Chemistry Professor Neil Wolfman Died Wednesday The Heights – The Heights

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Neil Wolfman, a chemistry professor at Boston College, died on Wednesday, according to a family-run blog that provided updates on Wolfmans health to family, friends, and former students. Wolfman went on medical leave from BC at the beginning of the spring semester after being diagnosed with cancer, returning briefly in the beginning of the fall semester.

Wolfman, who taught general chemistry, instructed many students throughout his years at BC, particularly those in the chemistry department or on the pre-med track. Wolfman also worked in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industry at Pfizer Inc. for 29 years.

The son of Holocaust survivors, Wolfman was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., and grew up in the Bronx. After graduating from the Bronx High School of Science in New York City, he attended New York University as an undergraduate before moving on to Cornell University for his masters degree and a doctorate in biophysical chemistry.

In a 2014 interview with The Heights, Wolfman described his motto: Try to do the right thing.

I cant say that Im successful in every single circumstance, Wolfman said in the interview. I want to try to do the right thing. I feel that my job here goes beyond teaching the class. I feel like my job here is to enable the success of as many kids as possible, however they define success. I can get no greater satisfaction than that.

A funeral service for Wolfman will be held in Nashville on Sunday afternoon, in addition to a memorial service to be held in Boston in February, according to the blog post. His family asks that pictures of Wolfman, kind words, and memories be sent to the family at [emailprotected]

This article will be updated.

Featured Image by Emily Sadeghian / Heights Archives

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Chemistry Professor Neil Wolfman Died Wednesday The Heights - The Heights

Getting bisphenol A out of food containers, and tracing minute chemical mixtures in the environment – Science Magazine

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As part of a special issue on chemicals for tomorrows Earth, weve got two green chemistry stories. First, host Sarah Crespi talks with contributing correspondent Warren Cornwell about how a company came up with a replacement for the popular can lining material bisphenol Aand then recruited knowledgeable critics to test its safety.

Sarah is also joined by Beate Escher of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research and the University of Tbingen to discuss ways to trace complex mixtures of humanmade chemicals in the environment. They talk about how new technologies can help detect these mixtures, understand their toxicity, and eventually connect their effects on the environment, wildlife, and people.

Read more in the special issue on chemicals for tomorrows Earth.

This weeks episode was edited by Podigy.

Listen to previous podcasts.

About the Science Podcast

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Getting bisphenol A out of food containers, and tracing minute chemical mixtures in the environment - Science Magazine

Heisler: Alex Caruso and the Lakers are acing chemistry – OCRegister

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So much for Alex Caruso, All-Star.

The voting was fun while it lasted for Laker fans and Caruso, aka The Bald Mamba, who found himself No. 4 among Western Conference guards going into last weeks final tabulation.

No, really. That was No.4 in the entire conference, ahead of stars like Russell Westbrook and Devin Booker.

Light-hearted as it was, it was an authentic folk movement, as opposed to the modern practice of teams getting out the vote. The Lakers have never bothered to do that as one of the least-active marketing organizations with star-studded teams that have long sold themselves.

Happily for what legitimacy the NBAs selection process retains, Caruso dropped off the leaderboard in the final voting.

Nevertheless, it was a huge compliment for a 25-year-old journeyman with a look all his own (thinning hair, white headband) a South Bay Laker a year ago who wasnt on the NBA roster to stay until March.

He wasnt even a star in the G League, No. 7 in scoring on the team behind journeymen Scott Machado, Travis Wear, Johnathan Williams and Spencer Hawes, as well as NBA roster players Svi Mykhailiuk and Moe Wagner and, worse for a new-era point guard, making only 27 percent of his 3-point attempts.

Making a quantum leap into Lakers lore, the Bald Mamba now plays an efficient 19 minutes per game, making 36 percent of his 3-point tries and is No. 2 in the entire NBA in points allowed per possession, suggesting he knows where hes supposed to be in Coach Frank Vogels defensive scheme and plays alongside teammates who do, too.

(LeBron James is No. 1 in points allowed per possession, suggesting he wasnt really kidding when he was caught on camera joking with a referee about going back to defending.)

Of course, its not Carusos quiet contribution that excited blas Lakers fans into voting for him, but his where-did-that-come-from dunks.

The excitement isnt the point. The efficiency is, not just Carusos but the entire rosters.

Unlike last season, which looked promising but fell flat with James and a young, talented supporting cast of Brandon Ingram, Kyle Kuzma, Lonzo Ball and Josh Hart, these newly assembled Lakers featured a new coaching staff and nine new players as the consensus No.5 pick in the West. But they were cohesive from the start.

The teams picked ahead of them all looked more cohesive, none more than the Clippers, who upgraded from Tobias Harris and Danilo Gallinari to Kawhi Leonard and Paul George and already had Lou Williams and Montrezl Harrell the top scoring bench duo in NBA history in their current roles, along with Patrick Beverley, Ivica Zubac, Landry Shamet and JaMychal Green.

Showing you never can really tell, the Clippers are now in the midst of a crisis, with Harrell earlier this month ripping unnamed teammates which insiders took as a complaint about Leonard and George getting preferential treatment and Coach Doc Rivers ripping Trez the next day for telling so much to the press.

Then there were the Lakers.

It would probably be irresponsible to think its all going to happen overnight and that were going to start the season with great cohesiveness, Vogel said in training camp.

There are going to be bumps in the road, there are nights where it might be ugly and guys are getting to know each other on both ends of the floor figuring out what their role is going to be on this team.

Surprise!

Their stars meshed, predictable as that was with bigs and perimeter players a natural fit, and especially these two.

James, a dominating perimeter player, had never played alongside a big the caliber of Davis.

Davis, the most versatile of bigs and a close friend of LeBron, who had convinced A.D. to come had never played alongside a perimeter player like LeBron.

The surprise was how the role players slipped seamlessly into place with most signed off the waiver wire none for more than two seasons as the team set up its salary cap for 2021 (Giannis Antetokounmpo, anyone?).

The division of duties turned out to be natural, too.

Stars: Whether your players fit or not, youve got to be good enough. These are the players who decide that and have. James and Davis do everything, starting with the 6-foot-9, 250-pound LeBron playing point guard and leading the NBA at 10.8 assists per game.

Bigs: JaVale McGee and Dwight Howard arent all-around players, but they are big, physical shot-blockers. With A.D., theyre perfect for Vogels protect-the-rim scheme that has them No. 1 in blocks and No.4 in defensive rating.

Bench scorer: Thats Kuzma, in the one part that hasnt worked so well.

Kuzma has been great in six starts, averaging 20 points in 32 minutes but averages just 12 points with 0.8 assists in 23 minutes when he comes off the bench.

Nor do metrics suggest hes a great defender. Of the 10 Lakers playing 15 minutes or more, hes No. 9 in points allowed per possession.

More minutes would help. Of course, so would better defense.

Everyone else: The other five Lakers averaging 15 minutes Caruso, Danny Green, Avery Bradley, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Rajon Rondo are all-around role players, solid one-on-one defenders who carry out their assignments. None of them is J.J. Redick, but they move the ball and knock down enough of the open shots James and Davis create for them.

Of the five, only Bradley, at 26 percent, is shooting below 35 percent on 3-pointers, and hes a career 36 percent shooter from the arc.

Not that its hard to see when cohesion goes out the window, like a team president who says hes not having fun.

