I made an egregious omission from last week’s round-up. I refer, of course, to the IYC Chemistry Dance from #ACSAnaheim:
Also on the video front, winners of the “It’s Elemental” video contest, sponsored by Dow Chemical and hosted by the Chemical Heritage Foundation, were announced yesterday. Eleven schools received grants from Dow, and all video submissions can be viewed from the contest page on CHF’s website.
You think I’m qualified for the job? I’m delighted you think so! When do I start? What’s that? You said overqualified? Really, now, that’s quite a compliment. You’re making me blush. I’m sorry – am I missing something? You say “overqualified” like it’s a bad thing. Oh…I see. I’ll just show myself out, then.
In my current combined job search and self-discovery vision quest, I’ve been met on different fronts with the recurring theme that a wealth of experience may, in fact, be a detriment. There is no shortage of “expert” advice, online or otherwise, suggesting that you should hide or neglect to mention years of education and/or employment. If your light is too bright or its spectrum contains too many wavelengths for the position, hide it under the nearest bushel. Okay, honestly, I do get it – target your resume and cover letter toward a specific position. Focus I understand. However, I can’t completely evade the feeling that this gamesmanship of playing hide-and-seek and cherry-picking facts seems disingenuous at best, dishonest at worst. It’s somewhat against the grain of how one is trained to think as a scientist.
Even if one hasn’t been met with this particular o-word per se, it lies not too far beneath concerns that are more openly stated.
Prospective employers are worried that so-called overqualified candidates might jump ship at the first opportunity for a better position elsewhere. They’re concerned that after going through the interview process, they won’t be able to seal the deal because their budget can’t meet the candidate’s salary requirements. They fear their new hire may soon be bored. This sort of thinking is, well, a bit risk-averse, shall we say.
A recent post by Amy Gallo on the Harvard Business Review blog makes a case for taking such a risk. A challenge is posed:
“When making hiring decisions, visionary leaders don’t just focus on the current needs, but on the future.”
So, will the final hiring decision for the position you desire be made by such a visionary leader? Does the future lurch and loom darkly before them, or will they embrace the challenges ahead? I think it’s safe to say that most people would prefer to work for someone in the latter category. A perceived benefit for a hiring manager to adopt this mindset is driven home:
“Hiring overqualified candidates can help you achieve much higher productivity, grow, and achieve opportunities that you may not even be thinking about pursuing right now.” There are other less obvious benefits too: these employees can mentor others, challenge peers to exceed current expectations, and bring in areas of expertise that are not represented at the company.
Sounds good, doesn’t it? Honestly, though, don’t most people’s jobs change over time? There are new developments in technology, best practices, knowledge within your discipline, business needs, what have you, that necessitate modifying some aspect of what you do. If you’re adamantly resistant to change, you’ll be left behind. Successful people aren’t usually like that, though. They have amassed their supply of deep, diverse experience because they want to learn all the time – that’s what has driven them from day one. They don’t wait for knowledge to be fed to them; they seek it out like it’s a special treat, and then devour it – nom nom nom nom. They evolve; curiosity and a hunger for knowledge feed their evolution. To behave otherwise invites negative consequences. The philosopher and writer of social commentary Eric Hoffer put it best: “In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.” This preferred path of continuous learning will reap benefits whether you’re an experienced professional, a new chemistry graduate, or anywhere in between.
Okay, prospective employers, here’s my mission statement. While I’m in your employ, you will have my full attention. I will give my all and strive to grow in the position. All I ask is a chance to do what I do best every day. I will reward your courage with my efforts to contribute and make a difference. That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
When we touch a surface, tiny traces of perspiration and oils stay behind, mirroring the ridge patterns on our fingertips. There are now a number of different methods to make these latent fingerprints visible. The new method is significantly faster than the classic technique of dusting with powder. Unlike spectroscopic methods, it does not require complex technical instruments, and problematic chemicals like ninydrin are not needed either. In addition, it is suitable for all types of surfaces: by lightly pressing the mat onto the surface, the researchers were able to reliably transfer fingerprints from a wide variety of materials, including steel, quartz, glass, plastic, marble, and wood.
The secret of their success is the special mat, a fleece made from nanofibers of thermoplastic polyurethane and fluorescein, a dye. The mat is made in a process called electrospinning. When the mat comes into contact with a fingerprint, components of the perspiration react with the polyurethane, causing cross-linking of the polymer chains. The hot air accelerates the reaction. In the cross-linked regions, the fluorescein cannot remain within the fibers so it comes out as a powdery solid. However, the dye only fluoresces when it is very finely dispersed in the nanofibers, not when it is in small solid clumps. This causes the color of the mat to change from straw yellow to red, making the fingerprint visible within 30 seconds in daylight. The method only works with nanofibers, because only they have enough surface area to produce a visible reaction.
The mat can identify more than mere fingerprints. The researchers were able to "print" an image of a small dragon onto the mat by using an ink-jet printer. Their ink was simply water, which can also cause the cross-linking reaction. The combination of ink-jet printing and the release of a chemical from a nanofiber mat could also be used to produce miniaturized systems such as sensors, microreactors, and diagnostic chips.
