This utterly charming film set in World War II-era London contains a textbook example of screen chemistry. Rating: 3.5 stars out of 4.

Screen chemistry is an odd thing; often you only notice it when it isnt there. (See: far too many Hollywood romantic comedies.) But Their Finest, an utterly charming film set in World War II-era London, contains a textbook example. Gemma Arterton plays Catrin Cole, a young advertising copywriter hired by the British Ministry of Information to write womens dialogue for wartime propaganda feature films; Sam Claflin is Tom Buckley, a wry fellow screenwriter whos not sure that her presence is necessary. Catrins married, Toms not and so first they become co-workers (he grudgingly admits, eventually, that shes doing a good job), then friends. Watching them, you start noticing how he looks at her like shes a fascinating puzzle that hes trying to figure out, and how she blushes just a bit when hes around, and how effortlessly these two actors convey that they belong together.

Its one of many pleasures in Lone Scherfigs film, based on a 2009 novel by Lissa Evans and drenched in a sweet nostalgia that only very rarely tips into sentimentality. The plots mostly centered on the making of one movie, based on a true incident involving a pair of twin sisters who set out in their fathers shabby boat to help evacuate wounded soldiers at Dunkirk. Its a tale that, as the executives at the Ministry gleefully observe, has everything: Authenticity, optimism and a dog.

We watch the casting process (Bill Nighy, eyebrows perpetually raised, is a delight as a pompous veteran actor), the location shoot (note the 1940s version of CGI), and the way that the filmmakers and cast form an impromptu family. Along the way, were reminded of the new roles that women took on during that time, and how the shadow of war affected every day and every life, even as they soldiered on. And theres one scene, where Sam sits moodily smoking one evening, and Catrin appears behind him as if caught in a moonlit dream, and well, thats why we watch movies, isnt it?

Their Finest, with Gemma Arterton, Sam Claflin, Bill Nighy, Jack Huston, Helen McCrory, Jake Levy. Directed by Lone Scherfig, from a screenplay by Gaby Chiappe, based on the novel Their Finest Hour and a Half by Lissa Evans. 117 minutes. Rated R for some language and a scene of sexuality. Several theaters.

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'Their Finest' review: Wartime film sizzles with chemistry - The Seattle Times

DeAndre Hopkins and Tom Savage have been teammates for three years. Hopkins was catching passes and touchdowns, while Savage diligently prepared as the backup quarterback each week.

"Thats something everybody in this locker room respects about him," Hopkins said Monday. "How he always stayed into it. How he never got down or never doubted himself.

Savage is now primed for a big opportunity to be the Texans starting quarterback. This offseason, the quarterback-wide receiver tandem has been putting in work in preparation.

"We definitely have been getting after it since weve been back in town," Hopkins said. "Just doing extra things. He throws a good ball. He knows this offense better than any quarterback that can be in this system. Hes been here since hes been in the NFL and under this system, so he knows how to put the ball where it needs to be.

Savage started two games last year and has seen action in other games over the course of his Texans career. While limited in their playing time together on the field, the duo has always been developing chemistry together, according to Hopkins.

We were building that chemistry even when he was on the sideline when he wasnt playing," Hopkins said. "Just him always being into the game and knowing whats going on and knowing what he could do if he was in the game. Even in practice, even in the film room, he was always into it. There was never a time that he didnt know where the ball was supposed to go or how it should be thrown. So, I feel like since hes been here for four years weve been building that chemistry. Not just now.

Savage and Hopkins also developed a friendship along the way. Recently, Hopkins spent time at the Savage house, playing video games and sharing it on his Snapchat. He even joked that he wasnt pleased when the quarterback didnt have his favorite beverage the last time he visited.

But besides that, were pretty tight, Hopkins said, smiling.

This year, Savage and Hopkins will have an opportunity to work together more than ever before. Hopkins, Savage, and the players returned to NRG Stadium on Monday for Phase 1 of the offseason workout program.

The kid is a go-getter," Hopkins said. "He doesnt quit. Even out there today he was trying to be first. He was hustling. He was out there being a leader even though he hasnt played many snaps in this league.

Twitter.com/DeepSlant

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Back in late January, nobody could have envisioned the scene from late Tuesday at TD Garden.

Rajon Rondo, Jimmy Butler and Dwyane Wade the Three Alphas descended from their postgame podium session all smiles and serenity. Even away from the spotlight, the questions over, the three players continued talking, first among themselves and then with a growing group of team officials and friends.

In a hallway they exchanged hand-slaps, not unlike the picture Rondo posted to his Instagram account on Jan. 26 of him with Kevin Garnett and Paul Pierce from their shared Celtics championship season.

Rondo's words accompanying that picture, in which he strongly rebuked the decision by Wade and Butler to criticize teammates following a late-game collapse to the Hawks the night before, prompted a team meeting, fines and national negative attention.

For a few days, including the Jan. 27 home loss to the Heat that dropped them to 23-25, the Bulls overtook the Knicks as the league leader in dysfunction.

The Bulls are 20-16 since, including a 2-0 mark in a playoff series that shifts to the United Center for Friday's Game 3. As the Bulls vie to become the sixth No. 8 seed to topple a No. 1 seed in the 68 first-round series since the NBA moved to a 16-team playoffs in 1984, they are emboldened by the fact teams with 2-0 leads in seven-game series are 262-18 (.936) all time.

They also are emboldened by what they have overcome.

"We had adversity as every team has, and that's the thing that's made us closer and stronger together," Wade said. "The credit for this team sticking together through injuries, a trade, through everything, it goes to everyone, from the coaching staff to the leaders to the young guys. Everyone did it together."

This is no fluke lead. The Bulls, led by Robin Lopez, have pummeled the Celtics on the glass and in second-chance points. Butler has outplayed Isaiah Thomas in the battle of stars. And role players such as Bobby Portis in Game 1 and Paul Zipser in Game 2 have delivered steady, heady play.

But perhaps the most encouraging sign for the Bulls is that the Three Alphas played with chemistry and consistency in Game 2. That hasn't been the case for much of the season, even in the Game 1 victory.

And it's doing nothing to slow the growing possibility that, if Wade opts in, the Three Alphas, against all odds, could be back for another season.

"One thing we know about our point guard is he likes everybody to go. He had nine rebounds and when he gets the ball, he's like, 'Go, go,'" Wade said. "We need easy baskets. This is a great defensive team. If we see their half-court defense set up every play, it's going to be hard to score. So our mentality is try to get out and get some easy ones and put some pressure on them."

Wade scored 11 of his 22 points in the fourth quarter of Game 2, he reminded all why even at 35 he has such a powerful playoff pedigree.

After scoring 15 of his 30 points in the fourth quarter of Game 1, Butler stuffed the box score with 22 points, eight rebounds, eight assists and four steals in Game 2. That's greatness.

But Rondo is proving the biggest revelation. Missing out on his 11th career playoff triple double by one rebound, Rondo also had five steals and harassed Thomas effectively enough to limit the need for Butler to guard him, preserving Butler's energy for offense. Avery Bradley said Rondo picked up on the Celtics' poor body language and kept saying on the court that they gave up.

"I just stayed in the gym and worked. I don't think it's anything I've done as far as the mindset," Rondo said of his resurrection from a five-game benching around the New Year. "Before the game, Jimmy and D-Wade kept telling me to shoot and stay aggressive."

Rondo now has career playoff averages of 14.4 points, 6 rebounds, 9.1 assists and 2 steals in 96 games.

"For the playoffs, me in particular, you get a couple of extra days rest for the body," Rondo said. "You get three or four days of prep on a team, lock in to their game plan."

Rondo carries a leaguewide reputation for his preparatory film work and basketball IQ. A common scene in the postgame locker room is for Rondo to call loudly to the video coordinator for an iPad filled with clips he needs to study for the next game.

Wade, who engaged in memorable playoff battles with Rondo when they played for the Heat and Celtics, knows this dynamic well.

"Hated him as a competitor," Wade said. "But that hate is that respect. When we played against Boston back in the day, he knew all the plays. He messes up your first option. And then he knows the second option. We were just good enough to have a third option.

"For me and Jimmy to have someone who is so locked in, that gives us a different voice. Fred (Hoiberg) gives us a voice. We know we can go to (Rondo) and ask anything. He's watching film all the time. It's key to have a point guard like him that controls the whole game. Our job was easy. We just had to play."

It beats bickering.

"We have obviously moved past what happened," Hoiberg said. "They haven't played a lot of games together since Dwyane had the injury (fractured right elbow) and Rajon was inserted back in that starting lineup. They had great chemistry early on in the season. Hopefully it will continue on the rest of the series."

kcjohnson@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @kcjhoop

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For a baker, lemon meringue pie is a tart dessert with an airy foam atop a smooth yellow filling.