For years after Bryant blew out his Achilles, the Lakers werent good enough to make the playoffs. Last season they were but melted down.

Embattled Lakers GM Rob Pelinka just got a new contract for bringing in the right guys as well as Davis, after the horrors of last spring when the departing Magic Johnson repeatedly bashed him as a backstabber.

Even as Johnson railed at Pelinka, Lakers controlling owner Jeanie Buss posted a picture of her and Magic at dinner presumably to reassure Laker fans, but actually suggesting she didnt know whom to turn to.

So much for the bad old days, at least for the moment.

In the biggest surprise of all, with the players, coaches and front office all fitting, its a new, cohesive day in Lakerdom.

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Heisler: Alex Caruso and the Lakers are acing chemistry - OCRegister

Does the Giants’ lack of in-house Latin players impact clubhouse … – Yahoo Sports

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Andrew Baggarly of the Mercury News has a story about the San Francisco Giants minor league woes. All of their affiliates are in last place at the moment and few if any of their prospects are advancing as quickly as the club would like to see.

One of the issues Baggarly identifies is the Giants poor track record in developing international talent, noting that no Giants player from a Latin American country who was originally signed by the Giants has played for the big league club this year (one,Reyes Moronta, spent one day on the 25-man roster but did not play). All of the others were acquired via trade or free agency.

Baggarly suggests that the relatively small number of Latin players on the Giants roster, and the fact that none of them came up through the Giants system together, may be impacting the Giants clubhouse. Here he calls back to a Johnny Cueto quote from April:

When I was with Kansas City, it was a team, I think, it was a very happy bunch because we had a lot of players from the Dominican, Cueto said through Spanish interpreter Erwin Higueros in April. The same with Cincinnati. But here, its different. As Latins, we like to get together kind of loud, and be a happy bunch. But here, you look around and everyone is on their own, just sitting at their locker, very quiet, just by themselves. Thats just how they are.

I had missed that quote when it first came up in April. It seems tangential at best to Baggarlys thesis about the Giants developmental issues, but I find it interesting to consider all the same in light of the Giants sitting in last place.

On one level, obviously, it comes off as a negative comment. After all, when a player says that one club he played for felt like a team and that current club feels like something different, that has to be taken as a negative, yes? To Cueto, the Giants, dont feel like a team and thats never something good to hear from a ballplayer.

Still, its worth noting that the quote came from a couple of months ago. At the time Cueto said that, the season was young, the Giants were expected to be pretty good and, as such, it could be taken as a mostly neutral observation, not some comment about why the Giants arent playing well. Indeed, if the Giants were in first place now it could be seen, perhaps, as almost a compliment. The Giants are a serious, business-minded bunch who let their playing do the talking!

But here it is, reappearing now, when the Giants stink, both at the big league level and in the minors, and it is clearly being offered as a potential reason for why they stink. A lack of Latin players perhaps harming their on-field talent, sure, but also harming clubhouse chemistry and making AT&T Park a dreary place to be.

I dont have a view about the Giants talent base or their clubhouse chemistry as I was only in it for, like, an hour back in Scottsdale in March. But I do find it interesting how player comments can, depending on what is going on with the club on the field at any given time, be seen in many different ways. And how, as always, the conversation about clubhouse chemistry is so often a backwards-looking thing.

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Heres How Much Money Chemists Make In Every State – Forbes

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The average annual salary for chemists in the U.S. is about $30,000 more than the average salary for ... [+] all occupations in the country.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Outlook Handbook, there are currently 95,800 chemist and materials scientist jobs in the United States, with chemists comprising 84,560 of them, according to the BLSs Occupational Employment Statistics. This popular science career is projected to grow by 4% from 2018 to 2018, which is about as fast as the average rate for all occupations in the U.S.

Using occupational data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, we've analyzed and compiled an overview of the average chemist salary by state in the U.S. Read on for a full breakdown of where chemists make the most money, and where they're making the least.

The national average annual wage of a chemist is $83,850, according to the BLS, which is over $30,000 more than the average annual salary for all occupations, $51,960. However, that average salary is for the U.S. overall, which hides significant differences depending on geography, such as the state you reside in.

Below is a list of the top-10 highest-paying states for chemists:

Maryland easily takes the No. 1 spot, boasting an average chemist salary of $116,060, up 7.2% from 2013, when it was $108,290. In fact, Maryland is the only state where chemists have earned more than $100,000 on average every year from 2013 to 2018. Meanwhile, No. 3 Virginia has seen impressive growth in chemist salaries. The average chemist salary there increased by 22.1%, from $80,800 in 2013 to $98,670 in 2018.

Related: Heres How Much Money Mechanical Engineers Make In Every State

The bottom-10 states where chemists make the least money tend to be ones less densely populated, and often laying in the U.S. South, Midwest or the Mountain states of the West. Check them out below, with No. 1 being the lowest-paying state:

For some of these states, the prospects for chemists is actually looking better, despite current below-average salaries. For instance, in South Dakota, the average chemist salary has risen by 16.6% over the last five years, from $53,640 in 2013 to $62,550 in 2018. In West Virginia too, chemist salaries have experienced healthy growth (17.5%) since 2013.

Below youll find the average annual wage for chemists in all 50 states from 2013 to 2018. The state with the greatest growth in chemist salaries is Hawaii. From $59,420 in 2013, the average chemist salary grew by 28.7%, reaching $76,480 in 2018. Texas comes in second in this regard, with wages growing 27.9% from 2013 to 2018.

More: Heres How Much Money Civil Engineers Make In Every State

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Heres How Much Money Chemists Make In Every State - Forbes

UOG will hold Chemistry Forum – Pacific Daily News

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Pacific Daily News , news@guampdn.com Published 3:03 p.m. ChT April 14, 2017 | Updated 9 hours ago

High school students participate in the University of Guam's annual Chemistry Titration Competition in March.(Photo: Courtesy of UOG)

The University of Guam's chemistry program will host a Chemistry Forum from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.April 19 in the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences'Lecture Hall.

Guest speaker Frank Ishizaki will tellhis island chemistry story, according to a UOG news release. Ishizaki is one of the universitys 2016 Distinguished Alumni Award winners and was the first Triton to graduate from UOG with a chemistry degree.

Ishizakiis a retired FBI special agentand has served as chief of police, Guam Homeland Security adviserand the director of the Department of Corrections.

The forum also will provideinformation on updates for UOGs chemistry program. A panel of chemistry professionals will discuss opportunities for graduates of the program, the news release stated.

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Magazine Integrating Biology and Chemistry for De… – Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

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Current Tools

Traditional approaches and tools available for the risk assessment of safe and efficacious drugs have been based on measuring the parent drug in plasmaboth in animal models and humans. This often does not provide a sufficient level of information to the scientist. It is recognized that most drug targets are not in plasma, and determining the relevant tissue distribution of not only the parent drug but also its metabolites would provide much greater understanding of pharmacology and toxicology.

The current best practice methods of quantitative whole body autoradiography (QWBA) and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) put the emphasis on tissues rather than plasma, but still fall short of providing the complete picture. Both techniques have challenges. QWBA is the technique of choice for determining drug distribution,1 and the data generated is often primarily provided in new drug regulatory submissions. The technique, however, presents a composite of the total radioactivity present and cannot distinguish parent drug from metabolite. Thus it has severe limitations for researchers looking for insight into biochemical pathways and mechanisms.

