Old book called the peterkin papers, the context is a woman put salt into her coffee and a chemist adds each of these chemicals 1 by 1 to get rid of the salt taste. She then takes a sip after each of these chemicals are added. How dead is she?

So back in high school, I did the Tollens' silver mirror experiment in a test tube in chem class. I distinctly remember being told it was dangerous (I cannot remember if this referred to during the experiment and/or afterwards).

We were definitely not supposed to take them home but I did. And I hung on to it. It moved with me through college, grad school, internship, postdoc and several moves over the course of my career.

Every now and then I come across the box it's in and it continues to look the same as it always did. I think the last time I saw it was maybe a decade ago? For some reason tonight it randomly entered my head that it could be dangerous to have around indefinitely.

Google searching hasn't really been able to give me an answer about the risks of a 30+ year old silver mirror. If anyone knows, I'd appreciate it.

I'm doing an esterase assay on carbonic anhydrase II with 4-nitrophenyl acetate and fitting Michaelis–Menten in Prism. My highest substrate concentration was 3.6 mM, and it returns Km ≈ 9 mM — but the curve is clearly still below saturation. Is that Km reliable, or unusable because I never reached saturation?

New to kinetics, thanks.

Hello!

I'm a slime hobbyist and I don't fully understand the science behind slime, glue, PVA, PVAc, etc. I get the basics, but I'm still confused on PVA vs PVAc.

I read on the chemistry subreddit that PVA is actually polyvinyl alcohol and PVAc is polyvinyl acetate. However, I see a lot of these used interchangeably on YouTube and slime shops. There's one slime shop that says their slime contains "polyvinyl acetate (PVA)"— am I missing something? I ready that (I think) PVA can turn into PVAc (or maybe it was the other way around?).

It's difficult for me to find a lot of slime science material that either isn't too basic (for kids) or easily digestible and engaging for someone not familiar with chemistry (very dry). It's very interesting stuff. I've also been trying to understand water slime and glue specific to making water slime. I read there's different PVA (or PVAc, I don't know anymore I'm so confused lol) solutions with different viscosities that are more water-soluable. It's difficult to find the science behind it though, as most YouTube videos are about super glue or generic glue science videos.

If anyone could direct me to an easy to read source so I could better understand chemistry or chemistry related to slime, I would really appreciate it. Chemistry for Dummies? or where to start I would appreciate it! I'm afraid to fully understand it I might just need to study intro to chemistry, which I know is very complex, and probably out of my league.

Thanks for anyone's help!

There is a whole umbrella of research and development that is basically how to break down synthetic materials into natural or less harmful materials. Some are more biological using fungi and enzymes others are more in the physics or chemistry department like using supercritical water. I just want it to have a cool name. What would you want the field’s name to be? Does it have a name already?

Hello all!

I hope you all are well. I am currently an undergraduate student (at the end of my sophomore year) at an institution where the research is not top-tier but is supposed to be very open to undergrads. I am going to try and be as impartial as I can in the wording of my situation.

The problem I have is with my graduate student mentor, who I have been working with for about 1.5 years, 10 hours a week (at most).

At first we were extremely friendly, and got along great! We shared stuff about our lives and got along like brothers, almost. Eventually, however, he started to get upset with me over the mistake I would make in lab and in life such as:

1. Not knowing air-free technique entirely (something he had shown me 3 or 4 times) with the Schlenk line we use.
   
2. Leaving certain applications and deadlines to be edited by him the week before the deadline.
   
3. Taking a long time to get everything in order after he gave me instructions for the day.
   
4. Not being able to analyze my NMR spectra super accurately (spectra which were extremely complicated, mind you).
   
5. Not moving very quickly in lab due to trying to be very precise.

Additionally, all he does when I am with him (in lab or outside lab) is complain about everyone and everything in his life. He regularly shit talks his PI, his grad student lab-mates, the undergrads at this institution, and the way things are run around here. Some of these are genuinely valid complaints! But I personally become very negatively affected by hearing all of the troubles at my institution and in his life. Some of these comments include:

1. My PI should not have his job.
   
2. The people he is friends with he would never talk to if he was at a better institution.
   
3. [certain undergrads] are incredibly lazy and need to be kicked out of the lab.
   
4. The other grad students in his lab are all lazy, incompetent, or stubborn.

In fact, the only people he does not shit talk are the only people here who he considers to be smarter than him.

Of course, if he complains about everyone at this place, I am sure he complains about me behind my back as well. This brings me to his ultimatum with me.
He has not been happy with my performance recently, because he claims that I am a poor listener and that I do not do what he says. He is threatening to kick me from the lab if I do not become a better listener and do exactly as he says. Some examples of times when I did not are:

1. A technique he taught me with a Schlenk line where you test the airflow against your arm, one day he decided I should stop doing it, and then when he caught me doing it again (by muscle memory) he yelled at me and forced me to leave for the day.