For students in Carlows molecular gastronomycourse or maybe even Alton Brown lemon meringue pie is a colloidal system, which involves a gas dispersed in liquid, atop a smooth yellow filling.

Thats because baking is chemistry at its core, explained Monique Hockman,the professor who created the class.

Cooking is pretty much an art, she said.But baking is a science. You truly have to measure things.

The perfect lemon meringue pie is no exception to the rule measuring out the ratio of egg whites to sugar in the foamy meringue is vital in trapping gas bubbles. Similarly, yeast and flour must be proportionate to create the soft, chewy dough for sunshine sweet rolls, a play on traditional breakfast rolls that involves shredded carrots and even carrot baby food.

While baking in a chemistry lab that Ms. Hockman converted into a kitchen complete with toaster ovens under the fume hoods four groups of students dashed around, collecting ingredients for the recipes theyd follow in their lab. Cream of tartar, flour, two containers of raspberries, oranges, lemons, pie crusts, yeast and salt (cleverly labeled NaCl for sodium chloride) lined a table toward the back of the classroom.

Ms. Hockman, who holds a doctorate in physical chemistry from the University of Pittsburgh, said she partially modeled the class from a similar course taught at Harvard University called Science and Cooking, which has been turned into a massive open online course through EdX and adapted for a public lecture series.

Outside the food lab where Ms. Hockmans students create mostly traditional foods, fruit juice caviar, flavored foams, and fruit or vegetable spaghetti noodles are just a few of the wacky creations people imagine when they hear the term molecular gastronomy, she said. However, most chefs who create these visionary and experimental dishes dislike the terminology.

Local chef Kevin Sousa was the first to bring molecular gastronomy to Pittsburgh with his Alchemy menu at Bigelow Grille in the DoubleTree Hotel, Downtown. Among other items, the menu offered tiny, liquefied beads of pierogi with a shot glass of highly concentrated sauerkraut consomme.

He said that molecular gastronomy is a silly term because everything is made of molecules, and all cooking is science.He admits there is a certain specificity associated with what some call molecular gastronomy, but he just calls it modern cooking.

Theres a slightly more scientific approach to it, like why things go together that may not have been thought of before as good pairings, he said.

Ms. Hockman also notes that the term molecular gastronomy is merely the chemistry behind cooking, not necessarily art nouveau in food.

The idea is to achieve the tastes but in different physical states than they normally exist,she said.

In a nearly three-hour class one Wednesday in March, the students tried out four recipes, which appeared drastically different at first. However, each employed a leavening agent, or a substance, which causes expansion in baking.

For Ms. Hockman, the differing culinary approaches with similar scientific functions are what constitute the term molecular gastronomy.

Two of the recipes, sunshine sweet rolls and multigrain cinnamon rolls, used yeast to help the sweet dough rise. The other two recipes, for raspberry foam and lemon meringue pie, relied on cream of tartar to puff up egg whites.

In the breads, biological leavening helps dough to rise, Ms. Hockman told the class. When activated with warm water, biological leavening agents ferment sugars and carbohydrates in flour to release carbon dioxide. Yeast is the most common biological leavening agent, although unpasteurized beer, sourdough starter, buttermilk, kefir and yogurt also use the same mechanism.

The group making cinnamon rolls split up the labor. Biology major Kayla Todd, 19, kneaded the dough. Ms. Todd, of Churchill, donned a white apron with a few squares of the periodic table that spell out Iron Chef, and mixed the dough with her hands until it resembled a ball of cookie dough.

Alternately, her classmates used mechanical leavening to make meringue and foam. In this process, meringue requires cream of tartar or potassium bitartrate which is not a cream at all, but a fine powder.

Students use a stand mixer to whip up egg whites and cream of tartar, which stabilizes air bubbles and keeps the fluffy substance from deflating.The heat and force of the mixing causes the soft peaks to form.

In chemistry terms, the amino acid chains in the egg whites uncoil in a process called denaturation. After they uncoil, they begin to mesh back together again but with pockets of air stuck inside. Adding sugar, as the students did, keeps the gas bubbles from popping.

At the end of class, Ms. Hockman rolled in a cart with a coffee machine and lined up the baked goods on a lab table. The room fell silent as students sampled the fruits of their labor.

Despite the chemistry and hard work, Ms. Todd was, ironically, most concerned with the icing on her cinnamon rolls, which her partner made out of powdered sugar, half-and-half and butter.

Its amazing. You have to taste it, she said, adding,I want to cook now because I hadn't done it at home before.

Courtney Linder: clinder@post-gazette.comor 412-263-1707. Twitter: @LinderPG.

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Chemistry and cooking collide in a new course at Carlow - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A recent explosion at a school laboratory in the eastern Indian state of Oddisha, which injured three students, has drawn attention to the poor laboratory facilities that students face in many of the countrys universities.

India has traditionally fared well in chemistry research. The 2016 Nature Index report, for example, says a rise in chemistry research output was a significant driver of the performance for several research institutions in the top 100 most improved institutions in the index.

But these statistics mask the often poor laboratory infrastructure that most university students have to contend with, unless they attend one of the top-ranking institutions.

Undergraduate teaching chemistry laboratories, particularly in many state universities [] need modernisation, says Krishna Ganesh, professor of chemistry and director at the Indian Institute for Science Education and Research (IISER), Pune. They are very poor from a safety perspective.

Ganesh, who has been calling for more funding for chemistry research, says practical skills in chemistry suffer due to stretched budgets and neglect. There are no or inadequate fume hoods to handle chemicals and students are not trained to wear safety glasses or gloves during experiments, he says. Many labs are also badly designed, without separate emergency exits. India urgently needs to standardise its lab designs, which should include ensuring that each chemistry department has a faculty in charge of safety and basic skills such as fire-fighting and first aid, Ganesh adds.

The safety facilities in most of the Indian Universities are not as good as in western countries, agrees Manoj Kumar Sharma, professor of chemistry at Guru Nanak Dev University, in the northern city of Amritsar. Though most of the labs in India have some first aid kits for minor accidents [they] may not have quality fume hoods. Accidents take place when a student is not attentive while carrying out experiments, or sometimes students do not follow guidelines written on the chemicals.

The root of the problem lies in the general neglect and cut in funds for higher education since the 1990s. H Surya Prakash Rao, professor of chemistry at Pondicherry University in southern India, notes that while chemistry labs in several colleges have been upgraded in the last couple of years due to an influx of m funds from the Ministry of Human Resource Development, the mere availability of laboratories is not enough. There must be generous financial support for chemicals and specialised glassware, he says. Barring a few elite institutions, the majority of Indian universities and colleges do not have the infrastructure for carrying out higher order research.

The neglect of universities is reflected in students experimental skills, says Ganesh, which is often poor compared to theoretical knowledge. He observes that inadequate practical training certainly affects both undergraduate and postgraduate students competence in research and industry jobs. Most students have to be retrained in basic analytical and separation techniques and lab note record keeping, he says. Imparting good laboratory skills and re-equipping them by first undoing their incorrect training [] takes both effort and time.

Undergraduate teaching chemistry laboratories need modernisation. They are very poor from a safety perspective

Krishna Ganesh, IISER

Rao agrees, noting that university research is crumbling due to insufficient funding and lack of accountability, compounded by Indias famed bureaucracy. Over the years, faculty staff are transformed into glorified clerks. They spend lots of time doing administrative jobs rather than spend time on teaching and research, he explains. The result is that students at Indian universities are not being adequately prepared for work industry, as they are in the US and Europe.

India urgently needs modern labs, purposeful curricula with exciting experiments, industry participation in UG/PG courses in university (providing expertise and resources) for lab skill development, and emphasis on safety practical and material hazards, says Ganesh. He adds, however, that India is still managing to do well in chemistry research, despite the overall neglect of universities, because of reasonably good course work in PhD courses and excellent job-oriented training in industries.

Rao points out that the majority of researchers who are doing good research have been trained in top universities abroad. Students and teachers also keep themselves updated with research being carried out in rest of the world, which helps chemistry researchers fare well, adds Sharma. The consensus among academics is that it is not too late for Indias universities to make changes. The priorities must be freeing themselves of red tape, modernising lab facilities and overhauling their approach to teaching.

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India's university chemistry facilities in need of overhaul - Chemistry World (subscription)

A quantum physicist was in a quandary.

Nathalie de Leon, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, needed to control the carbon atoms on the surface of a diamond, but the sheer hardness of the diamond was defeating all attempts not just hers, but those of every physicist who had tried over the previous half century.

There was very large graveyard of people who had tried and failed, de Leon said.

