Variety in Chemistry Education Conference (ViCE)

2nd – 3rd September 2010,
Loughborough University

Contributions are invited for:

Workshops - 2 hour sessions of groups of 15-20 participating in activities designed to enhance student learning or related to other aspects of teaching and learning.

Oral Communications - 10 minute papers followed by discussion of 5 minutes.

Oral Bytes - 5 minute accounts of new ideas, novel approaches or new resources. May describe work in progress or be used to identify potential collaborators. (Three PowerPoint slides maximum).


Deadline for offers - 25th June 2010.
Further details and online registration at: http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/events/detail/2010/vice_2010

Main Library forum exhibition - CERN's Large Hadron Collider

Tuesday 30th March: 8am-5pm
Wednesday 31st March: 9am-5pm

Hands-on physics exhibition in the Main Library celebrating the start of the Large Hadron Collider research programme. Possible screenings of live broadcasts from CERN but definately with accessible displays and demos illuminating aspects of physics related to the LHC.

Main Library:
http://www.ed.ac.uk/is/main-library

iPhone Apps - ACS Publications & Symyx

ACS Mobile for your iPhone or iPod Touch:
http://pubs.acs.org/page/tools/acsmobile/index.html

Since 2009, Symyx - ChemMobi provides access to over 30 million chemical structures, enabling chemists to search for Chemical Names or IDs:
http://www.symyx.com/company/news/press_releases/2009/pr_chemmobi_app_store.jsp

CDS - free trial of Symyx DiscoveryGate.

DiscoveryGate is a way of accessing information including organic synthesis, bioactivity, physical property, pharmacology, metabolism/toxicity, and chemical sourcing data via the web.

Request access and find out more at:
http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cds/datasets/orgchem/symyx/discoverygate.html

Maths for scientists meeting: Looking forward

Wednesday 26th May 2010,
Loughborough University

The next meeting of the maths for chemistry SIG will be a meeting open to all sciences with parallel sessions specific for physics and chemistry.

No registration fee for this meeting for those working in UK HE and lunch and refreshments will be provided.

Register for this event online:
http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/physsci/events/detail/2010/maths_for_scientists

Chemical Spreadsheets blog post

A 2008 blog post by Richard L. Apodaca at US company Metamolecular.com on free and not free Chemical Spreadsheets at:

http://depth-first.com/articles/2008/09/12/your-favorite-chemical-spreadsheet


From the post:

"A chemical spreadsheet displays multiple chemical structures in a regular arrangement (typically grids or rows) for the purpose of manipulating them in the same ways as text and numerical data can be manipulated in spreadsheet applications like Excel (sorting, performing calculations, charting, editing, etc.)."

CDS - new databases

From CDS announcement email:

Three specialist databases from Accelrys are now available from Chemical Database Service.

They are:

* BioCatalysis - Synthesis using Enzymes and Micro organisms
* Protecting Groups - Reactions involving selective Protection/Deprotection
* Solid Phase Synthesis - For use in combinatorial synthesis

Further information (with links to the databases) can be viewed at:

http://cds.dl.ac.uk/cds/datasets/orgchem/accelrys/Accordexplorer.html

Access is via the Accord Database Explorer (Windows PC users only). It can be downloaded by logging in then using the Downloads link on the CDS Home page:

http://cds.dl.ac.uk/
You will also need to download and install a cut down version of an Oracle client supplied by CDS.

Register for use of the Chemical Database Service. Link from CSD entry in Chemistry Databases