LC-MS analysis is performed on extracts from tissue homogenates. This type of analysis does not elucidate any spatial information and, just as importantly, can be misleading. For example, if an analyte in the tissue is highly localized, the homogenization process could potentially dilute it below the limit of detection (LOD). Alternatively, when an analyte is determined from tissue homogenate, a researcher could draw incorrect conclusions about toxicity, because the analyte is presumed to be evenly present throughout the tissue when in fact it may be highly localized.

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Magazine Integrating Biology and Chemistry for De... - Genetic Engineering & Biotechnology News

Drummond: No changes needed, Pistons need to improve team … – PistonPowered

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Mar 1, 2017; New Orleans, LA, USA; Detroit Pistons center Andre Drummond (0) is defended by New Orleans Pelicans center Alexis Ajinca (42) during the first quarter of a game at the Smoothie King Center. Mandatory Credit: Derick E. Hingle-USA TODAY Sports

NBA Draft Lottery 2017: Louisvilles Donovan Mitchell, Arizonas Lauri Markkanen among projected Pistons picks in latest mock drafts by Justin Prince

Happy 60th Birthday to Pistons Legend Bill Laimbeer by Greg Tonge

This past regular season for the Detroit Pistonshas been described as a disappointmentplenty of times, leading to afeeling that some major changes are coming. If Andre Drummond was in charge, he would do the opposite of that.

The Pistons center told reporters he feels the franchise should stay pat during itsnew logo unveiling Tuesday, according to theDetroit Free Presss Vince Ellis.

Drummond explained that even though the team missed the playoffs with a 37-45 record this year, he feels the teams main core deserves another chance:

I dont think we need to do any changes, Drummond told reporters. We had a lot of bumps in the road last season with different things going on, and it took everybody out of sync.

The Pistons had suffered from injury issues right from the start, including losing starting point guard Reggie Jackson for their first 21 games due to knee tendinitis. Detroit had alsostruggled to gain any momentum offensively throughout the year, finishing 26th in offensive efficiency in the NBA, according to basketball-reference.com.

Drummond had a down year in 2016-17, averaging 13.6 points and 13.8 rebounds per game in 81 appearances. Both of those averages are lower than his all-star campaign the previous season. He also took about two shots less per game and had a career-low in Player Efficiency Rating with 20.9.

The veterans comments are similar to what Pistons head coach and team president Stan Van Gundy told reporters last month during the teams end of season press conference.

Van Gundy said at the time that he felt the Pistons needed to make some tweaks this offseason. He explained the roster was built with Jacksons pick-and-roll abilities in mind,but with him missing 30 games total, that never had the group they had in mind.

Drummond also feels the team needs to work on improving its chemistry together for next season. He hopes to spend time with his fellow teammates throughout the off-season:

With this summer coming up, we have to do a better job staying connected the more stuff we do together, the better our camaraderie will be, Drummond said.Right now is the most important time for our team, to rest, get ourselves together, come together collectively and come up with what we need to do together.

With Drummond appearing to take a bigger leadership role heading into this summer, it will be interesting to see how the Pistons offseason goes and if their chemistry does improve enough to get them back into the postseason.

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Oconomowoc’s Nature Hill Intermediate School students win state chemistry competition – Lake Country Now

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Lake Country 10:17 a.m. CT April 13, 2017

Nature Hill Intermediate School students took three of the four top places in a statewide chemistry competition. The winner was Nature Hill eighth-grader Ryan Swanson who will go on to the national competition June 19.(Photo: Scott Ash)

Students from Nature Hill Intermediate School swept three of the four top places in the 2017 Wisconsin You Be The Chemist State Challenge, and one of the studentswill go on to represent Wisconsin in the national chemistry competition.

Eighth-grader Ryan Swanson has won an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C., where he willcompete June 19.

The Wisconsin competition, held at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, wassponsored by the Alpha Tau chapter of Sigma Alpha Sororityof Madisonand Brenntag Great LakesLLCof Wauwatosa.

Taking second place wasBrendan Mortenson-Chrisman of Nature Hill Intermediate School, third was Elizabeth Scott of Holy Family Homeschoolersand fourth was Mike Krueger of Nature Hill Intermediate School. Each of the top four finalists was awarded a plaque, medaland gift card.

All correctly answered dozens of chemistry and general science questions over multiple rounds of competition.

The challenge was developed by the Chemical Educational Foundation. Students in fifth through eighth grades answered questions for prizes at local and state levels.

Each national competition participant will receive an advanced-level chemistry kit, as well as other prizes and gifts. The first- through fourth-place winners will also receive scholarships totaling $18,500.

Mike Schick, a chemist at one of the sponsors, Brenntag Great Lakes, paid tribute to Nature Hill Intermediate School Chemistry Club teacher Tim Bohlman.

"Tim has done an excellent job teaching fifth- to eighth-grade students to sharpen their chemistry knowledge in preparation for the competition, Schick said in a news release announcing the state winners.

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Oconomowoc's Nature Hill Intermediate School students win state chemistry competition - Lake Country Now

Donald Trump Shares Chocolate Cake and ‘Great Chemistry’ With China’s Xi – NBCNews.com

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Trump emphasized the size of his "beautiful piece of chocolate cake." FOX Business Network

Trump mistakenly said he told Xi that the missiles were headed to Iraq, but quickly corrected himself when prompted by Bartiromo.

"So what happens is I said we've just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq and I wanted you to know this. And he was eating his cake. And he was silent," said Trump.

Bartiromo piped in, "to Syria?"

"Yes. Heading toward Syria," Trump continued. "In other words, we've just launched 59 missiles heading toward Syria."

Trump said Xi paused and then he asked his interpreter to repeat the information.

"I didn't think that was a good sign," Trump said, but "he said to me, anybody that uses gases you could almost say or anything else but anybody that was so brutal and uses gases to do that young children and babies, it's OK. He was OK."

The dessert diplomacy seems to have sweetened Trump's relationship with Xi.

Earlier in the interview, Trump told Bartiromo: "We had great chemistry."

He said their meetings were supposed to last for just 10 to 15 minutes, but eventually went on for two and three hours. "I mean, we understand each other," Trump said.

Trump said the first topic the two leaders discussed was North Korea, and that he appreciated Xi's deep knowledge.

"The first thing I brought up was North Korea. I said you've got to help us with North Korea, because we can't allow it. And it's not good for you. And you have a tremendous power because of trade," Trump said. "Now, he then explains thousands of years of history with Korea. Not that easy. In other words, not as simple as people would think. They've had tremendous conflict with Korea over the years."

Trump's warmth toward the leader of world's third largest economy is a sea change from his rhetoric during the election campaign when he frequently accused of China of

But on Wednesday Trump told the Wall Street Journal that his administration

Chinese observers said the change of tone was interesting, but one to watch.

"Chemistry is important, but it is not the only thing that matters," Victor Gao, a Chinese international affairs expert who worked as a translator for the Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping, told NBC News in Beijing. "What truly matters is how the two leaders position themselves in terms of their national interests and how they bring their own views and strategic visions about peace and war and economic developments."

However, Professor Jin Canrong, an expert on China-U.S. relations at Renmin University in Beijing, said chemistry was "very important because it can help the two leaders reduce miscalculation."

That could prove useful in dealing with the nuclear-capable North Korea.

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Donald Trump Shares Chocolate Cake and 'Great Chemistry' With China's Xi - NBCNews.com

‘Great chemistry’: Trump abandons China criticism as Russia ties suffer – The Guardian

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Less than two months after branding China the grand champion of currency manipulation, Donald Trump has performed a breathtaking pirouette away from those allegations, declaring: Theyre not currency manipulators.