Her lab uses quantum technology that depends on point defects in diamonds the result of two carbon atoms being replaced with one nitrogen or silicon atom, leaving a usefully empty space called a vacancy.

Diamond is the hardest naturally occurring mineral because diamonds are made entirely of closely spaced, tightly bonded carbon atoms. Scientists and engineers trying to control the diamond surface have traditionally used harsh methods that also cause subsurface damage, which makes the diamonds useless as the kind of nanoscale sensors de Leon needs.

So she tried something radical. At the inaugural symposium of the Princeton Catalysis Initiative (PCI), she gave a research flash talk an 8-minute introduction to her labs work and along with sharing her teams successes, she mentioned this longstanding problem.

At the next break, she was approached by Robert Knowles, a professor of chemistry de Leon had known from their postdoc days at Harvard.

Rob came up to me and said, The surface chemistry cant be that hard, de Leon recalled. I told him, Well, this is a 50-year-old problem, and nobody has made any progress at all. And then he said, Well, I think we can do it in a year.

He had been working with adamantanes carbon-hydrogen molecules that look like a unit cell of diamond in a field of chemistry that hadnt existed a decade ago, when de Leon got her Ph.D. in chemical physics.

What Rob knew was that a catalyst that they make, that people are famous for around here, had really busted open this field of adamantane chemistry, said de Leon. The reason Rob was so confident that we could do it in a year was that he thought, It just looks like an adamantane! How can this be so difficult?

Knowles believed that he had the key to unlock de Leons problem, but they had another obstacle: funding. To test their hypotheses, de Leon and Knowles would need to reinvent not only surface chemistry, but also come up with a new way to measure the results of their reactions. Federal research organizations balk at using taxpayer dollars for such a long shot.

This was an especially high-risk project we were proposing to do chemistry that no one else had ever done, to do reaction discovery in a hard system, de Leon said.

So they applied for funds from PCI, which encourages unlikely pairings and blue-sky endeavors.

Once PCI gave them the money to get started, de Leon said she and Knowles brought two very courageous graduate students onto the project (Lila Rodgers and Suong Nguyen), and the team ultimately created an entirely new discovery pipeline.

She shared the story during a flash talk two years later, at the third annual PCI symposium on Jan. 23, 2020. Using this pipeline, it did actually just take a year, so Rob was right! she said, to laughter and applause.

Professors Abigail Doyle and David MacMillan explain the role of catalysts and catalysis in the modernworld.

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Danielle Alio, Office of Communications

Working together, the chemist and the quantum physicist had discovered completely new types of chemistry that work at the diamond surface.

Thats par for the course at the Princeton Catalysis Initiative, said David MacMillan, one of the four PCI co-founders and Princetons James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor of Chemistry.

The thing PCI is most concerned about in the next 10 years is how do you create or enable new fields of research, MacMillan said. Thats the currency we care about.

To accomplish this, PCI accelerates scientific interactions between researchers, like de Leon and Knowles, both within and beyond the Princeton campus. At the annual symposia, speakers deliver flash talks that resemble a cross between a TED Talk and a research colloquium, in which they sketch out their research interests and any problems for which theyre looking for collaborators. Speakers at the 2020 symposium came from fields as diverse as psychology, economics, electrical engineering and computer science.

Its like speed dating for scientists, said Sabine Petry, an assistant professor of molecular biology. Heres what I have to offer, heres what I need, lets connect. At the first PCI symposium, Petry connected with Howard Stone, the Donald R. Dixon 69 and Elizabeth W. Dixon Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. Petry and Stone had already co-advised a graduate student for several years when they heard each others flash talks and realized that they could collaborate on an entirely unrelated problem.

Part of PCIs magic is the long snack and meal breaks built into the day-long symposium, Knowles said. Its great to socialize with people while also concentrating on the science, he said. Ive known Nathalie for years, but weve never talked about our research at this level.

Theres something quite wonderful about the scale of these annual symposiums, said Robert Prudhomme, a professor of chemical and biological engineering. Its the breadth of faculty from across the campus, combined with the chance to hear their research in a concise manner, that is unique. If you think about trying to go to this many research talks under any other circumstances 20 people, times an hour for each seminar it would just never happen.

PCI has sparked and funded two new collaborations for Prudhomme, one with Haw Yang, a Princeton professor of chemistry, and another with researchers at Genentech.

When MacMillan and his colleagues first imagined PCI, they hoped to fund 150 collaborations. To achieve that, the initiative sought financial support from individual donors as well as companies that depend on catalysis. Three years later, with support from Bristol-Myers Squibb, Celgene, Genentech, Genmab, Janssen and Merck, as well as individuals including Tony Evnin and Eric and Wendy Schmidt, PCI can fund more than 500 collaborations over 10 years.

Theres a sweet spot of doing it here at Princeton, because were just the right size, MacMillan said. We have a critical mass, but were not too big or too diffuse. And the other part of it is, our faculty here are very much into being collegial to each other. Were very warm towards wanting to be involved in collaborations. Researchers see the win-win; as opposed to I want to keep this to myself, its more, I want to work with other people around the campus to take this interesting endeavor in new directions.

PCI supports 78 researchers in 11 departments and institutes across the Princeton campus, most of which are clustered together on Washington Road. Clockwise from lower left: Princeton Neuroscience Institute (neuroscience), Peretsman Scully Hall (psychology), Icahn (genomics), Lewis Thomas Laboratory (molecular biology), Guyot (geosciences and environmental sciences), Woodrow Wilson School (public policy), Fine Hall (math), Jadwin Hall (physics), Friend Center (computer science), EQuad (engineering), and Frick (chemistry).

Image courtesy of the Princeton Catalysis Initiative

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How a chemist and a physicist solved a 50-year-old puzzle with help from the Princeton Catalysis Initiative - Princeton University

Mansfield outfielder says chemistry key to team's success Fort Worth Star Telegram I think the season is going well so far, and it has been fun with this team because of the great chemistry we have together and the leadership on this team, Tatrow said. I try to bring a positive energy day in and day out and a fun attitude, but at ...

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A promising University of Virginia scientist, Ku-Lung (Ken) Hsu, an assistant professor of chemistry, has earned one of the National Science Foundations coveted Early Career Development Program Awards, which support junior faculty members who perform outstanding research and are regarded as exceptional teachers.

Part of the grant is used to integrate education and research in academic activities. Hsus award is for $681,000.

Hsu uses chemistry to control biological systems, particularly to modify the immune system to become an active combatant against cancer. His work understanding and controlling the inflammation response spans the search for new non-addictive drug options for treating pain, to modifying immune cells so they can recognize and kill cancer cells.

The five-year NSF CAREER grants are among the most prestigious available to young faculty in science and engineering, and are designed to provide significant resources to the early stage development of careers.

Many of Hsus laboratory studies are conducted in collaboration with clinical researchers in the School of Medicines Cancer Center as part of UVAs efforts to enhance research into precision medicine using immunotherapy to target life-threatening diseases at the fundamental molecular level.

Hsu discusses here his research and grant for readers of UVA Today.

Q. What drew you to this area of chemistry?

A. Chemical biology is an exciting area of chemistry because it is very creative, highly interdisciplinary and allows scientists to answer fundamental questions that ultimately improve human health through drug discovery and other new therapies. I enjoy the opportunity to work with experts in so many different fields, including pharmacology, pathology, neurology and cancer biology. As a result, I learn something new from each project.

My students also benefit greatly from being in this field because of an emphasis on collaborations, which increases diversity through individuals they interact with and expands the skillsets they obtain during their training. Medical research is becoming increasingly collaborative, so my students are becoming well-prepared for the research environments in which they will spend their careers.

Activating the immune response to fight cancer represents a very exciting treatment modality and UVA is well-positioned to be a leader in this front. The UVA Cancer Center has been a major supporter of my research program, and I look forward to continued interactions and collaborations in this community.

- Ken Hsu

Q. Describe the most compelling aspects of your latest research.

A. I am excited about two recent discoveries that embody research from our group in the field of chemical biology. Both reports are published in the journal Nature Chemical Biology.

In our first paper, we describe a new chemical reaction with broad applications for synthetic chemistry and drug discovery. The reaction we discovered possibly could come into common use for developing new treatments for cancer and other diseases in the future. This finding was especially rewarding because I teach related material in my organic chemistry course and our paper describes a new methodology for synthetic chemists and chemical biologists to tune chemical reactions for diverse real-world applications. This is compelling for my students, to know that what they are learning in class is also current and active to catalyze breakthrough research in our labs.

In our second report, our findings are directed toward fundamental discoveries in the realm of fat (lipid) molecules, which play a major role in the bodys metabolism at the cellular level. We used protein engineering to design artificial lipid kinase enzymes a specialized protein involved in cell growth, proliferation and other functions that can include the growth of cancers in order to better understand how cells regulate their fat composition. To our surprise and delight, we narrowed in on a very specific region of these lipid kinases that allow us to control how they operate in cells. Our findings will teach us and others in the field a more effective way to design therapeutics to combat these enzymes when they misbehave.

