The three winners of last year’s Nobel prize for chemistry are here in Lindau, Germany, to tell their tale and give some direction to the student attendees on how to succeed in research. Instrument manufacturers and funding bodies are also being taught a thing or two, whilst unfortunate journal editors are the subjects of their jokes.

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Enjoying the sun in Lindau having been at the last lectures at the meeting of Nobel Laureates - It’s been a fantastic experience and one that I’m surprised did not see greater publicity in our department. Lectures and discussions have been informative, inspiring and in some cases fairly dramatic as the debate spilled over from chemistry to government policy and theology.

This week has been slightly different for me as I have spent it in the company of several chemistry Nobel Laureates. I have been lucky enough to be given the opportunity to attend the 59th Lindau Nobel Laureates meeting along with 7 other students from the UK. We have seen many lectures given by a variety of Nobel Laureates covering many areas of chemistry. Discussions with the Laureates focused on future energy concerns and sustainability.

Today we had lunch with Harry Kroto, and later in the question and answer session I asked him about the importance of bringing practical chemistry to youger generatations. This is an area he feels most strongly about. As a past president of the RSC he still works with them to bring chemistry into childrens lives and make it fun.

If anyone gets the chance in the future to attend this meeting, I would very much encourage it. This is a lifetime experience I don’t think I will ever be able to repeat, and will remember forever!

Picture the scene. You wake up in the morning and look out of the window to see hills, greenery, and the sun shining on a beautiful lake. Later on you find yourself sharing a restaurant parasol with two Nobel Laureates, and 30 Australian students, in the middle of a heavy storm. Where are you?

You could only be on Lake Constance for the Lindau Nobel Laureate Meeting.

Having been in Lindau since Sunday evening, I would say that far more students should apply to attend. The experience is amazing. Spanning from attending lectures with some of the greatest minds in the scientific world; through to the interesting combination of mango and carrot in the food tent.

Leaving you with that most unique of food combinations, I have to go back out in the sun to meet with one of last year’s Nobels.

It’s a hard life…

Open courseware collections are an easy way to learn about any subject you might be interested in. You can find collections available on any subject and on just about any particular subdivision of that subject. This is true for the subject of chemistry. These 7 excellent open courseware collections to learn about chemistry will give you a solid foundation and much more to help you understand the chemistry in the world around you.

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Hi, I have just created a total synthesis blog and have a few posts now. Im hoping you can add my blog to your list of blogs. I have added your blog to my own list of blogs. If not it would be great to get some feed back on the site, being new to blogging im sure there are lots someone with more experience would have to suggest.

Michael

I am part of a small team that runs an academic network called Graduate Junction for graduate researchers all over the world. We already have more than 13,000 researchers participating in the network and have recently been redeveloping our site to make it even more useful for the research community. Our aim is to promote interdisciplinary and international communication amongst early career researchers. As researchers ourselves we believe that communication like this can dramatically improve both the quality and experience of research from the perspective of those who are relatively new to research.

You can find our site at http://www.graduatejunction.org
The more people who participate the more the community benefits.

We have also just launched our first Graduate Junction global, online research poster competition. It aims to help researchers practice conveying their research to non-specialists whilst at the same time giving them the chance to win a prize. The details can be found at www.graudatejunction.org/posters

Take a look and enter the competition soon.

Best wishes,
Daniel
Graduate Junction co-founder

This morning’s lectures - given by Nobel prize winners at the 59th Meeting of Nobel laureates - saw some of chemistry’s biggest personalities use jokes and film to get their message across to the audience.

Our first comedian was Kurt Wuthrich – telling us that NMR stands for ‘nuclear magnetic resonance’ not ‘no meaningful results’. He also removed his belt part way through his talk (unnerving) and used it to demonstrate the human genome.

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This week I am in Lindau, Germany, attending a rather unusual conference. Each year Nobel laureates come to this tiny town on Lake Constantine to mix with university students for ‘inspiring discussions’. These meetings have been in existence since 1951, and each year a different prize topic is focused on……and this year it’s the turn of chemistry.

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Tasmanian wallabies have been found breaking into poppy plantations in the Australian island state, getting stoned and stumbling around forming crop circles. The Australian plantations produce about half of the world’s legally-grown opium, which is used to make morphine and other opiate-based painkillers.

‘The one interesting bit that I found recently in one of my briefs on the poppy industry was that we have a problem with wallabies entering poppy fields, getting as high as a kite and going around in circles,’ Lara Giddings, Tasmania’s attorney general told a parliamentary budget committee meeting.

“Then they crash, we see crop circles in the poppy industry from wallabies that are high.’

Matt Wilkinson