Trumps verdict, delivered in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, was the latest hint that ties between the worlds two largest economies were warming after the billionaires shock election ushered in a period of intense uncertainty that stirred fears of a trade war or even military confrontation.

We have a very good relationship, we have great chemistry together, Trump said of Chinese president, Xi Jinping, adding: I think his wife is terrific.

Trump also backed away from earlier criticism of Beijings alleged inaction over North Korea, describing how after receiving a history lesson on the subject from Xi he had come away convinced that, its not so easy.

Trumps sudden enthusiasm for a country he has previously lampooned as a US enemy came as he proclaimed that relations with Moscow might have hit an all-time low.

Were not getting along with Russia at all, Trump said on Wednesday as last weeks airstrikes on Syria, Moscows key Middle Eastern ally, dominated a peppery encounter between Russian president Vladimir Putin and secretary of state Rex Tillerson.

Steven Weber, an international relations specialist from the University of California, Berkeley, said Trumps volte-face towards China suggested pragmatism was kicking in.

Facing an intractable crisis in North Korea and having been elected vowing to create jobs and improve the economy, Trump appeared to have understood that he had little choice but to build bridges with Beijing.

Hes obviously capable of understanding the numbers of a big real estate deal and so he is obviously capable of understanding projections about the number of jobs that would be lost in a significant trade spat, Weber said.

So Im not surprised by it that much. Its actually consistent with much of what he said; that he wanted to try to use Americas leverage in the relationship to get slightly better deals. He wasnt trying to break the relationship. He wasnt trying to undermine the Chinese economy and he certainly isnt trying to undermine the US economy.

Ultimately the economic relationship with China is multiple, multiple, multiple times more important than anything having to do with Russia, Weber added.

China reacted with jubilance to Trumps decision to withdraw his currency manipulation charges, which experts across the world have long dismissed as outdated.

He will be the best US president for China compared with any previous US president, celebrated Shen Dingli, an international relations expert from Shanghais Fudan University. He is the most friendly US president ever.

Last year, at the height of tensions between China and the incoming US president, Shen called on Beijing to close its US embassy if Trump continued to engage with Taiwanese president Tsai Ing-wen after taking up office.

Following Trumps latest conciliatory comments Shen was singing a different tune, claiming the American billionaire would receive the warmest treatment when he made an anticipated state visit to Beijing later this year.

He cares about business. China cares about business. He is a capitalist. China is a capitalist. Capitalists working with capitalists. It is the art of the deal; a trade of interests. I give you interests. You give me interests. Its business, Shen said, predicting that Beijing would respond to Trumps overtures by offering greater collaboration on North Korea.

Li Yonghui, a China-US relations expert from Beijings Foreign Language University, said Trumps change in tone and abandonment of extreme remarks about China suggested he was adapting to his new role and new environment.

The supposed chemistry between Xi and Trump was quite normal, Li added, pointing to their similar personalities and governing styles.

Not everyone was so taken with what one China expert dubbed the insta-bromance between Trump and Xi.

CNN anchor Anderson Cooper struggled to digest Trumps admission that he had completely changed his views on North Korea following a brief lecture from Xi.

President Trump said ... that after listening to the Chinese president explain the history of China and North Korea for about 10 minutes he, realised its not so easy? Cooper stammered. I mean ... is that... I really am speechless.

Trump swatted away criticism of his reversal using his favourite form of communication. One by one we are keeping our promises, he wrote on Twitter.

Additional reporting by Wang Zhen

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'Great chemistry': Trump abandons China criticism as Russia ties suffer - The Guardian

Students to compete in national Chemistry Olympiad – Arkansas Online

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Searcy High School juniors Anna-Catherine King and Michael Kidd were among 80 students from around the state to compete in the Chemistry Olympiad, taking home first- and second-place honors, respectively.

The test took place last month at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock, where King and Kidd will return this month for the national exam. They also are invited to an awards banquet April 22 at UALR.

According to the American Chemical Society, which has sponsored the U.S. National Chemistry Olympiad since 1984, the program is a chemistry competition for high school students.

The purpose of the competition is to stimulate young people to achieve excellence in chemistry, the organizations website states.

The Searcy students chemistry teacher, Brandon Renuard, said if they do well enough on the National Chemistry Olympiad, they will travel to Washington, D.C., for a training camp to prepare for and take the International Chemistry Olympiad in Thailand.

They are both amazing students, Renuard said. They can be fairly quiet, especially Anna-Catherine, but she is also very competitive. Michael is a little more talkative and is likely to ask interesting, thought-provoking questions pertaining to math and science.

The students will also take the Advanced Placement chemistry and the AP environmental-science exams in May, Renuard said.

They are not enrolled in an environmental-science course, but I have been coaching them for that test as well. I fully expect them to pass both AP exams.

King realized her interest in science last year during her pre-AP chemistry course, she said.

I like applying math to solve problems and learning things. I like how new the knowledge was.

She most looks forward to the lab practical section at the national Olympiad exam on April 22.

It will be different from any other Ive taken, and I like a challenge, she said.

When shes not applying her math or science skills, King said, she enjoys history, Spanish, and her favorite class is English. After high school, she said, she plans to attend the honors college at the University of Arkansas and major in psychology with a minor in Spanish.

Kidd said he discovered his interest in science during his physical-science class his freshman year.

I always enjoyed doing the labs. Particularly, the flame test lab made me really enjoy chemistry, he said. By using different compounds, we were able to change the color of flames, and each chemical created a unique color.

He said he became interested in the Chemistry Olympiad test when Renuard provided his students with a practice version.

It was just as challenging as the real test, but I scored high in my class, Kidd said. I thought that if I could do it again, I would have a good chance of winning. The afternoon before the test, we looked over one from a previous year and analyzed every question until we finally finished, three hours after school ended.

At the national competition, Kidd said, he also looks forward to the lab practical portion of the test.

Normally, when I enter the lab, I know exactly what I will be doing. I think it is going to be interesting to go into the lab without a plan or present procedure to follow.

Kidd also enjoys math in school and plans to pursue an engineering degree in college, he said. In addition to math and science, he enjoys playing chess, he noted, and he has been on the schools bowling team since he was a freshman.

Wherever he lands in life, Kidd said, hell always be grateful for the advantages Searcy High School has provided him.

Searcy is a great school; there are many classes that you can take based on your interests. When Mr. Renuard teaches, he always tells us extra little pieces of information about the topic. Even though they are unlikely to be on the AP test in May, it is always enjoyable to learn a little fact that few other people would hear.

King added that having a teacher like Renuard has helped her excel. He stays after school for review sessions and helps us prepare. He really goes the extra mile.

None Jillian McGehee can be reached at .

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Students to compete in national Chemistry Olympiad - Arkansas Online

Supercomputing Gets Neural Network Boost in Quantum Chemistry – The Next Platform

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April 13, 2017 Nicole Hemsoth

Just two years ago, supercomputing was thrust into a larger spotlight because of the surge of interest in deep learning. As we talked about here, the hardware similarities, particularly for training on GPU-accelerated machines and key HPC development approaches, including MPI to scale across a massive number of nodes, brought new attention to the world of scientific and technical computing.

