ChemConnector Blog

This coming week I will be ScienceOnline 2012 representing my employer the Royal Society of Chemistry and our ChemSpider database. I will also have a book at the book table about Computer-Assisted Structure Elucidation , not exactly mainstream science but still something I am very proud of. I will be co-hosting two sessions…one on the semantic web with Kristi Holmes and one called Dealing with Data with Kaitlin Thaney. Both of these topics are part of my everyday role in my job, or part of personal projects I am involved with.

If any of you are attending ScienceOnline2012 or watching it via Twitter (for example), then you will likely see popping up as @ChemConnector.

If you want to know more about me I am on many of the Social Networks as listed below and actually am very passionate about teaching people about how to get into the Social Network as a scientist. My recent presentation on this is on Slideshare here.

If you are interested in hearing more about the ChemSpider database, a database of >26 million unique chemicals, sourced from over 400 data sources and linking many of these together on the web, then please comment on this post or email me directly at tony27587ATgmailDOTcom and if there is enough interest I will set aside some time to give a couple of demos in one of the rooms at the conference.

This weekend I have spent sometime helping to get some of the ScienceOnline attendees onto the ScientistsDB and they are presently adding/finishing their ScientistsDB pages:

Walter Jessen

Kristi Holmes

Bora Zivkovic

Sarah Chow

Sean Ekins

Myself

If you would like a page on ScientistsDB simply register here and then use this page to learn how to create an article. Ask me for help if you need it.

See you at ScienceOnline2012

My friend Mark Jensen is a very skilled man…gardener, painter, welder, carpenter. Last night I offered to try out a new experiment with him…capturing him in action using stopped motion photography using shots every few minutes as he spent four hours painting a sign. I assembled two versions of the video. I think you’ll agree they are fun to watch and Mark is a skilled painter!

The first video is the 60 seconds of stopped motion action ONLY

The second video includes the introduction and conclusion video shots by Mark.

I am a chemist.  I’ve been one since I had my first chemistry kit and mixed acids and salts and watched the results. Cool!

I didn’t know what science was until I was introduced to it in primary school by a visiting student teacher who took it upon himself to do science with us. He taught us the physics of lenses, the basis of photosynthesis, about the density of materials and the beauty resulting from performing paper chromatography with inks. The spark of interest was lit within me by that young man over 40 years ago. His passion was contagious…for me.

My mother used to provide bed and breakfast and once upon a time, for whatever reason, we had a metallurgist staying with us. I used to quiz him with questions and bugged him enough about what he did that one day he asked me whether I would like to visit his lab. At that age (9 yrs old I think) I imagined a Frankenstein lab, Tesla coils, large flasks of colored solutions…ah the imagination of youth. With the permission of my mother, and I have to assume his employer, he took me to his lab one evening and walked me through testing for ductility, corrosiveness and deposition coatings. I got to push buttons, watch metal snap and dissolve metals in liquids. No Tesla coils, no monsters but pure joy in being at play with the mysteries of science…demonstrated to me through the hands of someone who deeply understood and made it fun.

I have, of course, had many teachers over the years and the ones I remember, the ones who remain dear to my heart, are those with a passion for what they taught. These are the teachers who are willing to work after school to teach you more than the syllabus demands, those that have lunchtime clubs for us “geeks”, those that organize trips that immerse you further in what interests them and those that use their own passion to affect a child, stimulate a pupil and hopefully pay it forward with their inherited passions. I am fortunate that I have had a number of teachers who were willing to help me geek out…I wish there were more!!!

What I personally lack in teaching skills I hope I make up for in passion, in drive and a real want to evoke an emotional response in those I talk with about chemistry. I was trained as an NMR spectroscopist, became a cheminformatician and then moved into hosting chemistry data for the masses through the ChemSpider database. But I am proud to call myself ChemConnector! Whether I’m doing exploding Coke demos at our twins school, playing with Neodymium magnets with anyone who cares to handle them, educating the community about “inappropriate movie stars” versus scientists, or pushing for changes in the quality of online chemistry data, I hope that my passion comes through and just once in a while I create a convert to get interested and get active in science. If YOU have passion..then spread the love.

This blog post is part of the Vittana “Make a Difference” blogger challenge.

The contest invites bloggers from around the world to discuss various ways to make a difference in the world, as well as share stories on who or what has made a difference in their lives.

The winning blog post will be the post that drives the most loans to students in need. Please support this cause (and this blog!) by making a loan in my name: “Antony Williams.” Be sure to type that in when you reach the checkout page (example screenshot) The more loans you make the more educations get funded and the more recognition and traffic my site gets!

Please support this blog and contest by using this special link to tweet about it (You can edit the tweet before it’s posted, but make sure this link ( http://bitly.com/w50Lsd ) and the hashtag #vittanachallenge is part of the tweet or Vittana won’t know you tweeted about me!)