Agent Redbeak (Chach)
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agentredbeak.bsky.social
Agent Redbeak (Chach)
@agentredbeak.bsky.social
* Scent designer by night, 🌼 🌸 🧪 🐌 🐝 🌗 🪗
* Public servant by day, Web software engineer, 🕷️🕸️
* Occasional time travel agent,❓🕰️
* Personal account, Scent and Science communications
Pinned
This account is dedicated to sharing little stories while I learn organic chemistry.

My goal is to understand molecules better and share scent and chemistry content, and then to figure out enough computational chemistry to do some molecular visualization and WebGL/WebGPU.
This protein membrane dance battle from @imprs-cbp.bsky.social Instagram account is so fun!! www.instagram.com/reel/DDzk8tx...
Login • Instagram
Welcome back to Instagram. Sign in to check out what your friends, family & interests have been capturing & sharing around the world.
www.instagram.com
January 3, 2025 at 2:36 AM
Reposted by Agent Redbeak (Chach)
3/ In May, we told the story of Kris Hansen, a 3M scientist who told company executives decades ago that the forever chemicals it manufactured were in peoples’ bodies. Her bosses halted her work:
How 3M Executives Convinced a Scientist the Forever Chemicals She Found in Human Blood Were Safe
Decades ago, Kris Hansen showed 3M that its PFAS chemicals were in people’s bodies. Her bosses halted her work. As the EPA now forces the removal of the chemicals from drinking water, she wrestles wit...
www.propublica.org
December 26, 2024 at 9:05 PM
Reposted by Agent Redbeak (Chach)
I remember reading an early draft of this @fastlerner.bsky.social story and having to stop several times out of disbelief, anger and disappointment.

Reading it again nearly a year later, my reactions are no less visceral.
December 27, 2024 at 1:39 AM
My planned code/art project for this holiday break is to attempt to render some molecules with WebGPU. I may use Blender if WebGPU takes too long to set up or has too many quirks.

I will be rendering some molecules found in Yellow Mandarin Orange Oil 🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊🍊

Post #1 of several posts ->
December 26, 2024 at 5:53 PM
Reposted by Agent Redbeak (Chach)
TikTok is getting banned….. where will I post my videos??! I love Bluesky but it’s not for video content. I use instagram but I’m not happy about Zuckerberg helping to take down TikTok so he can benefit.
December 26, 2024 at 5:25 PM
Holiday plans: To visualize the molecules that would be in an Yellow Mandarin oil (orange oil). Would design it in Blender or WebGPU and play with shaders so it is almost neon yellow. Then challenge myself to understand which molecule makes it so yellow... and why.
December 20, 2024 at 3:26 AM
As I study chemistry "for real", I am trying (again) to get into reading "Fundamentals of Fragrance Chemistry" (Sell)

This time, I feel more confident that I might get through most of the book - EXCEPT that - I now have #perfumerproblems getting through the intro.

1/x ->
November 29, 2024 at 11:21 PM
Excellent short documentary about the story of how AI helped us to understand and predict protein folding
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cx7l...
How AI Cracked the Protein Folding Code and Won a Nobel Prize
YouTube video by Quanta Magazine
www.youtube.com
November 29, 2024 at 10:02 PM
glycoshape.org

Bookmarking the "Sugar Drawer" on this website and want to think of a fragrance chemistry overlap that could require using it.
GlycoShape
GlycoShape is an OA database of glycans 3D structural data and information that can be downloaded or used with Re-Glyco to rebuild glycoproteins from the RCSB PDB or EMBL-EBI AlphaFold repositories
glycoshape.org
November 26, 2024 at 3:38 AM
The art direction on these molecules 🤩 🤩 🤩
As we (my lab and I) are new here 😻, let me introduce some exciting #glycotime work we recently published in Nature Methods doi.org/10.1038/s415... GlycoShape is a completely OA database and toolbox to restore the 3D structure of glycans on glycoproteins 🥳 You can find it at glycoshape.org 1/2
November 26, 2024 at 3:36 AM
Wordle for synthetic chemists!
November 26, 2024 at 2:51 AM
This vintage chemistry lecture, from 1957, is pretty adorable! "Linus Pauling Lecture: Valence and Molecular Structure Part 1"

