Yep, sorry for going between terms. Also, if the confusion stems from just calling it “alcohol” at one point, I was using the word in the more general chemical sense (molecules containing a C-OH group), a class to which isopropanol and ethanol belong.

No dunking, and make sure what you’re buying is mostly alcohol (> 95%) and not water/alcohol mixtures often used for disinfection. Using in combination with e.g., a toothbrush is probably your best bet. IPA (and acetone) can strip some adhesives and cause certain kinds of electrical insulation to swell or dissolve, so a targeted approach is better. IPA is flammable (though less so than acetone), so be careful/well ventilated when allowing parts to dry, and ensure parts are fully dried before reconnecting to power.

IPA itself is only about twice as toxic as ethanol and certainly less problematic by inhalation than tar in the long run. I wouldn’t bother with a mask mostly because it won’t do shit unless it’s a cartridge respirator. However, IPA can sometimes facilitate skin absorption. IDK specifically about tar buildup but recommend wearing gloves (disposable nitrile is fine).

don’t forget to make the space non-breaking :D

I think the framing as “myths” also helped the show. The experimental result was generally either wonder (“oh wow, it’s really true!”) or self-satisfaction (“we proved wrong something that Other People actually think!”); good outcomes either way. It helped keep the audience happy regardless and made them feel like something was actually accomplished that they could relate to. Sure, you can get some of that with other popsci shows, but the demos/experiments are often presented as a known answer with low stakes, leaving it harder to connect to a “so, what?”

… this sounds absurd to me, at least as stated wrt the enzymes “dissolving” the floaters. Your body does not like foreign proteases floating around. I am also skeptical that the enzymes would survive denaturing and pepsin et al. in the stomach and duodenum (empty stomach or not), get absorbed intact, and somehow not get inactivated by the immune system (again, rogue protease = bad). Not to say that your floaters weren’t reduced (though the brain sometimes will just learn to ignore them) or even that the supplement wasn’t responsible via metabolites. Just, action of an intact enzyme itself seems unlikely. Corrections welcome; I’m going off my gut here and am not a biologist.

I know of a manager who unironically believes this for internal corporate technical reports (ours are academic style and more rigorous and formal than they need be…). It’s not quite to this extent, but I’ve overheard conversations where the manager apparently can’t fathom why their subordinates are incapable of double digits over a year.

ah ist für blackout vorgesehen

Hurrikan trifft Florida ab

und das sollte in den freien platz verschoben werden; das passiert mehrmals im jahr

Do not power law fit your process data for predictive models. No. Stop. Put the keyboard down. Your model will almost certainly fail to extrapolate beyond the training range. Instead, think for at least two seconds about the chemistry and the process, maybe review your kinetics textbook, and only then may you fit to a physics-based model for which you will determine proper statistical significance. Poor fit? Too bad, revise your assumptions or reconsider whether your “data” are really just noise.

Always run qNMR with an internal standard if you are using it to determine purity. And, as a corollary, do not ignore unidentified peaks. Yes, even if it “has always been that way”.

DOE models almost certainly tell you less than you think they do, especially when cross-terms are involved, or when the effects are categorical, or when running a fractional factorial design…

It’s not necessarily the cleanest reaction, but yes. That said, if you’re thinking of its Hollywood use case as a quick knockout agent, it’s not very effective for that purpose. It’s not non-hazardous, though; exposure for several minutes can cause dizziness and fainting, and prolonged storage can lead to phosgene formation through autoxidation.

especially if you get ticketed for biking on the sidewalk… ShArE THe rOaD

A WAT. Y THO

The aspie-to-chemistry pipeline is strong ;)

Also, if you want another categorical rabbit hole and have a decent ear, check out the IPA for transcribing pronunciations

Counterpoint: my lease says no :) Can’t have shit on my balcony because it “mars the aesthetic of the exterior”

Hell, get them out of America, too. They’re massive and block vision at intersections even if the streets are supposedly wide enough. And the drivers are always clueless and entitled at best and openly hostile at worst on top of their own reduced vision. “But I can see everyone because I’m up so high” the fuck you can.

I like the seatbelt analogy better than the old-timey one I thought of at first: surgeons are gentlemen, and gentlemen’s hands are always clean, ergo surgeons need not wash their hands. Maybe I’m jaded, but my perception of the diehard no-gloves camp is one of arrogant exceptionalism.

Mostly disagree with your new dept here. It’s true that, if everyone had perfect technique, perfect eyes, perfect sense of touch, perfect decision making, and perfect reaction speed, PPE would be a lot less important. But people don’t, and reducing chemical exposure purely to a skill issue is nonsensical and hubristic. Accidents happen, and by definition there is always some unknown component of R&D that might manifest as splashes, loss of containment, etc, which gloves (and labcoats and goggles) may protect against. Furthermore, it’s not just about one person’s skills; without gloves, one must rely on labmates’ collective hygiene and that there are no spilled residues on the outsides of the chemical containers.

To the point that gloves are ineffective: then the wrong gloves are being used. Glove manufacturers provide compatibilty charts, and SDSs give glove recommendations for more niche chemicals. Nitrile has okay enough compatibility to be the default, but chemical labs should stock other commonly needed kinds.

To the point that gloves reduce one’s sense of touch, I think the decrease is minimal for standard-issue nitrile, though agree for thicker varieties like butyl which reduce dexterity.

To the point that gloves prevent one from noticing chemical exposure, again I disagree. Splash contact for solvents on gloves is pretty noticeable, though different from uncovered skin, and I find it much easier to see chemical residues against the clean monochrome of the gloves. As you mentioned, contaminated gloves should be removed ASAP to guard against breakthrough; without gloves, there is no breakthrough period, just immediate contamination of the skin.

Finally, gloves may protect you from chemicals, but they also protect the samples from you. Skin oils or microorganisms can cause issues, though I have found this more problematic for bio than chemistry.

It’s not that the predictions are wrong or anything, it’s just that they typically go something like “teehee this will be interesting” because caution is for the crayon-eaters in EHS.

I suppose that makes LANL and co. gender R&D labs. Explore the frontiers!

Ugh I had an older colleague, a PhD organic chemist, who was absolutely convinced that soy would make me (m) infertile. I ordered tofu once when out to lunch and he would not stop warning me to “be careful” and to be mindful of starting a family and “you know those studies.” When I mentioned that the consensus was at best inconclusive and most likely there is no such link, he said that no, “they” definitely showed that excess soy is bad and that he worried about my reproductive health. Like dude even if eating tofu did cause reproductive health issues, mine is none of your goddamn business. On the other hand, the same guy is also convinced that BPA (another estrogen mimic used esp. in certain plastics) concerns are a total hoax because “they did bad science because their sample containers had BPA in them and it leached into the urine samples giving false positive.” Also something about the only evidence of it binding like estrogen was that someone glanced at a crystal structure and halfassedly thought it looked like it might fit and rolled with it for career reasons. Like, I don’t know, man, maybe a couple studies used containers made with BPA, but most probably didn’t. I haven’t read them, but I know you didn’t, either. Also, you’re literally a petrochemist, you know BPA is mostly used in polycarbonates, and lab plastics, especially for analytical work, are mostly polypropylene or polyethylene designed to avoid exactly this kind of leaching. Honestly.

Tbf sometimes it’s hard even for organic chemists because the authors will just put an abbreviation of a non-standard variation of the name of some named reaction over the reaction arrow and then proceed to draw the product in a completely different conformation from the starting material, leaving you trying to work out which carbon is which in the world’s most annoying game of spot-the-difference (or in many cases spot-the-similarity).