What wasnt clear then was how traditional supercomputing could benefit from all the framework developments in deep learning. After all, they had many of the same hardware environments and problems that could benefit from prediction, but what they lacked were models that could be mapped to traditional HPC codes. In that short amount of timemostly in the last yearthere has been a big push in many traditional HPC areas to do just thatto find ways to make supercomputing simulations more streamlined by training on datasets to predict properties, filter through noise, and make broad connections that would take power-hungry simulations long periods to chew through.

Also just a few years ago, the real traction in deep learning was focused on image, video, and speech recognition and analysis, often for consumer-facing services. However, as we have described in detail, there is a new wave of applications for neural networks that could upend the way we think about scientific and technical computingthose traditional realms of supercomputing.

One of the emerging areas cited in the above review of recent work in scientific computing areas that are being altered by deep learning is in molecular and materials science. While the work here is still in the early stages, Google Brain researchers are among those making strides in applying deep learning to solve more complex materials science and molecular interaction problems in quantum chemistry. The goal is to build complex machine learning models for chemical prediction that can learn from their own featuressaving a great deal of computational time and cost over traditional simulations.

The issue here is not just about increasing efficiency or performance of quantum chemistry simulations. The computational resources freed up by applying learning methods can allow for larger and more fine-grained analysis of molecular structures. However, traditional quantum chemistry architectures are having trouble keeping up with the vast data volumes generated from high-throughput experiments, and condensing much of this via training makes sense from a problem scalability standpoint.

As the Google Brain team that built out a machine learning alternative to traditional simulation-based quantum chemistry explains, the time is ripe to apply more powerful and flexible machine learning methods to these problems, assuming we can find models with suitable inductive biases. They note that the symmetries of atomic systems suggest neural networks that operate on graph structured data and are invariant to graph isomorphism might also be appropriate for molecules. Once these are isolated, a new playing can open for some of the most large-scale and pressing problems in materials, chemical, and drug discovery areas.

At the heart of this work is what the Google Brain team calls Message Passing Neural Networks, which takes traditional approaches to quantum chemistry, refits them into neural networks, and shows rather impressive efficiency, performance, and complexity gains over established supercomputing simulation results. Finding models that could mapped to a supervised learning approach took time and effort, but using this approach, the Google Brain researchers were able to make more efficient use of datasets fed from simulation and loop those back in for better resultsor more comprehensive simulations where much of the legwork had already been done.

Quantum chemistry lends itself well to the argument that more development into neural networks for scientific computing should happen. Just as in areas like weather and astronomy, for example, there is high computational cost on some of the worlds most power-hungry and expensive machines doing filtering, classification, or noise removal work that can be automated by learning algorithms in advance or post-simulation.

Such developments would not mean that exascale-class supercomputers would no longer be necessary, but further additions of neural network components in traditional application areas would mean more efficient use of those resourcesfreeing them up to do more complex, high-resolution, or large-scale simulations.

Categories: HPC

Does Googles TPU Investment Make Sense Going Forward? ARM Pioneer Sophie Wilson Also Thinks Moores Law Coming to an End

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NCAA tournament gets the best refs, but what about chemistry? – WRALSportsFan.com

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By Bob Holliday

Poems are made by fools like me

But only God could referee.

-- Lou Bello, 1974

The late Lou Bello, one of the ACCs better and certainly more flamboyant officials, wrote a poem, Referees, which he recited on the radio back in the mid-1970s. Most of Lous work is lost in time. But Ive always remembered the punch line which you see here. If officiating was a thankless task in Lous time, it has become nearly impossible today, with the constant scrutiny of referees and replay of controversial calls, both during and after games.

That said, it seems to me we heard more conversation about officials during the 2017 NCAA Tournament than we have heard in recent years:

Individually, officials work harder to improve their performance on the court than ever before. They get reviewed more frequently by representatives of their conferences and the NCAA, both in person and on video. I have read the accuracy rate this season was something like 94 percent. Yet the conversation about officiating continues. To me, many of the shortcomings on the court stem from the system: We select the best refs, all stars if you will. But many of them have never worked together before.

The men who called the ACCs championship game in 1983 Paul Housman, Joe Forte, and Dr. Hank Nichols advanced to the NCAA tournament that year as a complete crew. In my view, they were the three best referees of their day in the ACC. They may still rank with the best ever to call games in this league. All three were good individually, and yet their cohesiveness stood out in NC States win over Virginia.

Like NC State, Housman, Forte and Nichols advanced to the Final Four in Albuquerque. Jay Jennings and I covered the event for WRAL-TV and saw the three of them in New Mexico. We were staying in the same hotel. We chatted for awhile, and the three agreed to a television interview.

I remember asking Nichols (Dr. Hank was then a member of the faculty at Villanova) about the technical foul he had called on Virginia Assistant Coach Jim Larranaga very late in States win in Atlanta. I wanted to know whether he considered the time element in making that call. Larranaga had lept off the bench onto the court in protest of a charge/block call that had gone against UVAs Othell Wilson. Nichols, the dean of officials in the ACC in that era, said simply, No. That was clear cut. One other thing I remember from that interview: all three men talked about how much they had worked together and how comfortable they were working together. Again, these were three top officials, individually, but they worked as a unit.

I thanked them for talking with us and wished them well Saturday. It turned out they would be working the Louisville-Houston game.

For those of you too young to remember, the Louisville-Houston game is considered one of the greatest NCAA semifinals ever played. There was so much speed and so much athleticism. And there were dunks. Houston alone had 13 dunks. These were not your rebound, put-back slams. Most were transition dunks. And Louisville had almost as many. Houston outran and outdunked U of L in such impressive style, that most in America were ready to hand the Cougars the big trophy right then and there.

My friend Mr. Bello always liked to say great game, great officiating; lousy game, lousy officiating. I will always believe the teamwork of Housman, Forte, and Nichols, working together seamlessly to cover all the angles on the court in a 94-foot battle, played a part in the quality of that national semifinal.

As every NC State fan knows, there was one more game to play. My partner Jay and I saw the three ACC officials back at our hotel. I suggested that since NC State had beaten Georgia to advance to the final against Houston their tournament might be over. Surely they would not be allowed to work the championship game?

"Doesnt matter, Joe Forte said.

Nichols added, They select the best crew.

The guys indicated the final decision would come down Monday morning.

Monday night, April 2, 1983, were about to leave the hotel to make the short drive to The Pit, scene of the national championship game. Who do we see? Yes indeed: Housman, Forte and Nichols. They are dressed for work, smiles on their faces.

I reported live on the WRAL News at six that the NC State-Houston game would be officiated by an all-ACC crew. As I was breaking this news, I imagined that I was speaking to Cougar Coach Guy Lewis. The look on his face was apoplectic. But of course, this was all in my imagination. There was no way Coach Lewis could be watching WRAL.

The only officiating issue I remember from that game is Clyde Drexlers foul trouble. And the Houston bench miscounted his fouls. Drexler was whistled for his third personal foul in the first half. The bench thought he just had two fouls. So Lewis left Drexler in the game. Then he picked up his fourth foul. The fact that he was not available for much of the games final 25 minutes was not the fault of the three ACC officials working the game. Honestly, I dont remember officiating being a factor in that game. Which is how its supposed to be!

And yet, appearances! NC State pulled off one of the great upsets in NCAA tournament history in defeating Houston. And three officials from the Wolfpacks conference called the game. Therefore

The NCAA decided to change the system by which officials are chosen for the mens basketball tournament.