Q. How will this grant allow you to connect your research with teaching?

A. The NSF CAREER Award will provide new opportunities for applying our chemistry and technologies to study how individual cells control the metabolism of fats and lipids. We plan to develop compounds that attach to enzymes to illuminate how cells are similar or distinct based on their metabolism kind of like a molecular fingerprint. Our long-term goal is to create new opportunities for cell type discovery and push the boundaries of cell engineering.

The research is intimately connected to an educational outreach program designed to broadly impact Native American student communities by providing opportunities for UVA graduate students to teach how lipid biochemistry influences healthy food choices and eating behaviors in society.

Q. Where do you see your research going from here?

A. In the next five years, I am looking forward to applying our chemistry and technologies toward deeper understanding of lipid biology and metabolism in physiologically relevant models. We remain committed to discovery of new molecular pathways for immune system modulation, and our recent findings represent important steps toward our long-term goal.

Q. How promising is the future regarding immune system modulation?

A. Activating the immune response to fight cancer represents a very exciting treatment modality and UVA is well-positioned to be a leader in this front. The UVA Cancer Center has been a major supporter of my research program, and I look forward to continued interactions and collaborations in this community.

I believe the chemistry we are pursuing will provide new opportunities and technologies for exploring creative ways to study and control the immune system. Support from the NSF CAREER Award will pave the way for new ways to engineer immune cells for cancer and other potential disease indications.

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Q&A: Chemical Biologist Ken Hsu to Use NSF CAREER Award to Fight Cancer - University of Virginia

Despite the captivating romance in To All the Boys Ive Loved Before, its sequel fails to build on the story of the couples new relationship. With an uninspiring relationship and awkward anachronisms, the sequel does not deliver the romance promised by its pre-Valentines Day release.

To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You picks up as Lara Jean (Lana Condor) and Peter (Noah Centineo) go on their first date as a new couple. Their romantic bubble is soon popped, however, when John Ambrose (Jordan Fisher), one of Lara Jeans past crushes, comes back into her life, introducing uncertainty into her new relationship. The stereotypical love triangle ensues as teenage jealousy and insecurity escalate relationship tensions.

The lack of romantic chemistry between Lara Jean and Peter leaves the audience unsure whether viewers should root for the couple. Though the couples first date at a romantic restaurant is full of soft lighting and charming ambience, the interaction between the two seems perfunctory. Even with the two sitting feet apart, there is no chemistry when Peter reaches over to kiss Lara Jeans hand. The rest of the date night, though cute, fails to regain the electricity that viewers saw in the first film in 2018.

The depiction of the relationship is further sabotaged as neither protagonist is able to show genuine care for the other. Despite constantly saying that she loves Peter and wants to be with him, Lara Jean nevertheless fails to tell John Ambrose of her relationship status even when he is clearly flirting with her. Her confusion between the two men may be understandable, but her repeated choice to hide her relationship makes the audience question if she really cares about Peter as much as she says.

Peter similarly shows problematic tendencies that undermine the films attempts to portray him as sympathetic to the audience. On Valentines Day, knowing Lara Jean is expecting a grand gesture, Peter only gives her a necklace and reads her an unoriginal poem he passes off as his own. Though he later explains that he only hoped he could write something as good, his lackluster defense does not justify why he did not simply spend more time to come up with a more thoughtful gift.

Peter later fails to pay attention to Lara Jean at a party, only leaving with her after coincidentally noticing her sitting in the corner. His lack of effort in maintaining their relationship does not match his claim about loving Lara Jean, which is a distracting incongruity throughout the film. Halfway through the movie, it seems like even a happily-ever-after would only be lukewarm.

Throughout the movie, anachronisms in the otherwise modern setting make the plot too relatable to young audiences. With Valentines Day featuring stereotypical a cappella group serenades and a carnival date, it seems as though a middle-aged writer was trying too hard to imagine what teenagers do these days. The anachronisms detract from the authenticity of the film and make it even harder for audience members to see themselves in the plot.

One of the few saving graces of the sequel is Kitty (Anna Cathcart), Lara Jeans younger sister. With her witty comments and humorous interruptions, Kitty offers a welcome distraction from otherwise awkward situations with uninteresting dialogue. Her playful relationship with Lara Jean accurately captures the type of banter typical of sisters, adding some much-needed authenticity to the movie.

While To All the Boys: P.S. I Still Love You had potential to build an unforgettable romance following the cheeky previous film, the movie failed to capture the opportunity. Even original fans of the Lara Jean and Peter relationship were left wanting for a reason to root for them again.

Read the original post:
'To All the Boys' Sequel Disappoints with Lack of Chemistry, Charm - Georgetown University The Hoya

TOMS RIVER, NJ The state Department of Environmental Protection is testing well water at homes in the Windsor Park section of Toms River after wells in the area have tested positive for two cancer-causing chemicals, Toms River officials announced.

The testing is being conducted in the Windsor Park section of the township, and was prompted by a homeowner's report that their well had tested positive for trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene, township officials said in a notice on the township's website. The town contacted the Department of Environmental Protection immediately after being contacted by the homeowner last year.

There were 41 wells identified for a first round of testing, and five tested positive for the chemicals, according to preliminary information the Department of Environmental Protection provided to township officials. Plans are in the works to extend the testing to an additional 42 wells, "extending several hundred feet away from any well that has tested positive," the notice said.

Donald Guardian, the township's business administrator, said township officials are scheduled to meet with DEP officials on Friday to discuss what's being done and future steps to be taken to address the problem.

The wells that are being tested are in the area of Windsor Avenue, Oceanic Drive, and Peddie Street, where the homes are not connected to city water.

In the initial round of testing, there were 26 wells that "were not given access," according to the notice. Patch has contacted DEP officials seeking clarification of what that means, as well as information on the levels of the chemicals that have been found in the positive tests.

The township's notice said "Historically, there had been some wells adjacent to this area that had tested positive in the past, and city water was extended to those areas. Until now, wells in this area were not affected."

It's not clear from the notice what area or how close to Windsor Park area the previous contamination has been. Wells in the Silverton section were found to be contaminated in the late 1980s as a result of chemical drums that were disposed of at the Dover Township Municipal Landfill, according to a state Department of Health study of childhood cancer rates in Toms River.

Toms River also has two other well-known contamination sites: Reich Farm, off Route 9, and the former Ciba-Geigy site off Route 37.

The two chemicals, trichloroethylene and perchloroethylene (TCE and PCE), found in the well water of the Windsor Park homeowner have been linked to health issues including cancer as a result of long-term exposure.

Trichloroethylene, which can cause kidney cancer, was originally developed as an anesthetic, according to the National Cancer Institute. It is a volatile, colorless liquid organic chemical and is used primarily to make refrigerants and other hydrofluorocarbons and as a degreasing solvent for metal equipment. TCE is also used in some household products, such as cleaning wipes, aerosol cleaning products, tool cleaners, paint removers, spray adhesives, and carpet cleaners and spot removers. Commercial dry cleaners also use trichloroethylene as a spot remover.

Perchloroethylene is a colorless liquid that is also called tetrachloroethylene, and is primarily used for dry cleaning fabrics and degreasing metals, according to the National Institutes of Health. It's also found in adhesives, spot removers, shoe polish, printing inks, paint products, and household cleaners. Long-term exposure can cause changes in mood, memory, attention and reaction time, as well as cancer.

Have a news tip? Email karen.wall@patch.com Follow Toms River Patch on Facebook.

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Chemical Contamination Found In 5 Toms River Homes Wells - Toms River, NJ Patch

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Early this month, Representative Bruce Griffey of western Tennessees 75th district made public his latest effort to control and degrade the states most vulnerable: a bill that would require any person convicted of sex offenses against a minor under the age of 13 to undergo chemical castration upon becoming eligible for parole.Ad Policy

Convicts will be responsible for the cost of the intervention, and halting it would be considered a parole violation, sending the parolee immediately back to jail to serve the rest of their sentence. Proponents justify the invasive law on the pretext of protecting the children of Tennessee from potential predators.

Chemical castration reduces the bodys sexual urges with drugs or hormones. Unlike surgical castration, it is reversible, but it isnt harmless. Critics claim the practice violates fundamental civil liberties, like the right to ones own thoughts and to bodily autonomy, and note that the commission of a crime, no matter how serious, does not strip a person of their essential rights.

