This IS the scientific community (episode 2)

Hey, look! I talked another professor into doing work for me! I guess it's only appropriate since I'm doing work for him, right?

Dr. Laurance G. Beauvais, Assistant Professor of Inorganic, Bioinorganic, and Materials Chemistry

Dr. Beauvais is my research adviser at San Diego State and I've been in his group for almost a year and a half. The research is concentrated on creating crystalline solids that will, hopefully, assist in gas storage (particularly hydrogen).

The (virtual) interview:

What is your honest opinion regarding the state of our environment and the existence of global warming? Do you believe that this is a serious issue to address or a misinterpretation of data?

Wow, that is a very broad question. Regarding the state of our environment, I would say that we (meaning the United States) have made great strides in some areas but we have a long way to go. For example, recycling programs are ubiquitous and we do a good job on metals and paper, but too many plastics are not being recycled. Combine the poor recycling of plastics with the use of plastics in packaging, and that generates a large amount of waste. We need to either re-use more plastics, most of which are produced from fossil fuels, or move to renewable plastics made other sources. I think that we have done a good job reducing sulfur and nitrogen oxides but we have not done enough to reduce mercury emissions.

Regarding the existence of global warming, I would have to say that all of the reports I have seen from credible scientists and scientific organizations has supported global warming. I am not a climatologist, so I am not ready to argue the minute details of global warming. However, I can do a quick calculation of the amount of CO2 released from gas combustion in this country per year and the number is staggering. The US consumes 400 million gallons of gas per day which results in the release of 884 gigagrams of CO2. Consider that CO2 cannot be removed from the atmosphere rapidly and that the carbon obtained from petroleum sources has been sequestered underground for millions of years. Thus, we will increase the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere by burning oil. CO2 is a greenhouse gas. Add these facts up, and global warming does not seem so far-fetched. Therefore, I consider global warming a serious issue.

What is the most important thing that the average earth inhabitant can do to improve or avoid any current or future environmental impacts? Is there anything you do personally?

Are you considering wild animals, pets, and other living organisms as inhabitants or only humans? For now, let’s focus on humans.

Of course, there are many things that people can do to reduce their environmental footprint. I recycle as much as possible, I purchase locally produced items/foods whenever possible, I have a 10 minute commute, I carpool, etc. Consider the 400 million gallons of gasoline that are used everyday in the US. A good portion of that must be devoted to transporting manufactured goods, food, commodities, etc, and a good portion is probably transported by trucks. The more efficient means of moving goods is by rail, but the rail system in this county has deteriorated. If people purchased locally sourced items, we could reduce fuel consumption while at the same time improving local economies. Why do people want to live an hour away from work? Sure, I understand the desire for more space and bigger homes, but do you really enjoy sitting in traffic and paying $20 a day for gas? In most of the county, we do not even offer commuter trains that parallel major highways.

I would love to install photovoltaic cells on my house, but the prices are too high and the efficiency too low. I believe that we should see improvements on both of those factors in the next few years as alternatives to silicon-based systems are commercialized. If a large portion of the country generated their own power, it would go a long way to reducing one of our major sources of various emissions and fuel consumption–power generation.

How important is a move toward sustainable transportation, in your opinion? Do you think it is worth the effort that it will take? Is it a waste of time or an absolute necessity?

It would be great to retrofit our sprawling cities with mass transit systems. However, I do not think that works. You really need to have the transit in place at the same time you are developing a city. As an alternative, I think it worth the effort to produce cars that are as fuel efficient as possible and to target cleaner fuels such as hydrogen. Ignoring the environmental issues, we need to find an alternative transportation fuel to replace gasoline for reasons of national security. Our dependence on gasoline means the continued support of repressive totalitarian societies, such as Saudi Arabia. In addition, as people in China and India seek a lifestyle similar to that of the developed world, the demand for oil can only increase.

In terms of research, where do you think the most money and time should be spent? Are there any important global problems that you believe should be addressed immediately?