To be sure, referees are still chosen on merit. Conferences nominate their best officials. Those who perform best advance, in some cases all the way to the championship game. But the officials compete (and it is a competition) as individuals. They are often paired with referees they dont know and certainly have never worked with. Although most officials now work for more than one conference, there are more than 1,000 in the pool for the NCAA tournament. It stands to reason that the 200 or so who make the cut will be largely unfamiliar with one anothers philosophy and style. Communication, which is so important when three men are trying to work together as one, can be challenging. That unfamiliarity shows at times.

In football, we see better chemistry among crews of officials in my opinion. Thats because conference crews stay together. Football has an advantage over basketball in the matter of officiating because there are far fewer games. And the matchups are known well in advance. And so when a Big Ten team meets an SEC team on January 1, an ACC crew can be assigned to work the game. Or if an ACC team meets a Big 12 team, a PAC 12 crew might get the assignment. We get the best of both worlds a crew used to working together with no concern about conference partiality.

Now what to do about basketball?

Continued here:
NCAA tournament gets the best refs, but what about chemistry? - WRALSportsFan.com

Joe Scarborough admits ‘crackling off-air chemistry’ with MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski – Washington Times

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MSNBCS Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski moved one step closer to officially settling relationship rumors that have gone on for well over a year.

The hosts of Morning Joe have avoided talk of a romantic relationship that swirled in the wake of Ms. Brzezinskis divorce proceedings with reporter Jim Hoffer in 2016. That changed Wednesday during an interview with The Hollywood Reporter for an upcoming issue of its magazine.

We have a crackling on-air chemistry, and a crackling off-air chemistry, too, Mr. Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, said.

The 54-year-old divorced his second wife, Susan Waren, in 2013.

Ms. Brzezinski, 49, told THR that no further elaboration was needed on their relationship status.

Thats good. Mr. Scarborough said. I think that pretty much says it, doesnt it?

Sources told the New York Post in June that the pairs relationship was an open secret.

They are constantly together, they arrive and leave events together, even on weekends. They are each others publicists and finish each others sentences. Its the worst-kept secret in TV, an NBC source told the newspaper.

Mikas divorce was finalized in the past year, an MSNBC source added. Shes really grateful that it was done amicably and in private.

Presidents change and lawmakers come and go, but The Washington Times is always here, and FREE online. Please support our efforts.

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Joe Scarborough admits 'crackling off-air chemistry' with MSNBC co-host Mika Brzezinski - Washington Times

My Chemical Romance Have Announced Another European Show – Kerrang!

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While the stress and panic of My Chemical Romance announcing shows had seemingly settled down for the past couple of weeks, the New Jersey emo heroes have just ramped up excitement within the MCRmy once more by confirming another Europeanshow.

With their July 6 date in Bonn, Germany selling out (obviously), the band have just added another gig at KUNST!RASEN for the following night. Their stint in mainland Europe follows their UK return in June; first, My Chem will hit the beautiful Eden Project in Cornwall on June 16, before then taking on Stadium MK in Milton Keynes for three nights, and then heading to Ireland to perform at the HospitalKilmainham.

The following month, the band will be performing in Hungary, Italy, Germany and Russia. There are plenty of free nights between shows at the moment, so its certainly not beyond the realms of possibility that even more dates will be added. And with demand as high as it is and many fans still waiting to get their hands on tickets, fingers crossed MCR can hopefully squeeze in even moreperformances

Read this next: A deep dive into My Chemical Romances video for Welcome To The BlackParade

Catch My Chemical Romance live at one of the following dates this year:

March

20 Melbourne, Australia Download Festival21 Sydney, Australia Download Festival25 Auckland, New Zealand Western Springs28 Osaka, Japan Intex29 Tokyo, Japan DownloadFestival

June

16 Cornwall, UK Eden Project18 Milton Keynes, UK Stadium MK20 Milton Keynes, UK Stadium MK21 Milton Keynes, UK Stadium MK23 Dublin, Ireland HospitalKilmainham

July

1 Hungary Volt Festival4 Bologna, Italy Arena Parco Nord6 Bonn, Germany KUNST!RASEN7 Bonn, Germany KUNST!RASEN11 Moscow, Russia ParkLivem

September

9 Little Caesars Arena Detroit, MI11 Xcel Energy Center St. Paul, MN12 Riot Fest Chicago, IL14 Scotiabank Arena Toronto, ON15 Garden Boston, MA17 Barclays Center Brooklyn, NY18 Wells Fargo Center Philadelphia, PA20 Music Midtown Festival Atlanta, GA22 Prudential Center Newark, NJ23 Prudential Center Newark, NJ26 BB&T Center Sunrise, FL29 Toyota Center Houston, TX30 American Airlines Center Dallas,TX

October

2 Pepsi Center Denver, CO4 Tacoma Dome Tacoma, WA6 Oakland Arena Oakland, CA8 The Forum Los Angeles, CA10 Aftershock Festival Sacramento, CA11 T-Mobile Arena Las Vegas, NV13 The Forum Inglewood, CA14 The Forum Inglewood, CA15 The Forum Inglewood,CA

Read this next: My Chemical Romances best songs, picked by your favourite bands

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My Chemical Romance Have Announced Another European Show - Kerrang!

Holgorsen says team chemistry a work in progress | WVU SPORTS … – The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)

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MORGANTOWN This is one of those good news, or maybe not, items from West Virginia football coach Dana Holgorsen.

Theres a chance this team could have as much talent as any team weve had since Ive been here, Holgorsen said, before sending his team out for its final full contact practice prior to Saturdays 1 p.m. Blue-Gold game that benefits West Virginia Childrens Hospital.

That certainly qualifies as good news, considering he had a team that won the Orange Bowl and last year had a team that won 10 games.

But there is a dark side to that, too.

I dont think that exclusively wins football games, Holgorsen pointed out.

Holgorsen understands theres more to assembling a winning team than just having talented players.

We still have to develop a lot of continuity in each phase of the game, Holgorsen said. Once you add 10 new guys in May, 10 new guys in June and 10 new guys in July, a lot of them who will be contributors, I dont think you will figure out the overall chemistry of the team until somewhere in the neighborhood of September.

And with as many losses as the Mountaineers suffered, from center Tyler Orlosky to quarterback Skyler Howard to running back Rushel Shell to eight defensive starters, the team must develop leadership and chemistry.

I dont like the chemistry yet, Holgorsen said. We got talent. We got older guys. A lot of our seniors last year were 5th-year guys. If look at our seniors this year, a lot are transfers. My job, more than anything, is developing those leaders and developing chemistry in a team that really likes each other and wants to fight hard for each other.

I think that is going to be huge in June, parts of July and a little bit of August. I just dont think we can do that right now.

Some good news for West Virginias football program this week, which actually allowed Holgorsen to talk about injuries.

Holgorsen said that he expects to get center Jacob Buccigrossi back in August.

The Mountaineers were counting on Buccigrossi as their backup to Matt Jones, who will replace All-American Tyler Orlosky, until he went down a couple of weeks ago with a knee injury that was thought could keep him out most or all of the season.

Hell be cleared in late August, Holgorsen said.

More good news, this from the defensive side where linebacker Brendan Ferns has returned from the knee injury he suffered last year and begun to do contact work.

He had his best day on Sunday in the scrimmage, defensive coordinator Tony Gibson said. He made a lot of tackles and is very active. Now he is starting to let loose a little bit and not be cautious. He is playing Mike right now.