If you have a penis, imagine a life without the possibility of erection or orgasm. No more yearning, no more physical intimacy, no more pleasant daydreams. For someone whos supposed to have paid their debt to society, this is unnecessarily cruel.Related Article

The treatment is not without considerable health risk, either. Long-term use carries the potential for osteoporosis, cardiovascular disease, impaired glucose metabolism, and more everyday side effects like gynecomastia, hot flashes, and depression. Though some small-scale studies have found modest decreases in recidivism with chemical castration, no randomized control trials have been conducted.

Its not the first time a Republican legislator has displayed excessive interest in the genitals of his constituents. Griffey is also currently cosponsoring a bill that would require Tennessee students to play sports on teams appropriate to the gender noted on their birth certificates, a transparent attempt to curtail the rights of transgender and gender-nonconforming kids. Schools that refuse to follow the rule would lose public funding.

And in June of last year, Alabama enacted a law nearly identical to Griffeys chemical castration proposal, joining Florida, Texas, Louisiana, Montana, Wisconsin, and California, which passed the first such measure in the United States in 1996, under Republican Governor Pete Wilson.Current Issue

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Following Indonesias push in 2016 to introduce the punishment for sex offenders, Amnesty International released a statement about the practice noting that forced chemical castration is a violation of the prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment under international law. The ACLU has come out against the practice as well.

In the United States, such statutes may face legal challenges, largely on the basis of their dubious constitutionality. A 2003 analysis in The Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry Law notes several grounds for potential disputes: under the First Amendment, for attempting to control the content of a persons mind, or fantasies; the Eighth Amendment, as cruel and unusual punishment; and the 14th Amendment, for failing to honor the guarantee of due process, and infringing on fundamental liberties, such as the liberty to have children. The measures may also violate the equal protection clause, since, although their language is gender-nonspecific, the actual effects of the drugs disproportionately affect men.

It is a return, if you will, to the dark ages, said Randall Marshall, executive director of the ACLU of Alabama, of that states law.

Chemical castration has a brutal, bigoted, and ableist history. Before the technology existed for a chemical intervention, eugenics movements embraced castration and sterilization as ways to prevent undesirable populationsfor instance, criminals and mentally ill peoplefrom procreating, in 19th century America. Beginning in the 1940s, diethylstilbestrol or DES was used to lower testosterone levels in men with pathological sexual behavior. In 1966, Dr. John Money, famous for his wrongheaded (and in some cases, fatal) views on gender assignment at birth, prescribed a man struggling with pedophilic fantasies medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA), the active ingredient in the hormonal contraceptive Depo-Provera, and the drug used in most states that have chemical castration laws for sex offenders. (MPA is not approved for this usage by the FDA, and was abandoned in Europe because of its severe side effects.)

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Hormone treatment, used as a corrective punishment in place of prison for the crime of homosexuality, has been widely blamed for the suicide of renowned computer scientist Alan Turing (Turing was forced to take DES). In 2012, a doctor in Sydney was banned from practicing medicine after prescribing chemical castration as a cure for his 18-year-old patients homosexuality.

Despite its checkered past, some choose hormone therapy of their own volition to curb troubling sexual thoughts or behaviors, and reduce sexual urges. The Cut published an interview in 2015 with a 62-year-old man voluntarily taking Lupron (generic leuprolide), which dramatically decreases the pituitary glands production of testosterone; the man says that it, combined with regular psychotherapy, ended his destructive pattern of compulsive sex with prostitutes and saved his marriage.

Another ethical thorn jabs the doctor assigned to give the hormone-limiting drugs. Can a physician administering this kind of treatment really obtain informed consent? Isnt the measure inherently coercive, if its a condition of parole? In medical ethics, a vulnerable population cannot consent to a procedure not explicitly performed for their benefitand it would require a leap of logic to claim involuntary hormone treatment is strictly beneficial. Incarcerated persons are a uniquely vulnerable group, with little to no power of self-determination, whose bodily integrity Tennessee already has an abysmal track record of respecting. Subjecting them to this humiliating practice as a condition of reentry into society further deprives them of their humanity.

That kind of cowboy approach to public safety is par for the course for Representative Griffey, who has already made a name for himself in his brief yet storied tenure in the Tennessee legislature. He has pushed for other demeaning aspects of the national Republican agenda as well. In March of last year, he filed a bill that would restrict welfare benefits in Tennessee only to those who could prove United States citizenship, including, per the bills abstract, each applicant 18 years of age or older, who applies for prenatal care administered by the department of health and the special supplemental food program for women, infants and children administered by the department of health. The bill ultimately failed, evidently considered too heartless even for Republicans.

Griffeys ire isnt confined to poor, pregnant women. He also introduced a bill this month, along with state Senator Joey Hensley, that would subject resettlement of refugees in Tennessee to the approval of both local governments and the state legislature, a two-step process clearly designed to hinder resettlementthis after Governor Bill Lee recently agreed to statewide resettlements for the second year in a row.

In the realm of personal ethics, Griffey is in no position to play the moral police. In September of last year, he was revealed to have engaged in backdoor dealings that led to the resignation of a Carroll County attorney, Jennifer King, so that Tennessee Governor Bill Lee could appoint Griffeys wife, Rebecca, in her place (which he declined to do). It turned out that one of the reasons Rebecca Griffey was n
ot selected may have been her claim to the interview panel that a tax lien had not been placed on the Griffeys home, despite documents provided by the IRS that showed the couple had failed to pay $240,060 in 2015 and $23,030 in 2016.

When contacted, Representative Griffeys office declined to comment for this story.

Even among Tennessee Republicans, Griffey is certainly a figure in state government to keep tabs onand to thwart at every turn, at least for anyone who wants to keep politicians roving hands out of their metaphorical pants.

Read more:
Tennessee's Chemical Castration Bill Shows Local Republicans Have One Thing on Their Minds - The Nation

My Chemical Romance launched a mysterious short film and announced a U.K. show just two days ago. Previously they teased what may be a U.S. tour and have in general, been incredibly cryptic about anything they do. Its so bad, fans are scouring the internet for anything that might reveal the next clue, not even the next answer.

We might have found something now that gives a bit of detail about the puzzling video that announced the Milton-Keynes show. Thanks to the magic of social media, we know speculate there may be more to this specific teaser.

My Chemical Romance just love to string us along. It makes sense, theyve had quite a few years to develop a gameplan. From time-traveling blog posts to tiny details in outfits; and from vampires and hospital beds to even ending their first show with well carry on instead of son long and goodnight. Weve stuck through it all.

With the UK show announcement and An Offering video released on Jan. 19, fans now have two minutes and twenty seconds of content to analyze and it has spawned some pretty crazy ideas.

An Offering released Jan. 19 and seems to be a major tease of what is to come. It seems odd that a two minute video would be put together justto announce a show in the UK. There has to be something more. The main theory is that the song in the background is the first track from a new album. It does feel very much like Romance from My Chems first recordI Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love.

In the video we see the main figures cape features a crucifix-like symbol on the back as they move through the woods with several other cloaked figures. While not identical, the symbol looks very close tothe MCRX onethat launched a whole slew of reunion theories in 2016. The band soon clarified that itwasnt a reunion(at least not yet) and just a10-year annivesary reissue ofThe Black Parade.

In the new video, the main figure sees Big Ben reflected in a body of water, foreshadowing the announcement to come. Eventually, they join three others around a pentagon to complete a spirit circle for a summoning as a chant can be heard through the clips end. All of the imageryfurther supports theories surrounding a Wicca-inspired new era.

As the screen goes to black, another show announcement appears, adding to the handful planned for 2020 (andconfirming that June theory). Theyll be playing in Milton Keynes, U.K. atStadium MKon June 20, 2020. The band hasnt released ticketing details, but U.K. concert promoter Johnny Phillipshas stated it will be live Jan. 24 at 9:30 a.m. GMT with no presale. Watch An Offering below.

So, as stated, it is very weird if this wonderful production was put together just to announce one show in the UK. This is where social media jumps in.

Who we believe to be a head director or producer of the promo Kristian Mercado Figueroa posted on his Instagram story, tagging My Chemical Romance in reference to An Offering saying Part 1 finally drop!!! Specifically saying part one usually implies that there are multiple parts to something. if this is just part one, what do the other parts entail? Do we get more of the story and more show announcements? Are the characters in the video hopping through portals into different dimensions so maybe well see different locations in the coming parts? Who knows? Its a mystery only we can hope to solve. Look at the picture below.

He also posted a series of photos from the promo on his Instagram with the following caption.

UK announcement is here! Peek the new visual.Thanks to the team behind this and all the creativesNo spoilersbut haha this is just a taste.

The second big piece of news to come from social media is that another person affiliated with the video posted a picture showing some objects that we didnt see in An Offering Either, the scenes showing these objects just wound up on the cutting room floor, or theres more to come. The objects feature the symbols that My Chemical Romance launched their return with. The text also states tour announcement and not show announcement which also implies more to come.

