Patrick Lutz

"Hexafluorosilicic acid is produced naturally on a large scale in volcanoes"‽ Wouldn't've guessed that...

Nancy Youssef, ..guil @ X.com @nancyayoussef The preliminary Pentagon cost estimate of the war in Iran is $1 billion a day, a congressional official told me. 12:20 PM • 3/4/26 • 44K Views

Preliminary Pentagon cost estimate of the war in Iran is $1 BILLION a day. So far.

I reviewed a paper once that used F for functional group.

They should prioritize this when they discover element 119+.

I think that one of our big failings as a field is that you can't spell "chemistry" using element symbols.

My wife taught a first-year seminar this fall and one of the papers she graded included the sentence "some older people might remember 9/11."

need breakfast noodles to complete the trilogy

White House stalls release of approved US science budgets The US Congress rejected sweeping cuts to science agencies. But the NIH, the NSF and NASA have had their spending slowed.

Congress rejected massive cuts to US science budgets for 2026, but much of the money still isn’t flowing to researchers.

The culprit? The White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) is quietly slow-walking the release of funds. 🧵👇

Logo for "Taco Bell Business School," which is a thing, apparently.

We recently got quotes from a few companies, happy to send them to you if it would be useful.

This is me (somewhat less excitedly) every time I send out an email through our LMS.

Looking back at my videos from 2020–2021, it's kind of funny to see my hair growing over the course of a year with no haircuts (for obvious reasons).

The best student we’ve had in my four years has gotten barely any traction. It’s a disaster.

I definitely thought it was supposed to be an acronym at first too...

say hi stupendous stoats

bsky.app/profile/chem...

there's a world map in "list of chemical elements named after places"

My student Lauren discovered this new(?) demo with sprinkles + LN₂! I haven't been able to find anywhere else that's reported this, but let me know if you've seen it before.

Be sure to watch with sound on to hear the full effect!

Photo of "Ginger Evans" brand rainbow sprinkles.

We've found that not all sprinkles work equally well, so you may have to test a few brands if you're looking to replicate on your own. This bottle from the local Save A Lot was the undisputed champion of those we tried.

My student Lauren discovered this new(?) demo with sprinkles + LN₂! I haven't been able to find anywhere else that's reported this, but let me know if you've seen it before.

A line plot with the numbers of NSF awards for fiscal years 2021-2026. The curve for fiscal year 2026 is quite a bit lower than those for 2021-2025 while the curve for fiscal year 2026 (in red) is much lower than all through the same date.

But, as they say, there is no time like the present

[OK, maybe the 1930s if you want to nitpick]

But, with some data wrangling, my first NSF Funding Curves!

2/3

uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

Come be my colleague at @hopecollege.bsky.social !
We are hiring a 1 year VAP to teach GenChem lecture & lab. Past VAPs have had great success! Whether you've done a postdoc & now want to buff your teaching for a TT job, or are a fresh PhD aspiring to teaching-only jobs: jobs.hope.edu/postings/5069

They could really step up by vocally lobbying and teaming up with key industry partners to push the government to stop their insanely damaging policies. I'm sure some of this is happening behind the scenes but I wish they were shouting from the rooftops.

Comic. [A chemical formula trailing off the right side] C1076 H1080 Ac1067 Ag1069 Al1075 Am1026 Ar1075 As1070 At1047 Au1069 B1071 Ba1070 Be [caption] The approximate chemical formula for the universe

Chemical Formula

xkcd.com/3200/

ah, the fabled Zone of Proximal Development

woah

Yeah you can do prep GPC like prep HPLC, though I can't say I've had the pleasure of doing either. I'd assume that's what this would be.

Well... besides, you know, the regular NMR cryogens.