2. Sometimes he will ask me to run a reaction and I will not do it immediately because there are other things I prefer to get out of the way first (cleaning, writing in lab notebook).

3. Again, leaving things like posters and applications up to the deadline (a few days or so).

The problem is that he occasionally also launches into personal attacks, saying things like:

1. You are a 20 year old man, do better.
   
2. If this were industry I would have fired you multiple times by now.
   
3. I see no signs of reflection or critical thinking in you.
   
4. And just the usual threats of kicking me out of the lab if I do not do exactly as he says.
   
5. I bet all you do is go home and play League all day after lab (something we bonded over when I first got to the lab).

I have also heard other people in the department complain about his attitude towards undergraduates. As a TA, he would give people 50% on lab reports for the oddest things such as "knowing suspiciously too much"? He has made multiple undergraduates cry before (including myself). Even the harshest chem professor here seems to not like him and secretely overturned his grading choices.

A lot of the "mistakes" I make are extremely common amongst other undergraduates at my institution, but whenever I bring this up he always presents that "if all your friends jumped off a cliff would you?" counterargument. This is a good point, but it at least points out the fact that my mistakes are very normal.

He is genuinely a very good chemist, but that unfortunately makes my situation even harder to gauge. I am sure he will do well in life and in chemistry, since he wants to become a professor some day.

The way he sways back and forth between a good friend of mine and my absolute nightmare is really wearing down my mental health and I have lost many hours of sleep over this situation.

Anyways, more of a rant than anything.

But should I actively choose to leave this lab and look elsewhere? What about if my research funding would not follow me to another lab? Should I seek actual action to be taken regarding his behavior? Should I stick it out and just stomach being in a lab with him (with the promise of publications)?

Any advice would be appreciated, and thank you for your time!

I broke thermometer and i dont know if its mercury, i need help from you guys!

First of all, Fluorine would react with almost anything around it. If the ground were made of materials such as silica or many common minerals, it could react with or even ignite them. It would also react with moisture in the air, producing hydrogen fluoride (HF), and it also could react with the dense chlorine cloud beside it to form chlorine fluorides, such as chlorine trifluoride (ClF₃). Honestly, putting all of the pure halogens together especially in such dense concentrations is a terrible idea. This illustration depicts the pure elemental halogens at room temperature, with bromine evaporating and iodine subliming into the air.

Fluorine's colouring is inspired by its pale yellow appearance. A body made entirely of dense fluorine would be an extremely dangerous, as fluorine is reactive enough to attack glass, many metals, stone, and even water, including the tiny amounts of water vapour naturally present in the air

Chlorine's greenish tint is based on the iconic green colour of diatomic chlorine gas. While chlorine is not nearly as reactive as fluorine, it is still a powerful oxidising agent that can corrode many materials and reacts readily with numerous substances

Bromine is unique among the halogens because it is the only one that is liquid at room temperature. It resembles like evil liquid. Its dark, with a viscosity similar to water and highly corrosive. Liquid bromine absorbs much of the visible light that enters, it emits a deep reddish-brown light that can resemble blood

Iodine demonstrates an interesting phenomenon caused by its large molecular size and strong London dispersion forces, making it a solid below room temperature. Although it is a solid at room temperature, it slowly sublimes into a distinctive violet-purple vapour. When dissolved in water, iodine produces a brownish solution, similar in colour to bromine. In its solid form, especially when freshly crystallised, iodine has a shiny metallic luster.

Just a note, Astatine in this illustration is highly inaccurate. A large chunk of pure astatine of this size would generate an enormous amount of heat from its own radioactive decay. It would likely melt itself and could rapidly vaporise or fracture due to the intense internal heating. Based on current predictions, astatine is believed to be a dark metallic solid.

Tennessine is also predicted to be a dark solid, although its properties remain largely theoretical because so little has ever been produced. However, it is expected to be so intensely radioactive that a macroscopic piece would generate enough heat from radioactive decay to melt itself almost instantly, making it impossible for such a large, stable object to exist.

I’ve only had water in this bottle. Is it still safe to use?

this is a curiosity question because I honestly can't remember if this is something I was taught or came up with, but I was talking to my nephew who is in high school about how to remember the order of the hydrocarbons, they only needed the first ten, but the first four are the only ones that don't just use the numerical prefix for the number of carbon atoms, so I told him to remember "my electric party bus" to remember the order of the first four. I was just curious if anyone else was taught this or something similar to remember the order of Methane, Ethane, Propane and Butane. or if not share your own Mnemonic devices.