That would put him behind starter Al-Rasheed Benton.

Sundays scrimmage produced a surprise star in Dante Bonamico, 5-foot-8, 172-pound safety from Bridgeport.

He was a kid in on some turnovers, made a bunch of tackles ... and hes the smallest guy out there. Hes flying around and doing some good things, Gibson said.

Linebacker Quondarius Qualls, a junior college recruit out of Louisiana, is a player to keep an eye on.

He is feeling his way through things right now, Gibson said. Were moving kids around. Its really important, though, that he have a good summer.

The reason? They have plans for him.

Hes a strong kid. I really like the way he can run. The biggest thing with him is hes going to be a guy were going to use in the third-down package, Gibson said.

Follow Bob Hertzel on Twitter @bhertzel

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Holgorsen says team chemistry a work in progress | WVU SPORTS ... - The Exponent Telegram (press release) (registration)

Draft girls using chemistry to cruise past opponents | High School … – The Daily Progress

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STUARTS DRAFT - To say its been a pretty solid start to the 2017 season for Stuarts Draft girls soccer is an understatement.

Following a 4-0 shutout of previously unbeaten Wilson Memorial on Tuesday night, the Cougars are now 7-0 on the year.

While the seven wins is impressive, what makes it even more noteworthy is that Draft has outscored its opponents 44-0 in those victories.

Both our offense and defense have been very versatile this season, Cougars head coach Bridget Lane said. We spend time in practice having players practice in both offensive and defensive positions so that can get a feel for someone elses position. This really helps the girls to understand where they need to be on the field to help their teammates.

When it comes to getting a feel for other players, there is no doubt that the Draft players have a great feel for each other.

In the win against the Hornets, three different players scored - Rachel Sauder twice, along with Abby Barlow and Hannah Chatterton.

They are just three of a large number of Cougars to reach the back of the net throughout this season.

We have a great range of talented players, Lane said. The great part about it is that they get to all experience playing with one another on the varsity level. Many of them have played together on travel teams in the offseason. Its a great feeling as a coach to have such dedicated players who are willing to play wherever they are needed.

Lane says the camaraderie amongst the team isnt exclusive to the locker room.

The biggest key to our success has been our team chemistry, the head coach said. We play so well together and everyone connects really well - not only on the field but off the field as well. We have a great group of leaders.

While the season is still young, this Cougars team appears to be primed for a deep run when the postseason comes around.

For Lane, she says she sees that potential and while the roster has a wide variety of experience throughout, she knows where the heart of her team rests.

This group of 19 have become a family to one another and I know they have the potential to go far as a team, she said. The backbone is the group of six seniors who you can tell every game want it so bad. They put their heart into every minute of the game. It pushes the rest of the team to leave it all on the field. Im very excited to see where this season takes us.

Draft (7-0) is back in action Tuesday for a road contest at Shenandoah District foe Luray while Wilson (5-1) will take on Riverheads (5-0) at home on Thursday.

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Draft girls using chemistry to cruise past opponents | High School ... - The Daily Progress

Sidharths chemistry with the ladies prove that he is the ultimate Romeo of Bigg Boss 13 – Republic World – Republic World

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One of the most popular contestants onBigg Boss 13isSidharth Shukla. The contestant has always grabbed several headlines for his altercations or for showcasing different facets of his personality. However, he has also been linkedto most of the female contestants inside the Bigg Boss house and his camaraderie with each one of them has been adored by the fans every time. Here are all the female housemates who have been linked up with Sidharth.

Also Read:Bigg Boss 13: Rashami Desai Makes An Endearing Revelation About Sidharth Shukla

'SidNaaz' as they are fondly called, has become one of the main highlights of the show. Sidharth and Shehnaaz's infectious bond has garnered a lot of love from the masses. Despite some small hits and misses, the two are always there for each other. As Shehnaaz has said many times, Sidharth is the only one who gives her the 'attention' that she demands.

Thetwo have grabbed several headlines due to their bitter fights which also led Rashami throwing tea at her former Dil Se DilTak actor. There were several speculations about their past relationships too.

However, even the host Salman Khan had agreed that despite this all, the two share striking on-screen chemistry with each other. 'SidRa' as they are know fondly, also manage to charm their fans with their endearing moments sometimes.

The two are reportedly close friends for a long time and have known each other from before their stint inside the house. Sidharth and Arti have always supported each other in the house through thick and thin. The viewers found their friendship extremely endearing. This Weekend Ka Vaar also saw Salman Khan pulling their leg and rooting them as a couple.

The two started a flirtatious banter with each other which was much loved by the viewers. Fans started referring to them as 'Sidleena' fondly. Devoleena also admitted reportedly post her exit that she had misunderstood Sidharth as a person. Her entry again in the house again saw her engaging in fun banter with Sidharth.

Sidharth and Madhurima formed an unexpected bond during the last few episodes. Sidharth started flirting with her jokingly and the Chandrakanta actor played along. Their fun side was adored by the viewers. Reportedly, Madhurima referred to her moments with Sidharth inside the house as one of her most cherished times post her eviction.

Also Read:Bigg Boss 13: Himanshi Khurrana's Cryptic Post About Her Relationship Leaves Fans Confused

Also Read:Bigg Boss 13: Sidharth Shukla And Asim Riaz Lock Horns; Equations To Change Again?

Get the latest entertainment news from India & around the world. Now follow your favourite television celebs and telly updates. Republic World is your one-stop destination for trending Bollywood news. Tune in today to stay updated with all the latest news and headlines from the world of entertainment.

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Sidharths chemistry with the ladies prove that he is the ultimate Romeo of Bigg Boss 13 - Republic World - Republic World

Can negative emission technologies overcome climate catastrophe? | News – Chemistry World

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Humanity is running out of time to deal with the climate crisis. The UNs Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that we need to limit atmospheric carbon dioxide to less than 450 parts per million in order to have a chance to keep average global surface temperatures from rising more than 1.5C by the end of the century. Thats been identified as the safety margin that would avoid irreversible, adverse climate change effects .

But CO2 levels keep rising, and the amount in the atmosphere topped 415 ppm in 2019. Given current trends in emissions, it seems likely that we will surpass the 450 ppm threshold within 13 to 15 years, according to Klaus Lackner, director of Arizona State Universitys Center for Negative Carbon Emissions.

Even to meet the more modest goals of the Paris Agreement, we would need to eliminate net emissions in industrialised countries by the middle of the century a target that many scientists see as unrealistic.

We have the technology to do this for most emissions, but for some like agricultural methane and aviation we cant, says Stephen Pacala, an ecologist at Princeton University who chaired a committee for the US National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine that issued a report on negative emissions technologies (Nets) back in 2018.

Nets offer the hope of not just stopping new emissions, but reclaiming some of the CO2 that has already been released into the atmosphere. While every effort must be made to reduce such emissions, in some cases Nets may be less expensive and disruptive, according to the report by Pacalas committee.

We will probably overshoot the target even if we work as hard as we can to reduce emissions, so we need to think about balancing the books, says Lackner. Either we stop using fossil fuels altogether, or for every tonne of carbon we release, we also sequester one tonne.

Before the industrial revolution, the planets carbon cycle was mostly in balance. CO2 dissolves in and out of the surface of the oceans, and is sucked out of the atmosphere by photosynthetic plants and algae, which then release it again when they die . Every year these two carbon sinks exchange around 367 billion tonnes of CO2 each with the atmosphere, according to Britton Stephens, who studies the carbon cycle at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Slowly, large amounts of carbon also get locked away long-term at the bottom of oceans and in fossil fuels.