We need to determine how we want to address the future energy needs of our country and the world. We can estimate how much energy we will need, and we need to have a plan for supplying that energy. We will have to revisit nuclear energy because it has zero emissions, as long as we have the correct regulations and a permanent waste storage facility, but there is a limited supply of uranium. Ultimately, we need to improve photovoltaic cells so that we can generate power at the point of use and reduce the need for large power plants. We need to couple the power generation from solar cells to a power storage mechanism because solar power is limited to specific times and places. For example, use solar energy to pump water uphill during the day and recover the power at night by using hydroelectric generators. Or, use solar power to split water to generate hydrogen and then use internal combustion or fuel cells to generate electricity.

If you had the power to do so, regardless of your opinion on the state of the environment or petroleum, what technology would you pick to power our society? Why?

Solar power. It’s clean and renewable. Power can be generated where it is needed or converted to a storage medium. But, we need to develop solar cells with better efficiencies and costs. It would be nice to not need silicon because of the energy required to generate pure material. The solar cells will need to be flexible and easy to integrate into building materials.

If you could do one thing to improve the state of transportation in America, what would you do?

Get rid of the upper speed limit on highways and apply a well-enforced minimum speed limit.

Or, increase the average fuel efficiency by 10 mpg.

Do you think that public transportation development is important for major cities? What do you think about the system in San Diego?

Public transportation is important but I think it is nearly futile to build systems in cities like San Diego, LA, Houston, etc. The cities are spread out, land is expensive, and the resulting transit systems take too long for most uses.

Thank you for your time, Dr. Beauvais!

If dreams were pennies...

According to the State Department, MIT is on-track to save the world. I always roll my eyes at these articles about concepts and dreams... I like to read articles about things hitting the marketplace or starting to be manufactured. On the other hand, it is MIT, the same group that brought you the "Flexcar2" idea. Here's the skinny:

Amy Jaffe is surprised that only very few people think she and her colleagues are crazy. What the Massachusetts Technology Institute (MIT) senior, about 400 other students and 30 faculty members from around the world want to do is not a small feat. The group plans to build, in just three years, a hyperefficient, supersafe four-passenger to six-passenger car called VDS Vision that will be produced and used with 95 percent less energy and toxic materials throughout its lifetime than an average existing vehicle.

Hyperefficient! Supersafe! Neither of these words are accepted by my browser spell check, just in case you were wondering.

Adrian Chernoff, who volunteers as a guide, mentor and adviser to program participants, says they face a tremendous challenge...Chernoff, an accomplished inventor and innovator, knows what he is talking about. As a chief architect and principal inventor behind General Motors's 2001 Reinvention of the Automobile program, he helped to bring about several concept and demonstration vehicles such as AUTOnomy, Hy-Wire, CARousel and Sequel. With many independent teams spread around the world, working together smoothly and efficiently will be the most difficult part of the project, Chernoff said. “In the end, it is about networking, collaboration and teamwork,” Chernoff said.

*Sigh*, the Hy-Wire...


It's funny that this car should come up in a article considering my recent reminiscing session. The Hy-Wire was the GM car that really got me excited about hydrogen power in cars. The innovation behind the car was less about its propulsion and more about its actual design. Hydrogen (and electric) cars allow (read: require) you to re-design the idea of a car from the ground up. Forget about steering shafts, drive-lines, engine placement, and cooling systems; everything needed to move the car is modular and doesn't really limit its placement in the vehicle. What this lets you do is include all this stuff into one "skateboard" section of the car and then rearrange the rest of it as you will. I did a Google Sketch-Up to illustrate:


So imagine the green as the batteries and/or fuel cell(s) and the blue for your electric motors. Computers are interspersed through-out and the car is drive-by-wire (so instead of the steering shaft actually turning wheels or your gas pedal actually feeding fuel, your inputs tell the computer to do it [my VW is drive-by-wire for gas input so this isn't crazy future stuff]). That means you can add and remove all the interior parts (seats, dash, etc) and even change the body on it and you won't be affecting how the car moves. It's a great concept and not that hard to actually make happen.

The point I eventually intend to make is that this little Hy-Wire guy has been out and about for many years, at least 7 if my memory serves me right. Despite its great ideas and "potential to revolutionize the blah blah blah," it's gone nowhere. Well, Wired got to drive it at least, that's something.

