Author Archives: Luanne Johnson

Huffington Post – Breaking Bad Science Consultant Dishes on Chemistry Behind Hit TV Series (VIDEO)

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In addition to being showered with accolades from Hollywood insiders, this year’sEmmy Award-winner for best television drama, “Breaking Bad,” has been alsopraised by members of the scientific community.

“To us who are educated in science, whenever we see science presented inaccurately, it’s like fingernails on the blackboard,” the AMC show’s science advisor Dr. Donna Nelson, a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Oklahoma, tells the American Chemical Society’s Bytesize Science series in the video above. “It just drives us crazy, and we can’t stay immersed in the show.”

Fortunately for Nelson and like-minded scientists, “Breaking Bad” gets the science mostly right in its tale of chemistry-teacher-turned-meth-overlord Walter White.

Nelson actually works with the show’s creator, Vince Gilligan, to fact-check scripts. She even suggests chemical structures for Walter to draw on his blackboard.

But Nelson did identify one glaring inaccuracy.

“The powder blue meth that you see is really sort of like Walter’s trademark,” Nelson explains in the video. “In real life, meth would not be powder blue like that. The meth would be colorless.”

The show’s series finale will run on AMC this Sunday.

 

2013 COS Awards

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Congratulations to Mas Subramanian for winning the 2013 F.A. Gilfillan Memorial Award for Distinguished Scholarship in Science and Daniel Myles for winning the Fred Horne Award for Excellence in Teaching Science.  Well deserved recognition to both these individuals!

Jefferson Science Fellowship

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The National Academies is pleased to announce a call for nominations and applications for the 2014 Jefferson Science Fellows program.  Initiated by the Secretary of State in 2003, this fellowship program engages the American academic science, technology, engineering and medical communities in the design and implementation of U.S. foreign policy.

Jefferson Science Fellows (JSF) spend one year at the U.S. Department of State or the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) for an on-site assignment in Washington, D.C. that may also involve extended stays at U.S. foreign embassies and/or missions.

The fellowship is open to tenured, or similarly ranked, academic scientists, engineers and physicians from U.S. institutions of higher learning. Nominees/applicants must hold U.S. citizenship and will be required to obtain a security clearance.

The deadline for 2014-2015 program year applications/nominations is January 13, 2014. To learn more about the Jefferson Science Fellowship and to apply, visit the JSF website at:

Sabbatical Replacement 2014-2015

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The chemistry program at Southern Oregon University will need a one-year sabbatical replacement for our biochemist next year (2014-2015) and, although I have not been given formal approval to start the search, I would like to bring this opportunity to the attention of your graduate students who might be interested in a teaching post-doctoral experience.

The undergraduate biochemistry/chemistry program at Southern Oregon University is ACS-certified and was recently ranked in the first quintile in the SOU internal prioritization process. Our program has six faculty members who all work closely together to provide a strong background in chemistry to our students. The Department is well equipped with instrumentation, which can be viewed on our website (www.sou.edu/chemistry).

The candidate would be expected to teach the year long biochemistry sequence (Ch 451, 2, 3) and two quarters of biochemistry lab (winter and spring term – Ch 454, 5). Additional teaching requirements include organic labs and/or general chemistry labs. The full-time teaching load (at the Assistant Professor level) is typically one lecture and three laboratory sections per term. Finally, s/he would be assisting between one and three students with a year long capstone research experience.

For more information about the courses, contact Dr. Greg Miller (millergr@sou.edu). For information about the position contact me, Dr. Laura Hughes (lhughes@sou.edu).