But, as humans began burning those fossil fuels, that long-dormant carbon went back into the cycle faster than the land and ocean could remove it. The system is inherently in balance, Stephens explains. But that little bit extra matters the coal and oil we dug up is screwing up that balance.

Humans are pumping around 36 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year, with another 5.5 billion coming from land use changes like deforestation . The oceans and terrestrial plants have sped up their carbon sequestration in response, sucking up about 9 billion and 14 billion tonnes respectively, leaving around 18 billion tonnes piling up in the atmosphere every year .

The hope is that Nets, in combination with reductions in new releases, will help us to drive that 18 billion tonne annual net increase in CO2 emissions down to zero, and then beyond. This would begin lowering global atmospheric CO2 concentrations to closer to where they were before the industrial revolution.

We havent cleaned up the litter from the past 200 years, says Lackner. We have to go backwards and clean up not just the future, but the past.

The job will be huge. Not only will the carbon dioxide already in the atmosphere need to be removed, but as that concentration starts falling, the carbon previously sequestered by the ocean and land biomass will begin coming back out, as the system strives to remain in equilibrium. In order to bring the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere down by 100ppm, Lackner estimates that about 40 billion tonnes of CO2 would need to be removed from the air every year for 40 years. That figure is roughly equal to the total amount of carbon dioxide humanity releases every year.

There are several different Nets that could help to turn back the clock on Earths carbon emissions. The simplest, and cheapest, of these is not really a technology at all its just changing our land-use practices to reduce deforestation, and planting more trees to expand existing forests.

As those new trees grow, they will take up CO2 from the atmosphere and store it for decades. Reforestation and afforestation efforts have the potential to make a significant contribution to negative emissions, but the process is land-hungry, according Pacala.

Some experts, however, argue that there is enough land available to begin major reforestation efforts without needing to encroach on farmland or cities. A study led by researchers at Swiss university ETH Zurich, published last year, found there is `room for almost an extra 1 billion hectares of tree cover on the planet using currently available land. They estimated that these extra trees could ultimately capture two-thirds of human-made carbon emissions since the industrial revolution, and store more than 750 billion tonnes of CO2 around a quarter of whats currently in the atmosphere .

Countries and environmental groups are already moving forward with reforestation efforts. The UNs Trillion Tree Campaign supports tree-planting efforts around the world, and claims that 13.6 billion trees have already been planted on its watch. In Canada alone, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged during the last election campaign to plant 2 billion trees in the country over the next 10 years.

Most scientists, however, dont think that planting trees can provide all of the negative emissions that the world needs. For example, many experts say the ETH Zurich study did not take into account the CO2 that will be released by the oceans as the atmospheric concentration drops, so they say even a billion more hectares of trees would be insufficient .

I dont think photosynthesis can deliver what we need without a huge impact on the land, says Lackner. Wed need to almost double existing forests if we want to hide that much carbon.

There are other options, however, that might be effective in concert with expanding forests.

One option, known as Biomass Energy with Carbon Capture and Storage (Beccs), aims to extract bioenergy from biomass and capture and store the carbon. The process involves using the same land to grow forests over and over again, burning the wood to provide energy while capturing and sequestering the carbon elsewhere.

Its a mechanism for transferring CO2 that was originally in the air to underground, explains Chris Rayner, an organic chemist at the University of Leeds in the UK. Exactly the opposite of what weve been doing for the past 200 years.

The basic process for biomass carbon capture is similar to the carbon capture and storage (CCS) units that are being demonstrated at scale at coal-fired power plants around the world, which mainly use amine chemistry to remove CO2 from the gas stream of the plant. The main difference is that biomass emissions contain fewer impurities like sulfur, so desulfinates are not required before the releases go to the capture unit. Although there are successful examples of coal CCS at scale, so far there is no full-scale demonstration of CCS for biomass energy.

Rayner, however, is hopeful that will soon change. A company he helped to found in Leeds, called C-Capture, is working with the Drax power plant in northern England to prove that BECCS works. Underlying C-Captures technology is an entirely new chemistry developed by Rayner and his colleagues, which is not based on amines.

We went back to first principles and developed a new chemistry which has better performance, reduced toxicity, and is compatible with a wider array of building materials, Rayner says.

He is not yet ready to share the details of that c
hemistry, but confirms that a small demonstration unit has been operating at Drax since February 2019, capturing about one tonne of CO2 daily. The project will soon expand to about 100 tonnes per day, with the ultimate goal of reaching 10,000 tonnes each day at full scale. This could enable Drax to become the worlds first negative emissions power station, the company says.

The IPCC estimates that globally, BECCS could potentially remove around 10 billion tonnes of CO2 from the atmosphere each year . But Stephens is less optimistic that the technology will play a big role in decarbonisation. The emissions associated with harvesting, processing and transporting the wood means that there are very few places where there would be a net benefit.

It doesnt seem to have as big a potential as reforestation or just not cutting the trees down in the first place, he says.

A third promising negative emissions technology is direct air capture sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere without any biological intermediary. Under this method, huge industrial scrubbers push air over the same chemical sorbents used in CCS systems to catch CO2, which can then be concentrated for storage. While the process is currently energy-intensive and expensive, its one advantage over CCS systems is that it can be done anywhere.

One of the nice features of air capture is the plant can go where you want the CO2 to end up, not where it is produced, Lackner explains. Air capture plants can also be sited to leverage renewable energy sources for example, in areas where wind does the work of moving the air for you, or in places where solar energy can provide much of the electricity required.

Once the CO2 is captured, there are many options for dealing with it. It can be stored in underground reservoirs, turned into natural gas, sold as a raw material to fill fire extinguishers or make fizzy drinks, or injected into basalt formations where it mineralises into rock.

One company based in Zurich, Climeworks, is already operating commercial direct air capture plants in several countries across Europe, including Switzerland, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands and Iceland. The company has a variety of corporate and private customers, and offers a monthly subscription for those who want to decrease their carbon footprint. Theyre interested in reducing their emissions directly, they want to do more than just offset them, says Climeworks spokesperson Louise Charles.

Depending on the method of carbon sequestration chosen, the potential for direct air capture is huge. Geological storage, for example, could provide almost limitless long-term storage, according to the Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering. The capture units themselves are modular, allowing as many to be used as necessary for any given project. The only significant limiting factor on the technology is the cost since the market for CO2 as a raw material is small, there is no real commercial driving force for deploying the technology at large scales.

For Climeworks, the cost to capture one tonne of CO2 is currently around $600. Thats still too high for widespread adoption of the technology, according to Lackner. The target is $100 per tonne and the cost of direct capture is expected to come down fairly quickly in the future, as the technology improves and the price of renewable energy falls. The price tag on capturing all the excess CO2 that humanity produces at $100 per tonne would still be $1.8 trillion every year global GDP is around $80 trillion.

However, once the price reaches about $100 per tonne, Lackner says it becomes feasible to treat carbon capture as a simple waste management issue. In the same way that we pay to have our rubbish taken away he and others predict that carbon capture through tree planting, biomass energy plants, or direct air capture will become a service industry.

For household waste we pay someone to deliver a service, rather than make a product, Lackner tells Chemistry World. The same will have to happen with CO2.

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