I admire long term goals ("the group's goal goes beyond that; members also want to change the way cars are produced and used") but it's important to take this kind of news for exactly what it is: a step in the right direction and a promise of absolutely nothing. I would hate for someone to read this and go "here it is! The future is now! Problems are solved!" There are quite a few safe and economic options out there to begin with and not everyone is rushing to get them. You can buy and own an electric vehicle, you can choose a hybrid SUV, you can drive differently. All of these things contributes towards the same goal and this project: using less oil, changing our economy, and polluting less. If people the way we produce and buy and use our cars was apt to be changed, wouldn't we already be doing everything we could?

Simply put, there are not enough people out there (yet) who care enough to make this kind of radical change. Never stop dreaming, never stop building, never stop designing, never ever. But make sure you have the big picture in your head too: there's more to overcome than just the products that are available. There is a massive, interconnected, complicated sociology, psychology, and infrastructure in place that just won't shift directions for a product like a Saint Bernard for a milkbone.

Keeping dreaming but don't quit your day job (see number 7):

THE SEX & CASH THEORY: "The creative person basically has two kinds of jobs: One is the sexy, creative kind. Second is the kind that pays the bills. Sometimes the task in hand covers both bases, but not often. This tense duality will always play center stage. It will never be transcended."

The future (and present) of science

Science, chemistry in particular, is a very interesting world to be involved in, academically and professionally. Actually, I hate the word interesting, too vague. Allow me to start over...

Chemistry is pretty bad ass for the most part. The classes are fascinating if you pay attention and you understand the implications, the implications are important because chemistry, plainly put, is involved in every single thing you experience every second of your life, and practically every experience you have in a research environment has the potential to be novel.

When I started my undergrad research project at SDSU in metal-organic frameworks, I was immediately struck by the open-source nature of the chemistry community. This was something I experienced in my position at Johnson & Johnson but had never seen first hand. For those of you outside of this world that I am just now getting acclimated to, here's exactly how chemistry works:

The skeleton (in this case meaning underlaying framework) is one or a group of very smart people. These are the PhDs and the post docs (those who have continued their formal research after a doctorate degree has been achieved) and they are the heart of any lab environment. They are the brain and kidneys too and, while we're at it, probably the lungs and DNA and hemoglobin as well. I'm really getting out of hand with these anatomical metaphors and probably losing a little focus as well. Keep in mind I'm just now trying to recover from an intense two weeks preparing for final exams. I'm recovering by working a 10 hour day if that makes any sense.

What I'm trying to say is that chemistry is nothing without some serious brain power hanging around. What is interesting about PhDs and professors and so on is that they are not the main workers (most work damn hard, don't get me wrong), they are the directors, the conductors if you will. I would venture a guess that if you're not involved in chemistry that you might think it's all about mixing colorful liquids to get colorful solids that save the world. The real work is done researching and problem solving OUTside of the lab. Let me be clear: the mixing and heating and solvating and freezing and separating and roto-vapping and analyzing are what all of the research is for but, without a plan, the scientific foot-work is useless.

You might be surprised if you knew how much time people spent in front of a computer or notebook doing any number of (somewhat) tedious tasks: recording results, calculating molarity and yield, summarizing information, setting up presentations, and, the major time sink, researching the NEXT STEP. Doing this research can be massively frustrating and, for the time being, is a very medieval (almost spelled that right first time around) system. I guess it might seem a bit ridiculous to call building molecules in a software program and searching through countless records accessed through this crazy thing called the interweb 'medieval' but, to someone who deals with "optimizing web experiences," it's a PITA.

What we do in chemistry is start with a problem, gather as much information as we can, and then just poke at solutions until we find an answer. The first time you start doing this, you're struck by how inefficient the whole process is. Just to start working might take an hour or more of baking glassware and pumping equipment into the "airbox:"



The point I'm meaning to address through this long, ridiculous ramble is that the scientific process for chemistry has come a LONG, LONG way and is almost incomprehensible in terms of its complexity and capacity but there is A LOT of room for improvement. The biggest/best change I could suggest (from my very novice POV) is a vast improvement in the sharing and exchange of information. Right now, we search through existing successful chemical procedures in the form of academic papers which may or may not be clear, free, safe, in English, capable of producing a usable yield, or incredibly expensive. The person who wrote the report may of may not be alive, still reachable, or even willing to answer any questions. They also might be wary of competition for grant money or fame and fortune (and groupies, of course). Here's an example of, basically, what we use to direct our research...
Click here and select "Full Screen" to view it better...