More information: Su Chen, et al., A Release-Induced Response for the Rapid Recognition of Latent Fingerprints and Formation of Inkjet-Printed Patterns, Angewandte Chemie International Edition 2011, 50, No. 16, 3706–3709, Permalink to the article: http://dx.doi.org/ … ie.201006537
Working with Japanese pharmaceutical company Daiichi-Sankyo, and funded by the UK Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), the researchers’ work paves the way for the creation of new hybrid antibiotics that may help to solve the growing problem of bacterial infections that are resistant to essentially all antibiotics.
The research is published online in the journal PLoS ONE.
The team, comprising microbial geneticists from Birmingham and chemists from Bristol, determined the sequence of the complete DNA content of the marine bacterium that produces the new antibiotic, thiomarinol, owned by Daiichi-Sankyo. They then identified the genes responsible for making the antibiotic on the basis of their similarity to genes that make the related but less potent antibiotic, mupirocin, which is currently used to combat MRSA (methicillin resistant Staphylococcus aureus).
They found the genes are on a relatively small, separate DNA molecule called a plasmid, which is just big enough to carry the genes for making the antibiotic plus genes to allow the plasmid to replicate autonomously in the bacterium. The plasmid thus carries genes that make both the mupirocin-like antibiotic as well a second antibiotic, holomycin, and a gene responsible for joining both antibiotics together, forming a more potent molecule.
Tests showed that by joining the antibiotics together the resulting chemical is able to inhibit the growth of MRSA strains that have become resistant to mupirocin. ‘This shows how mupirocin can be modified to make it more potent and suggests that related molecules could be used against the increasingly problematic Enterobacteriacae like Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae,’ says University of Birmingham research lead Professor Chris Thomas.
By using mutant strains that were unable to make either the mupirocin part or the holomycin part the team was able to feed alternative compounds to the bacteria – so-called mutasynthesis - so that a family of novel molecules was created, and tests showed some of these had biological activity. ‘This provides hope that the system will allow the production of new antibiotics that may help to combat the growing problem of antibiotic resistance in pathogenic bacteria,’ adds University of Bristol research lead Professor Tom Simpson.
More information: A Natural Plasmid Uniquely Encodes Two Biosynthetic Pathways Creating a Potent Anti-MRSA Antibiotic is published in PLoS ONE. It is available online at http://dx.plos.org … pone.0018031
The detailed chemical analysis was recently published in Angewandte Chemie International Edition at http://dx.doi.org/ … ie.201007029
Provided by University of Birmingham
The findings concern a unique class of synthetic chemical compounds that are transparent to infrared light at lower temperatures, but undergo a phase transition to begin reflecting infrared when they heat up past a certain point.
An article detailing some of these discoveries appears today (April 7) on the cover of the Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters. Additional papers have appeared online or in print in CrystEngComm, the Journal of Materials Chemistry and Physical Review B.
In the papers, UB researchers report that they have managed to manipulate the trigger temperature for vanadium oxide, one such material. The advance is a crucial step toward making the compound useful for applications such as coatings for energy-saving windows.
By preparing vanadium oxide as a nanomaterial instead of in bulk, the scientists managed to lower the compound's trigger point from 153 degrees Fahrenheit to 90. Doping vanadium oxide nanowires with tungsten brought the temperature down further, to 7 degrees Fahrenheit. Molybdenum doping had a similar but smaller effect.
Researchers also found that they were able to induce a phase transition using an electric current instead of heat.
UB chemist Sarbajit Banerjee led the studies, collaborating with Sambandamurthy Ganapathy, an assistant professor of physics, to head the Physical Review B research on the use of the electric current.
"Definitely, we are closer than we've ever been to being able to incorporate these materials into window coatings and other systems that sense infrared light," said Banerjee, an assistant professor. "What we found is an example of how much of a difference finite size can make. You have a material like vanadium oxide, where the phase transition temperature is too high for it to be useful, and you produce it as a nanomaterial and you can then use it right away."
Banerjee and Ganapathy previously led research projects demonstrating that, in nanoscale form, two additional synthetic compounds -- copper vanadate and potassium vanadate -- exhibit phase transitions akin to those in vanadium oxide.
Banerjee's work has caught the attention of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which has contacted him to discuss developing window coatings that could improve the energy efficiency of buildings with heating or air conditioning systems. The technology could be particularly useful in places like Phoenix and Las Vegas that experience extreme summer temperatures.
Besides smart windows, vanadium oxide could also be useful in products including computer chips, night-vision instruments and missile guidance systems, Banerjee said.
Two major awards are funding Banerjee's research on the material: A Cottrell Scholar Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, announced this year, and a National Science Foundation CAREER award, the foundation's most prestigious award for junior investigators.
More information: http://pubs.acs.or … 21/jz101640n
The research is described in a video at http://pubs.acs.or … e-video.html