do you take your career after you’ve won all of science’s biggest prizes? In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, C&EN executive editor Lisa Jarvis sits down with Nobel laureates Frances Arnold and Jennifer Doudna to hear about whether their career goals changed after they got that early-morning phone call in October and how the pandemic has shifted the way they approach their work. A script of this episode is available at bit.ly/3u7jCW7. Sign up for C&EN's newsletter at cenm.ag/che...
Ep. 37: Historians pursue centuries-old chemical secrets—Green reading glass, Bologna stones, and Greek fire
January 19, 2021 19:30 - 24 minutes - 33.5 MBResearchers want to invent the technologies of the future, but there are plenty of chemical questions lurking in the past. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, C&EN assistant editor Gina Vitale joins host Kerri Jansen to explore the centuries-old secrets and nagging mysteries that keep science historians up at night—and how these researchers go about solving them. A script and additional resources are available at bit.ly/3qGGHg5. Sign up for C&EN’s Grad Student Survival Guide at cenm.a...
Ep. 36: How will Biden’s election impact chemistry?
December 15, 2020 17:00 - 16 minutes - 24.7 MBAs we prepare for a new US president, many chemists are wondering how the administration change may affect them and their work. Will President-Elect Joe Biden change immigration policies that have reduced the number of foreign students studying at US universities? How might scientific integrity standards in the federal government change under the Biden-Harris team? And will this administration grant the chemical industry’s wish to stop the trade war with China and other US trading partners? ...
Ep. 35: Grad students, lab injuries, and workers’ compensation—it’s complicated
November 17, 2020 19:00 - 24 minutes - 35.3 MBMany grad students may be surprised to learn their university’s policies for reimbursing medical fees for lab injuries do not cover grad students, or cover grad students only under certain circumstances. And it can be hard to get clarity on what is and is not covered. That’s left some grad students in an uncomfortable limbo of seeking answers after they’ve already racked up thousands of dollars in bills for an injury in the lab. In the latest episode of Stereo Chemistry, we uncover the sourc...
Ep. 34: Chemists confront the helium shortage
October 21, 2020 16:00 - 26 minutes - 35.9 MBHelium shortage 3.0 is winding down. But 2021 is likely to bring more changes to the global market for this critical, non-renewable gas. And even if there isn’t another crunch, scientists who use helium are tired of unstable supply of a material they need to keep their instruments running. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, we’ll look at what’s behind the wobbly helium market and what scientists and instrument makers are doing to lift the heavy burden of helium use. A script for this ep...
Ep. 33: On being #BlackInChem
September 23, 2020 15:00 - 24 minutes - 36.5 MBIn August 2020, Black chemists and allies took to Twitter to celebrate the inaugural #BlackInChem week. The social media campaign highlighted the diversity and accomplishments of Black chemists at all stages of their career and also created space for candid discussions about the discrimination these scientists face in chemistry. In the latest episode of Stereo Chemistry, host Kerri Jansen and reporter Ariana Remmel hear from Black chemists from a variety of disciplines across academia and in...
Ep. 32: Should organic chemistry’s name reactions go the way of mouth pipetting?
August 19, 2020 17:00 - 26 minutes - 37.2 MBScientists have been naming ideas, theorems, discoveries, and so on after other scientists for a very long time (Newton’s laws of motion, anyone?). Chemists are no different. They’ve been naming reactions after each other since about the early to mid 1800s. Nowadays, organic chemists in particular use them as a kind of shorthand. However, because the majority of name reactions honor white men, some organic chemists wonder if using these names is exclusionary. In the latest episode of Stereo ...
Ep. 31: A world without Rosalind Franklin
July 22, 2020 18:00 - 23 minutes - 32.6 MBRosalind Franklin and her lab assistant famously imaged the structure of DNA using X-ray crystallography, an achievement that directly facilitated James Watson and Francis Crick’s discovery of the double helix. For what would be Rosalind’s 100th birthday, the Stereo Chemistry team consults scientists and historians to envision the many ways the world might be different without the now-famous Photograph 51. Listen to the Distillations episode “Science on TV” at bit.ly/30yjZuU. A script of...
Bonus episode: Talking TSCA—is the chemical law living up to expectations?
June 17, 2020 18:30 - 17 minutes - 28 MBThis month marks 4 years since the Toxic Substances Control Act, or TSCA, was revised to boost confidence in chemical safety in the US by strengthening regulations. The updated law gave the Environmental Protection Agency sweeping new authority to ensure that the tens of thousands of chemicals in everyday products do not pose unreasonable risks to human health and the environment. In this bonus episode of Stereo Chemistry, host Kerri Jansen and C&EN senior reporter Britt Erickson examine how...
Ep. 30: The chemical culprit in 2019's mysterious vaping illnesses—what we still don't know
May 27, 2020 15:00 - 29 minutes - 41.7 MBMonths before the novel coronavirus took hold of the globe in late 2019, clusters of patients began appearing in emergency rooms throughout the US with a mysterious lung disease. Investigators quickly linked the illnesses not to a pathogen, but to patients’ use of vaping products. By examining the chemicals in these products, they eventually found a chief suspect: vitamin E acetate. The compound was being used as a cutting agent in some counterfeit or illicit cannabis-based vaping products. ...
Ep. 29: This virus is here now, it's going to stay with us
May 01, 2020 19:00 - 35 minutes - 48.1 MBAs COVID-19 continues to spread, so does the effort to treat and vaccinate against the novel coronavirus that causes the disease. Around the world, scientists are working nonstop on the different therapies that they hope will quell the loss of life during this pandemic while, at the same time, setting us up to prevent future outbreaks. What’s not clear is which, if any, of these treatments will work. Much about SARS-CoV-2 remains unknown. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, we dig into the ...
Bonus episode: That just isn’t how you land on the moon without crashing
April 10, 2020 16:00 - 14 minutes - 20.4 MBFifty years ago this week, an explosion on the Apollo 13 moon mission stranded three astronauts hundreds of thousands of miles from home. You probably know that Fred Haise, Jim Lovell, and Jack Swigert made it home safely (water landing shown, with two of the astronauts in white). You may not know the chemist behind the rocket engine that saved them, which began its life as an apparatus for measuring chemical reaction rates. This bonus episode of Stereo Chemistry tells the story of the engin...
Ep. 28: So that's why we threw a robot into the back of a truck
March 18, 2020 21:00 - 35 minutes - 49.5 MBChemistry is going the way of computing: It’s getting smaller and faster. High-throughput experimentation, or HTE, is part of this push. Borrowing from biologists and biochemists, HTE has brought in microplates and multichannel pipettes to miniaturize reactions, as well as robots to run those reactions rapidly without sacrificing precision. But it’s also been around for decades. So why are so many in the field excited about HTE right now? Stereo Chemistry looks at the technology and culture ...
Bonus episode: We’re watching it very closely
March 10, 2020 18:00 - 14 minutes - 21.6 MBAs the novel coronavirus responsible for causing COVID-19 continues to spread, questions about the virus, the disease, and its impacts on our daily lives mount. To help you stay current with the science, policy, and business implications of this outbreak, C&EN has made all of its coronavirus coverage freely available at cenm.ag/coronavirus. And in the latest bonus episode of Stereo Chemistry, we discuss one of the largest questions on the business front: How is the coronavirus affect-ing the...