Just like most news after a My Chemical Romance post, were left with more questions than answers. The only way well know more is when they tell us. Until then, well carry on.

Tell us your My Chemical Romance theories in the comments below!

See the rest here:
My Chemical Romance An Offering... team tease suggests more to come - Alternative Press

Normally, high school basketball teams spend much of December building chemistry and searching for an identity.

The Greenwich girls basketball team is well ahead of the curve, already looking like a team in February, rather than a team heading into holiday break.

And the Cardinals are doing it with a mix of younger and older players, making the instant success even more impressive.

I cant stress this enough, the chemistry on this team is something we have not seen here in a solid five years, Greenwich coach Chrys Hernandez said. I have high hopes and expectations for them and they are coming along, just fine. This years team has a very high basketball IQ. They understand how to move without the ball, make the next pass and they are so unselfish. They all want to see the team succeed.

Friday afternoon, the Cardinals put the rest of the FCIAC on notice, going into the gym of defending Class S champions Trinity Catholic and handling the Crusaders without much resistance.

Passing the ball like they have played together for months rather than weeks, the Cardinals rolled to a 57-45 win on Walsh Court. Greenwich led by as many as 18 points in the fourth quarter.

Trinity Catholic coach Charlie Miller shouts to his players the first half of the Lady Crusaders basketball season opener against Greenwich in Stamford, Conn. on Dec. 20, 2019. Greenwich won 57-45.

Trinity Catholic coach Charlie Miller shouts to his players the first half of the Lady Crusaders basketball season opener against Greenwich in Stamford, Conn. on Dec. 20, 2019. Greenwich won 57-45.

Photo: Matthew Brown / Hearst Connecticut Media

Trinity Catholic coach Charlie Miller shouts to his players the first half of the Lady Crusaders basketball season opener against Greenwich in Stamford, Conn. on Dec. 20, 2019. Greenwich won 57-45.

Trinity Catholic coach Charlie Miller shouts to his players the first half of the Lady Crusaders basketball season opener against Greenwich in Stamford, Conn. on Dec. 20, 2019. Greenwich won 57-45.

Greenwichs instant chemistry has team rolling early in the season

The Cardinals are 2-0, scoring a combined 133 points in the first two games.

I knew these girls, both the new ones and some of the ones we have returning, were capable of scoring the ball. They just needed to find a rhythm and they have done that very, very quickly, Hernandez said. Our game plan tonight was clear. They are defending state champions and we are the ones coming here with something to prove. We had a good showing in our season opener (76-20 win over Wright Tech) but we knew this was going to be a different kind of test.

Friday, Greenwich started two freshmen in Mackenzie Nelson and Ava Sollenne along with sophomore Kristin Riggs and two seniors, Julia Conforti and Ciara Munnelly.

Nelson was electric, scoring a game-high 23 points, knocking down four 3-pointers while Riggs added 12 points.

The Cardinals scored 22 points in the first quarter and led 36-28 at halftime, moving the ball inside and out until open shots presented themselves.

We wanted to really move the ball around and shift the defense and get a bunch of looks, Munnelly said. We want to shift the defense. Get it in to the middle and the post then shifting it out. We have a lot of good shooters and good ball handlers and a few post players. All the options are good.

As a senior, Munnelly said the cohesion between upperclassmen and the younger players has been almost instant.

We have five seniors and two new freshmen and a sophomore. The freshmen are really helpful and really know what they are doing, Munnelly said. It is helpful having shooters we can rely on and people we know can move the ball and see those open passes.

Greenwich will face a few more tests over the holiday break with games at home against Ludlowe Monday at noon and at Pomperaug Dec. 27 at 6 p.m.

There is obviously a long way to go in the season but if Greenwich can keep this pace up, the rest of the FCIAC and the state will need to work hard to keep up.

Trinity was paced by 17 points by Isabella Edwards and 13 from Caitlyn Scott.

Sericson

@stamfordadvocate.com; @EricsonSports

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Greenwichs instant chemistry has team rolling early in the season - The Advocate

My Chemical Romancehave captured the hearts of many, and for good reason. From the albums that we connected to more than anything to cinematic live performances that brought us to tears, the bands artistry is just something well never get over.

To make things even better, the band recently reunited after a six-year hiatus, which only means that there might be more to love soon.

In honor of the reunion, youve probably been listening to MCRs entire discography on repeat, and youre not alone. Test your knowledge of My Chemical Romance lyrics to see if you can match them with the correct albums.

Its crazy to think that My Chemical Romance have officially been around since 2001. Thats nearly 20 years. Given that wild fact, it only makes sense that Gerard Wayand the gang would tour with a lot of bands and see a lot of people.Buddy NielsenofSenses Failjust shared one of those wonderful moments.

The picture is of Nielsen and Way back in 2004 grinning ear to ear one month after Three Cheers For Sweet Revengecame out.

In a touching Instagram post, the Senses Fail frontman posted a picture describing a time when My Chemical Romance werent the biggest band in the world.

Now, thousands of fans immediately sold outtheirreunion show. Tens of thousands havewatched videos showing the set. The world cannot get enough of my Chemical Romance. It wasnt always that way, as Nielsen recalls.

Gerard of @mychemicalromance and I at Toads Place New Haven, CT summer 2004. Three Cheers had come out a month before. We both played half of @vanswarpedtour and jumped in a bus to tour home. The shows were mostly at 300 cap clubs and below and everyday wed show up there would be a massive line already around the block. It was so amazing to be with them at such an monumental time in their career. They would go on to become the biggest band in the world and it was really just so special to see them realize that everything they ever wanted was happening right at that time. This was the last show of tour and the next time I saw them, a couple weeks later they were on TRL. The rest is history.

Read more:
Can you match the lyrics to the correct My Chemical Romance album? - Alternative Press

For the first time ever, a research team from the UK and Germany led by Professor Ute Kaiser, head of the Electron Microscopy of Materials Science in the University of Ulm, and Professor Andrei Khlobystov in the School of Chemistry at the University of Nottingham have managed to record on video two rhenium bonding and then breaking their bonds.

The team usedtransmission electron microscopy (TEM) to achieve this impressive task."Nanotubes help us catch atoms or molecules, and to position them exactly where we want. In this case we trapped a pair of rhenium (Re) atoms bonded together to form Re2. Because rhenium has a high atomic number it is easier to see in TEM than lighter elements, allowing us to identify each metal atom as a dark dot," said Khlobystov in a statement.

"As we imaged these diatomic molecules by the state of the art chromatic and spherical aberration corrected SALVE TEM, we observed the atomic-scale dynamics of Re2 adsorbed on the graphitic lattice of the nanotube and discovered that the bond length changes in Re2 in a series of discrete steps," addedKaiser.

Here is the original post:
Scientists Capture for the First Time Ever the Chemical Bonds Between Atoms Forming and Breaking - Interesting Engineering

Lauren Bushnell is opening up to PEOPLE about why her relationship with Ben Higgins came to an end.

Last month, Bushnell she was given Higgins final rose on the season 20 finale ofThe Bachelor when he got down on one knee and proposed and her fianc called it quits after a year together.

Despite their best efforts to make the love between them last, the couple jointly decided to end their relationship. In the weeks following their split, Bushnell, 27, says that they of course still had a physical connection between them, but it was the emotional aspect that led to the end of their engagement.

It was more so the emotional connection that fizzled, says Bushnell.

RELATED VIDEO: Ben Higgins & Lauren Bushnell Were Fighting Through a Lot Before Breakup, Says Bachelor Host Chris Harrison

Six months after the former couple met ad fell in love on The Bachelor, Higgins, 29, and Bushnell returned to the small screen for one season of their Freeform reality showBen and Lauren: Happily Ever After?

I remember during filming Happily Ever After, I was so stressed out, we couldnt even communicate with one another when we were filming Happily Ever After, she explains.

We were just stressed and tired physically, Bushnell admits, and adds, Emotionally, I just felt like it wasnt there anymore.

In an exclusive statement to PEOPLE in May, Higgins and Bushnell said, It is with heavy hearts that we announce our decision to go our separate ways. We feel fortunate for the time we had together, and will remain friends with much love and respect for one another. We wish nothing but the best for each other, and ask for your support and understanding at this time.

FROM PEN: Ali Fedotowsky Admits She Will Definitely Support Baby Molly If She Wants To Be The Bachelorette!

Following the split, Higgins also addressed his breakup with Bushnell on an episode of his new podcast, Ben and Ashley: Almost Famous.