Thank you for your consideration,

Laura
—
Laura A. Hughes, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Chemistry
Chair, CPME

Funding Opportunities

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Highlights:

  1. NSF is in the midst of updating many of the annual program solicitations, many have slightly altered due dates
  2. USAID notices include (1) Global Center for Food Systems Innovations First Round Innovation Grants requests and (2) a request for information on an upcoming “Securing Water for Food: A Grand Challenge for Development” grant release
  3. EPA Technical Assistance and Support for Improved Protection of Drinking Water Sources
  4. A select few from the DOD, NIH, and USFWS

FundingOppTable-08.31.13

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – Grand Challenges

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and its funding partners in the Grand Challenges family of grant programs are inviting innovators to apply for four new grant opportunities:

1) Grand Challenges Explorations, an initiative to encourage innovative and unconventional global health and development solutions, is now accepting grant proposals for its latest application round. Applicants can be at any experience level; in any discipline; and from any organization, including colleges and universities, government laboratories, research institutions, non-profit organizations and for-profit companies.

Proposals are being accepted online until November 12, 2013 on the following topics:

• Innovations in Feedback & Accountability Systems for Agricultural Development

• Inciting Healthy Behaviors: nudge, leapfrog, disrupt, reach

• Novel Enabling Tools and Models Supporting the Development of Interventions for Severe Diarrhea and Enteric Dysfunction

• Develop the Next Generation of Condom

• The “One Health” Concept: Bringing Together Human and Animal Health

Initial grants will be US $100,000 each, and projects showing promise will have the opportunity to receive additional funding of up to US $1 million. Full descriptions of the new topics and application instructions are available at: www.grandchallenges.org/explorations.

2) Achieving Healthy Growth through Agriculture and Nutrition, the first program launched through the Grand Challenges India partnership, is now accepting applications. This program joins others within the Grand Challenges family of grant programs supported by the Gates Foundation and its partners. It seeks a comprehensive set of approaches – spanning innovation in  nutrition and agriculture and social innovation – to 1) reduce the high incidence of low birth weight, early stunting, and wasting in Indian children less than 2 years of age and 2) prevent undernutrition in women of reproductive age and in children from 0-2 years of age.

The application deadline is October 31, 2013. Details on how to apply for a grant can be found at http://www.grandchallenges.org/GrantOpportunities/Pages/GCIndia_healthygrowth.aspx.

3) The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has launched Records for Life: A Design Contest that can Save Lives. This new grant opportunity seeks individuals or teams to re-examine the current child health record and design new ways to accurately track vaccine doses, increase ease of interpretation and use, and incite behavior change to make the record a valued asset for health professionals and families alike.

The application deadline is October 31, 2013. Details on how to apply for a grant can be found at http://www.gatesfoundation.org/How-We-Work/General-Information/Grant-Opportunities/Records-for-Life-RFP.

4) This October researchers are invited to attend Advancing Vaccines in the Genomic Era, a meeting held as part of the Keystone Symposia Global Health Series supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The meeting will be held October 31 – November 4, 2013 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. More information can be found at http://www.keystonesymposia.org/13T1.

We are looking forward to receiving innovative ideas from around the world and from all disciplines. If you have a great idea, please apply. If you know someone else who may have a great idea, please forward this message.

Thank you for your commitment to solving the world’s greatest health and development challenges.

The Grand Challenges Team

Loveland Awarded Glenn T. Seaborg Award

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It is with great pleasure that we announce that Professor Walter Loveland has been awarded the 2014 Glenn T. Seaborg Award for Nuclear Chemistry sponsored by the American Chemical Society and the Division of Nuclear Chemistry & Technology.  Please join us in congratulating Walt on this wonderful and well-deserved honor!!

http://cen.acs.org/articles/91/i36/ACS-2014-National-Award-Winners.html

NSF – Major Research Instrumentation (MRI)

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NSF – Major Research Instrumentation (MRI): The Research Office Incentive Programs is requesting letters of intent for the NSF – MRI program. The MRI program assists with the acquisition or development of shared research instrumentation that is, in general, too costly and/or not appropriate for support through other NSF programs. Guidelines for letters of intent: http://oregonstate.edu/research/incentive/nsf-mri. Information: Debbie Delmore debbie.delmore@oregonstate.edu. Submission Deadline: Oct. 7.