It is, of course, amazing that so much information is available on-line to academic institutions but using it is a drawn-out, frustrating hunt-and-peck activity that can go on for hours or days. The question is, how do you take work that people have, potentially, spent their whole lives accumulating, work that exists in many different forms, published or not?

Science, in a lot of ways, is a very open environment that wants, more than anything, the simple pleasure of accomplishment. Scientific advancements are also the source of a fantastic amount of money and will be as long as sentient beings are mucking about. So what is the middle ground? How can I retain sovereignty over work I've done while giving back to the system that made this work possible? I certainly don't have the answer to that question and I think that no one truly does.

Personally, I'm a fan of things being as open as possible. That's why I blog, plain and simple. That's also why I help people around me with anything I'm good at. I would be much happier in a world with more incorporation, more community, more open-source everything and less chances to be fantastically rich, less copyright laws , and less restriction altogether. "What about the work you do?!!" If everything I did needed to have a clear, upfront monetary value, I would be A LOT LESS BUSY. I certainly wouldn't blog, I wouldn't read, and I would be hard-pressed to stay as diligent in school as I have been. I am truly a fan of open information and will always contribute with that sentiment in mind.

Which brings me to the article that I stumbled upon (yes, that was definitely one hell of an introduction). From the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Microsoft is partnering with several universities to create open-access Web sites where chemists, freely and easily, can find details about molecules and atoms. That’s the report today from Peter Murray-Rust of the chemistry department at the University of Cambridge, in his blog.

Murray-Rust notes that Microsoft has financed and developed a software design called Object Re-Use and Exchange “which sees the future as composed of a large number of interoperating repositories rather than monolithic databases.” Using it, he continues, will allow bench chemists and undergraduates to browse libraries of molecular structures to get information they need for research and publications, rather than being restricted to whatever database to which they happen to have a password.

“We shall also be ‘scraping’ (ugly word) any material we can legally access,” Murray-Rust writes.

Partners in the program, besides Cambridge and Microsoft, include Penn State University, Cornell, Los Alamos National Laboratory, and the PubChem project, a free database of molecular structures hosted by the National Institutes of Health

We will, hopefully, see this more and more as time goes on. As Google keeps making uncopyrighted work available for free and science opens up further and further, people will see the benefits that don't have an intrinsic dollar value.

The best part about this is that the ones who create the information (students, professors, etc) are FAR more likely to be the ones who want the information shared (compared to executives, deans, etc.). Though the universities where the work was done have some kind of claim over the knowledge, it is ultimately up to the scientist whether that information goes anywhere. They can share it clandestinely, talk about it whenever they want, and help 'competing' researchers take that next step. The information always belongs to the holder, no matter how many copyright laws there are.

Here's another example of a push for professors to share their research (also from the Chronicle):

Dan Cohen, director of the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University, wants scholars to stop keeping their research materials to themselves. Just about every academic has notes, photographs, digital scans of research documents, and plenty of other data on their hard drives, he says, but they rarely share anything beyond what makes it into their final books or journal articles. Why not upload such material to a shared online database for other scholars to draw from?

The center announced yesterday that it will work with the nonprofit Internet Archive to create just such a database — and to build tools to make it easy for professors to add their personal research files. The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation awarded $514,000 to the center to support the effort, and gave more than $700,000 more to the Internet Archive for the project as well.

Mr. Cohen said that the key to his plan was ease of use. Many professors are using the Zotero software already, he said, and the upload will take place with just a few clicks. Plus, adding materials might enhance a scholar’s reputation, since his or her name will remain attached to the contribution. Materials in the archive should be easy enough to find, since the Internet Archive, where the materials will be posted, is already popular online.

Open it up, folks, let your information out. Your value, monetary or otherwise, is based largely on your future potential, not your past body of work. Your past body of work serves as a possible indicator of your future potential. Get out there and share what you have, no matter what it is. Everyone will benefit, yourself the most.