I think, mutually, Lauren and I saw that life was getting more difficult, Higgins said of their last few months together. I would say the joy that we felt toward our relationship at the beginning was for some reason slipping away, and we were both working very hard to bring that joy back. And it just never seemed to get there. So it was a long time coming, but it wasnt necessarily like we dragged it out.

The Bachelorette airs Mondays (8 p.m. ET) on ABC.

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Lauren Bushnell & Ben Higgins' Emotional Connection Fizzled, Not ... - PEOPLE.com

To study chemistry is to prepare for any number of careers, many of which do not necessarily involve lab coats and flasks. Examples include

For complete curriculum details, click on the REQUIREMENTS tab above.

Undergraduate students may pursue a Bachelor of Science (B.S.) degree with a major in Chemistry or with a concentration in Professional Chemistry. Other departmental majors leading to a B.S. include Biochemistry, Science, and Health Science, under which numerous pre-professional programs are coordinated. Undergraduate and graduate minors in Chemistry are available.The department is one of the participants in Forensic Science, an interdisciplinary major leading to a B.S.

Graduate study includes a Master of Science (M.S.) degree in Chemistry.

Chemistry

Department of Chemistry615-898-2954Norma Dunlap, program coordinatorNorma.Dunlap@mtsu.edu

The Chemistry program includes traditional areas-analytical, biochemistry, organic, inorganic, and physical-as well as computational, polymer, medicinal, and environmental chemistry.

NOTE: Students who wish to get jobs as chemists are strongly encouraged to take additional upper-division courses (especially CHEM 4230/CHEM 4231), follow the plan for the professional major, or take more advanced chemistry courses upon graduation.

Following is a printable, suggested four-year schedule of courses:

Chemistry, B.S., Academic Map

General Educationrequirements (shown in curricular listings below) include courses in Communication, History, Humanities and/or Fine Arts, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social/Behavioral Sciences.

The following General Education courses are recommended for this major:

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: High school chemistry. Corequisite: CHEM 1111. Fundamental concepts of atomic structure, molecular structure and bonding, chemical reactions, stoichiometric relationships, periodic properties of the elements, thermochemistry, and properties of gases. Three hours of lecture and one three-hour laboratory. TBR Common Course: CHEM 1110

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: C- or better in CHEM 1110/CHEM 1111. Corequisite: CHEM 1121. Chemical equilibrium, solid and liquid states of matter, chemistry of acids and bases, principles of chemical kinetics, precipitation reactions, elementary thermodynamics, electrochemistry, and nuclear chemistry. Three hours of lecture and one three-hour laboratory. TBR Common Course: CHEM 1120

3 credit hours

Prerequisites: CHEM 1120/CHEM 1121with minimum grade of C- (or equivalent course). Corequisite: CHEM 2231. Gravimetric, volumetric, optical, and electrochemical analysis with examples from clinical chemistry, water pollution chemistry, occupational health and safety, and industrial chemistry. Three hours lecture.

2 credit hours

Prerequisite: Minimum grade of C- in CHEM 1120or equivalent course. Corequisite: CHEM 2230recommended, but not required. Laboratory course in classical wet chemical analysis; two three-hour laboratory periods per week.

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: CHEM 1120/CHEM 1121 or equivalent. Corequisite: CHEM 3011. Types of carbon compounds, their nomenclature, reactions, and physical properties. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory.

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: CHEM 3010. Corequisite: CHEM 3021. A continuation of CHEM 3010. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory.

4 credit hours

Prerequisites: MATH 1910and PHYS 2020/PHYS 2021.Corequisite: CHEM 4331. Basic study of physical chemistry including modern theories of atomic and molecular structure, chemical thermodynamics, electrochemistry, chemical kinetics, and related theoretical topics. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory.

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: CHEM 4330/CHEM 4331. A continuation of CHEM 4330/CHEM 4331. Corequisite: CHEM 4341. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory.

OR

5 credit hours

Prerequisite: CHEM 4330/CHEM 4331; MATH 1920. Corequisite: CHEM 4361. A molecular approach to traditional physical chemistry. Concepts and theorems of classical thermodynamics revisited on the basis of quantum and statistical mechanics applied to simple molecular models. Necessary mathematical apparatus discussed in sufficient detail, but only at applied level. Laboratory session provides hands-on experience with quantum-chemistry computational software to predict thermochemical and spectroscopic properties of molecules. Three hours lecture and two three-hour laboratories. Offered every spring.

Chosen from:

1 credit hour

Prerequisite:CHEM 2030 orCHEM 3010. Communicating science, taking standardized tests, applying for graduate/professional school or a job, using library and online resources, and other professional skills. Capstone course. One-hour lecture. Offered each spring.

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: CHEM 2030/CHEM 2031orCHEM 3010/CHEM 3011.Corequisite: CHEM 3531. Structure, properties, and functions of carbohydrates, lipids, proteins, and nucleic acids and their reactions in living organisms. Three-hour lecture and one three-hour lab.Does not count toward Biochemistry major.

OR

3 credit hours

Prerequisite/corequisite: CHEM 3020/CHEM 3021; not open to those who have had CHEM 3530/CHEM 3531. Chemical properties of biological molecules such as amino acids, proteins, enzymes, and carbohydrates. Chemical basis of enzyme catalysis and reactions of carbohydrate metabolism. Three hours lecture per week.

1 to 4 credit hours

Prerequisite: Permission of instructor; CHEM 2230 recommended. Student research allied with the instructor's research or designed specifically for the particular student. Minimum of three clock-hours work per week required for each credit hour. Summary report or some other form of presentation required. A total of no more than four hours of research credits may be counted toward a major in chemistry. May be repeated for a total of 12 credits.

1 to 3 credit hours

Prerequisites: Successful completion of target courses and permission of instructor. A course to refine thinking, communication, and interpersonal skills through exposure to on-the-spot technical questions and a laboratory teaching experience as an assistant in an introductory chemistry laboratory. Course credits will count toward a major in General Science and one hour will count toward a major in Chemistry. May be repeated for a total of three credits.

3 credit hours

Prerequisites: CHEM 3010/CHEM 3011 and CHEM 3020/CHEM 3021 or CHEM 2030/CHEM 2031 with permission of instructor. Drug design and development including structural changes involved in making drug analogs. Drug interaction with macromolecular targets including receptors, enzymes, and DNA. Various classes of drugs and their mechanisms for the treatment of specific therapeutic areas.

3 credit hours

Prerequisite: CHEM 3020/CHEM 3021. Theory of and practice in the interpretation of mass, infrared, Raman, ultraviolet-visible, and nuclear magnetic resonance spectra. Three hours lecture.

3 credit hours

Prerequisites: CHEM 1120 or equivalent; CHEM 2030 or CHEM 3010 recommended. The basic concepts and theories of inorganic chemistry and how these are used to predict and understand the physical and chemical properties of compounds of the elements other than carbon. Inorganic compounds in the air, water, earth, and in the laboratory and in biochemistry, geochemistry, and industrial materials and processes.

3 credit hours

Prerequisites: CHEM 3010andCHEM 4400 required;CHEM 3020 recommended; co-registration in CHEM 4360/CHEM 4361 recommended. In-depth study of at
omic theory for chemical periodicy; symmetry and group theory; molecular orbital theory; chemistry of metals, nonmetals, and organometallic compounds. Not open to students who have taken or are taking CHEM 4410. Offered alternate spring semesters.

3 credit hours

Prerequisite: CHEM 4500. Structure and metabolism of lipids, amino acids, nucleotides, and nucleic acids at the molecular level. Emphasis on chemistry of metabolic reactions. Three hours lecture per week.

2 credit hours

Prerequisite/corequisite: CHEM 4500 or consent of instructor. Laboratory in biochemical techniques with emphasis on protein purification, enzyme kinetics, carbohydrate and lipid analysis, and manipulation of DNA. Six hours of laboratory per week.

3 credit hours

Prerequisites: CHEM 1120/CHEM 1121and 8 hours of BIOL and/or CHEM beyond the freshman level.Introduces major environmental issues including climate change,water quality, air pollution, landfills, hazardous wastes, fossil fuels, andalternative energy. The quality ofenvironment and thechanges in the environment due to contamination explored. Three hours lecture.

3 credit hours

Prerequisites: CHEM 1120/CHEM 1121, CHEM 2030/CHEM 2031or CHEM 3010/CHEM 3011, 8 hours of upper-division biology or chemistry, andjunior or senior standing.Fundamental chemical principles applied to the fate and behavior of environmental contaminants in soil-water environments. Important toxins explored and their movement and occurrence in ecosystems explained based on chemical and physical parameters. Topics will include pesticides, dioxin, mercury, and bioaccumulation. Three hours lecture.