Thanks Oregon State University for posting this!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tev...
Linus Pauling Lecture: Valence and Molecular Structure Part 1
YouTube video by Oregon State University
www.youtube.com
November 26, 2024 at 1:41 AM
Bookmarking this article about mammals sniffing their way around!
Check out our new review in PLoS Biology on how dynamic odour information can help mammals to navigate through their environment.
Led by the fantastic Anantu Sunil & Olivia Pedroncini, this also marks my first last author publication from the University of Bonn!
journals.plos.org/plosbiology/...
How do mammals convert dynamic odor information into neural maps for landscape navigation?
Odors contain complex spatiotemporal information that guide animal behavior, but how this information is processed is not fully understood. This Essay discusses recent advances in mammalian olfactory ...
journals.plos.org
November 24, 2024 at 6:08 PM
Reposted by Agent Redbeak (Chach)
'For scientists the network is starting to look like home. Academic institutions, scientific journals and conferences, and international organizations such as the World Health Organization have established a presence there in recent days.'
www.science.org/content/arti...
Like ‘old Twitter’: The scientific community finds a new home on Bluesky
After recent changes to Elon Musk’s X, a gradual migration turns into a stampede
www.science.org
November 21, 2024 at 5:49 AM
Here is a starter pack of olfactory researchers that I'm checking out.

p.s. I'm a scent designer and not an olfactory research scientist (at least, not yet!)
Seeing many new #olfaction researches on Bluesky, nice! I made a starter pack for researchers and groups studying the sense of smell or taste. If you want to get added let me know.

go.bsky.app/xfXg9B
November 24, 2024 at 3:54 PM
I see... edu.rsc.org/download?ac=... - this is a nice poster about the shapes of carbon.

Allotropes is what I found when I got my molecule making kit. The carbon had different pieces with different amounts of holes and shapes and I was like, why?
edu.rsc.org
November 22, 2024 at 9:15 AM
This is so good.
Shifting between models is a real challenge in chemistry. Explicitly teaching how one connects to another is not something that is obvious from an exam spec but should help students' thinking about chemistry a lot. #chatchemistry
Atomic models in the curriculum
Featured paper Taber , K. S. (2003) 'The atom in the chemistry curriculum: Fundamental concept, teaching model or epistemological obstacle?'...
thescieddistillery.blogspot.com
November 22, 2024 at 8:59 AM
My hot take (for non-teachers) is that I don't know what any of these bonding methods or why I should care.

Will research this for 5 minutes and call it a night!
Good evening science lovers everywhere! We’re kicking off tonight’s chat about bonding.
What is your preferred order to teach bonding and why?
Don’t forget #ChatChemistry in your replies.
November 22, 2024 at 8:40 AM
This is so cool! Thanks for compiling all of these!
November 22, 2024 at 8:28 AM
Good article!
And, if you're interested in reading more about the current health of chemistry - from school level all the way to academia - our analysis (which we've been working on for most of the year!) is now online: www.chemistryworld.com/features/the...
The health of chemistry across the pipeline
More students in the UK are studying chemistry at A-level than 20 years ago, but how does that translate to universities?
www.chemistryworld.com
November 21, 2024 at 3:37 PM
Reposted by Agent Redbeak (Chach)
There’s more to rainbows than the human eye can see: here’s how a rainbow extends into the infrared and ultraviolet.

Photos:
1. Infrared
2. Visible (obviously)
3. Ultraviolet, and
4. A composite showing how UV is beyond the violet in a rainbow, and IR beyond the red end.

🧪 #photography
November 21, 2024 at 10:35 AM
Reposted by Agent Redbeak (Chach)
🥘Cooks used cast-iron pans for centuries before modern nonstick pans turned up on the scene. Here we look at what makes cast-iron pans nonstick and the chemistry behind seasoning pans. cen.acs.org/food/food-sc...

#PeriodicGraphics by @compoundchem.com

#chemsky #bluesci 🧪
November 21, 2024 at 2:54 PM
Thread on chemistry and computational chemistry books...

A couple of weeks ago, I made a list of books, and they tallied up at $3400.

This was not even a lot of books!
November 21, 2024 at 6:39 AM
I like this periodic table.
www.rsc.org/periodic-table

Since starting to force myself learn enough organic chemistry - I am revisiting all the chemistry I have forgotten as an adult, and wading through mountains of websites, apps, databases, books to find content treasures.
Periodic Table – Royal Society of Chemistry
Interactive periodic table with element scarcity (SRI), discovery dates, melting and boiling points, group, block and period information.
www.rsc.org
November 17, 2024 at 9:24 PM