Thursday, November 22, 2012

Mission statement

There are roughly 6 billion science-related blogs on the internet,1 so you might naturally wonder: what's the point of this one? I've got a couple ideas what to do with the space. Hopefully they'll come to something. Subscribe?

  1. Bring chemistry to the public. This will entail featuring research or areas of interest, presented in a manner suitable for non-chemists and chemists alike to find interesting. Public interest in science is crucial both for general enthusiasm, public support, and continued grant funding. People deserve to know what they're funding--and great science should be appreciated the way great art and great music are. 
  2. Bring ethical/social/political issues of science into focus. Scientists have a poor track record at engaging the public. Many of them have a poor track record at playing nice with each other. Chemistry culture has been described as toxic. There's lots of internal politics and fraud. And scientists are usually unwilling to dig into public policy and lawmaking. An important step towards fixing these issues is to discuss them and build awareness.
  3. Highlight interesting chemistry. I'm a chemist, and so I find chemistry interesting. As such, I'll find novel or useful topics in organic synthesis/catalysis/chemical biology/microbiology and share or comment on them. Hopefully it'll be interesting to other people too. This'll include articles, lab techniques, reviews, etc. of interest.
  4. Showcase valuable resources. This includes interesting databases, blogs, websites, journals, and the like that will be useful especially to chemists. 
It'll be slow (grad student here). For now it'll be pseudonymous blogging--that may change depending on other factors. 

Anyhow, that's about it for now. Next step: content.

!!!


1 +/- 6 billion, citation needed

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