3 credit hours

Prerequisite: CHEM 3020/CHEM 3021; physical chemistry strongly recommended. Chemistry of polymers; their structure, properties, and applications. Three hours lecture.

2 credit hours

Prerequisite: CHEM 3020/CHEM 3021; corequisites:CHEM 4700; CHEM 4330/CHEM 4331strongly recommended. Laboratory introduction to synthesis, kinetics, characterization, engineering, and applications of polymers and other modern materials.

4 credit hours

Prerequisites: 24 hours of ACS-approved chemistry courses. Student research allied with the instructor's research or designed specifically for the particular student. Minimum of twelve (12) hours a week. Student must write a formal report which is approved by the instructor to receive credit for this course.

4 credit hours

(Same asFSCH 4230.) Prerequisite: CHEM 2230/CHEM 2231,orCHEM 4550/CHEM 4551.Corequisite: CHEM 4231. Potentiometric titration, polarographic, coulometric, gas chromatographic, ultraviolet, visible and infrared absorption, and atomic absorption techniques of analysis. Requirements and limitations of each technique for obtaining quantitative measurements; applications to various chemical systems from both theoretical and experimental standpoints. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory.

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: Consent of instructor. A problem from chemistry, physics, or other physical science appropriate to the student's background and interest. A formal written report must be submitted and approved by the instructor to receive credit for this course.

NOTE: Electives must be taken at MTSU.

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: MATH 1710or successful completion of high school precalculus course. An integrated and rigorous study of the algebra and trigonometry needed to successfully attempt calculus. Emphasis on functions, their analysis and their applications. Level of algebraic sophistication developed above that found in MATH 1710. Topics include exponentials and logarithms, analysis of graphs, and word problems. Graphing calculator required. TBR Common Course: MATH 1730

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: MATH 1730with a grade of C or better or Math ACT of 26 or better or Calculus placement test score of 73 or better. An introduction to calculus with an emphasis on analysis of functions, multidisciplinary applications of calculus, and theoretical understanding of differentiation and integration. Topics include the definition of the derivative, differentiation techniques, and applications of the derivative. Calculus topics related to trigonometric, exponential, and logarithmic functions also included. Course concludes with the fundamental theorem of calculus; the definition of antidifferentiation and the definite integral; basic applications of integrations; and introductory techniques of integration. Graphing calculator required. TBR Common Course: MATH 1910

4 credit hours

Prerequisite:BIOL 1110/BIOL 1111. Corequisite: BIOL 1121. Primarily for Biology majors and minors and other science-oriented students. Survey of plants and animals emphasizing evolution, structure, function, reproduction, growth, and ecology. Three hours lecture and one three-hour laboratory. TBR Common Course: BIOL 1120

0 credit hours

Prerequisite: MATH 1710with a minimum grade of C (2.0) or MATH 1730or MATH 1910. Required corequisite: PHYS 2011. Web-based discussion class to be taken in conjunction with cooperative-learning based problems lab PHYS 2011. Classical mechanics traditionally covered in a first-semester college physics course. Kinematics, forces, momentum, angular motion, calorimetry, and sound waves. Class time used for discussion of the Web-lecture material and for the administration of exams. TBR Common Course: PHYS 2010

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: MATH 1710with a minimum grade of C (2.0) or MATH 1730or MATH 1910. Required corequisite: PHYS 2010. Group-oriented problems course taken in conjunction with the Web-based discussion class PHYS 2010. Students work in groups with the topics presented in the PHYS 2010discussion class. Covers kinematics, forces, momentum, angular motion, calorimetry, and sound waves. Skills associated with the development of experimental investigations including graphical analysis and estimation of uncertainties emphasized. Two two-and-one-half-hour laboratory sessions. TBR Common Course: PHYS 2011

0 credit hours

Prerequisite: PHYS 2011. Required corequisite: PHYS 2021. Web-based discussion class taken in conjunction with the cooperative-learning based problems lab PHYS 2021. Fundamentals of optics, modern physics, and electronics traditionally covered in a second-semester college physics course. Reflection and refraction, vision, diffraction effects, quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, and analog and digital electronics. Scheduled class time is used for discussions of the Web-lecture material and for the administration of exams. TBR Common Course: PHYS 2020

4 credit hours

Prerequisite: PHYS 2011. Required corequisite: PHYS 2020. Group-oriented problems course to be taken in conjunction with the Web-based discussion class PHYS 2020. Students work in groups with the topics presented in the PHYS 2020discussion class. Optics, modern physics, and electronics traditionally covered in a second-semester college physics course. Reflection and refraction, vision, diffraction effects, quantum mechanics, atomic and nuclear physics, and analog and digital electronics. The skills associated with the development of experimental investigations including graphical analysis and estimation of uncertainties emphasized. Two two-and-one-half-hour laboratory sessions. TBR Common Course: PHYS 2021

Curricular listings include General Education requirements in Communication, History, Humanities and/or Fine Arts, Mathematics, Natural Sciences, and Social/Behavioral Sciences categories.

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Chemistry | Middle Tennessee State University

If someone isgoing to commit mass murder of innocent civilians, it's not too much of a stretch to assume that he's going to lie about it. Which is exactly whatBashar al-Assaddid when he denied that Syria used chemical weapons in the April 4th attack in the town of Khan Sheikhouninnorthern Syria.

There was never much question that the chemical agent used was Sarin gas (1), but since Sarin is Sarin, isn't it at least plausible that someone else used the neurotoxin? Is it fair to pin it on Assad?

Actually, it is. This is because Sarin is Sarin, but without a second chemical called a stabilizer, the molecule is too unstable to keep around; the byproduct of Sarin is hydrofluoric acid, which catalyzes its decomposition. In order to neutralize the acid and preserve the toxin, a class of basic compounds called amines are used. Different groups and countries usedifferent amines as stabilizers, which provides a "Sarin fingerprint." In this case the finger points directly at Assad since Syria has been known to use a stabilizer called hexamethylenetetramine (aka hexamine), which was detected long after any trace ofSarin remained (2).

Although an amine is needed to stabilize Sarin, not any amine will do the job. This is because most amines will react quickly with Sarin, and convert it to something that is non-toxic. Please forgive the following chemistry lesson:

The three classes of amines. Tertiary amines are unreactive, so they can be used to stabilize Sarin without destroying it.

Bashar al-Assad's Sarin "recipe" actually made it easier for scientists to pin this act on him. There are only a handful of tertiary amines that have been used to stabilize Sarin, andhexamethylenetetraminea stabilizer that can be traced directly to Syrian production facilitiesis one of the easier amines to track. Here's why.

Triethylamine, a very common lab chemical,is one of the other tertiary amines that has been used to stabilize Sarin. It works perfectly well as an acid scavenger, but unlikehexamethylenetetramine, you'll never find it later on. This is because of one of its physical propertiesit evaporates very quickly.

Triethylamine andhexamethylenetetramineare both tertiary amines, which can be used to stabilize Sarin. Triethylamine evaporates almost immediately. Hexamethylenetetramine does not.

So, bychoosinghexamethylenetetramine to stabilize (3,4)the Sarin, the Syrian scientists who made it left a "chemical calling card" that gave away its origin.PerhapsBashar al-Assadjust doesn't care, since everyone on Earth knew that he did it anyhow. Or maybehe's just a bad chemist. And a far worse person.

Notes:

(1) The symptoms that affected the victims were consistent with the use of an organophosphate nerve agent. Sarin and VX are the poisons "of choice." It had to be one of them.

(2) Sarin is not only volatile but highly chemically reactive. It decomposes rapidly under various sets of conditions. Within a week (and probably far less)after the attack, none would remain.

(3) Hexamethylenetetraamine is a very good acid scavenger. It is a white solid that is easy to handle, and it has four basic nitrogen atoms in the molecule. Each nitrogen will neutralize one molecule of hydrofluoric acid, so you need to use less of it.

(4) Since hexamethylenetetraamine is used forother applications, for example, manufacturing plastics, its detection is not a guarantee that is was used byBashar al-Assadin the attack, but it's damn close.

More here:
How Chemistry Implicated Syrian President Bashar al-Assad ... - American Council on Science and Health

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Chemistry teacher accused of having sex with student in car KRON4.com FLORIDA (WFLA) A Port St. Lucie chemistry teacher is facing felony sexual assault charges after police say she had sex with a 17-year-old student. Police began investigating Tiffany Michelle Geliga, 35, after school administrators at Port St. Lucie ... Police: Florida chemistry teacher had sex with studentCBS News Female chemistry teacher, 35, arrested for having sex with a 17-year-old student in her carThe Sun Florida teacher arrested for having sex with a student, 17Daily Mail TCPalm -Palm Beach Post -WPTV.com all 23 news articles »

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Chemistry teacher accused of having sex with student in car - KRON4.com