A Day in the Life of a Computational Chemist

My ex-graduate student, Zoe Cournia, writing on the Wiley Exchanges site "I  live in a virtual reality world, where everything from chemical reactions to drugs, food, materials, cosmetics, electronics, and proteins is being modeled and simulated. And you won’t believe it, but, yes, I do have a job."

Brawling and Bawling

So on January 28th I was in Norwich and watched the Canaries take on Newcastle. The final score was a 0-0 tie.  Sounds boring to aficionados of American sports, in which it’s “No Ties Allowed”. But, in reality this game was 90 minutes of intensity in a packed, passionate, partisan arena.  

First up was Despair, as in the first half Newcastle were all over us, streaming through the midfield, wave after wave of their highly technical French strikers floating effortlessly down the wings past our full-backs. Men against boys; no way were we going to survive this. Gloom. We would have even taken a defeat, then, as long as they agreed not to humiliate us with a thrashing.

Frustration set in, with chants questioning certain characteristics of the visiting fans. Then, our tempestuous Scottish winger Robert Snodgrass, who was having another bad game, fluffed a corner and got some resounding abuse from most of our section of the crowd (the Snakepit). Amazingly, the little brat retaliated! Swearing at us and gesturing! So, of course, we shouted at him even more.  How dare he? We pay him a bloody Fortune (probably millions) and he has the gall to play worse than a squashed haggis then cuss at us for tearing him off a strip!  (Bet you wouldn’t see that happening in the NFL, either).

But Newcastle didn’t score; they hit the post three times, our goalie was brilliant, and we did better in the second half, both teams pushing, each giving 100%, desperately probing for the winner - end-to-end stuff. Then our hard man, Bradley Johnson, tussled with Loic Remy. Johnson pushed him, the Newcastle star might have headbutted him, Johnson went down and all hell broke loose; all 22 players in a brawl, the whole stadium on fire, jubilation as Remy was finally red carded then vitriol as, on reflection, the ref inexplicably sent Johnson off as well.  

Magnificent! But it wasn’t over – right at the end we twice nearly sneaked an undeserved winner, grazing  the bar then drawing an amazing save from their keeper. Afterwards, Snoddy came back down to the Snakepit and applauded us in contrition. We knew Snoddy gives everything - to quote Ray Hudson ‘working harder than a one-eyed cat covering three mouse holes’. So we forgave him and the evening finished in breathless mutual appreciation.

Let's make a Love Drug!

Oxytocin is the love hormone, the magic chemical  that creates warm, fuzzy feelings of bonding, trust, empathy and cuddle cravings. When someone's level of oxytocin goes up, he or she responds more generously and caringly, even with complete strangers. This is useful of course; for example, in the bar (chatting up a hot chick), or on the battlefield (making the Islamic Insurgents fall in love with their enemy).  The problem is though, that oxytocin has to be injected, which is rather inconvenient, of course on a first date  ("Excuse me, Cindy, just roll up your sleeve"?), and negotiating a ceasefire on the field for such a purpose is likely to prove nontrivial. So what is needed is something that one can just spray, or pop in a drink. That could be an oxytocin activator.  

Now, how about this? Last week at a neutron workshop in UCSD I chatted with Bi-Cheng Wang of UGA, with whom I wrote a paper 15 years ago on the activation of oxytocin (Boris Velikson was my postdoc who did the modeling). On the bus at the airport we decided that all we need is to design a molecule that will do the activation (cleave the precursor at Arg2-Asp13) and voila! - beautiful people wherever you need them. Drug is the Love! Anyone having problems with the wife or got an obstreperous teenager? Maybe a dog that barks too much? Send the research dollars our way!!!

[Disclaimer: for all the spoil sports - yes, I know there are ethical problems with this type of thing, and, yes, I'm not serious, and, yes, I know there is already a oxytocin nasal spray being tested for autistic kids [but an activator may be more effective anyway]].

Lose!

Norwich City - lose!

I have been a fan of yours for 47 years.
I have never wanted you to lose before.
Not against Villa at Wembley when I was a ballboy.
Not against Chelsea or Panathinaikos or Inter Milan or Bayern (and certainly not Ipswich).

But I  bought a ticket to the Newcastle game on January 28th and a flight ticket back to the USA on the 29th. And now you have announced that, should you beat Fulham in the F.A. Cup 3rd round reply tomorrow night, the Newcastle game will be put back one day, to the 29th.

So tomorrow you must sink. Lose! Go Fulham!

Update: Fulham won 3-0! Whehaaay!

Quite Nippy

With temperatures  in Knoxville presently sliding towards zero Farenheit I was trying to remember the briskest weather I have experienced. It may well be the period of January 3rd-January 18th 1985 when I lived near  Grenoble, France. The temperature in the town never rose above freezing during that 18-day period. The average was around 10 degrees F and the lowest was -1F, on January 6th. Now that was in the town, and I lived 1200 ft  higher, at La Grivolee (see red arrow), so the average at home would probably have been about  4F and minimum about -5F. My poor little 2CV car, nicknamed "Turbo",  was just a cracked block.

Some Science Jokes for the New Year

Always game for a lame one or two, am I, so here are some science  jokes for the New Year:

Two theoretical physicists are lost at the top of a mountain. Theoretical physicist No 1 pulls out a map and peruses it for a while. Then he turns to theoretical physicist No 2 and says: "Hey, I've figured it out. I know where we are." 
"Where are we then?" "Do you see that mountain over there?" "Yes." "Well… THAT'S where we are."

A blowfly goes into a bar and asks: "Is that stool taken?"

A statistician is someone who tells you, when you've got your head in the fridge and your feet in the oven, that you're – on average - very comfortable.

And a couple of limericks to finish with:

A friend who's in liquor production,
Has a still of astounding construction,
The alcohol boils,
Through old magnet coils,
He says that it's proof by induction.

A mosquito was heard to complain
That chemists had poisoned her brain.
The cause of her sorrow
Was para-dichloro-
diphenyl-trichloroethane.*

*p.s. That's DDT.

The September 1991 Mineriad

22 years ago, in September 1991, I happened to be in Bucharest.  I was working in France, which had had strong links with Romania, and so after the 1989 revolution they tried to fill the vacuum and  sent us over for the first post-communist Franco-Romanian Biophysics conference. But we weren't the only visitors: several thousand Jiu valley miners had been organized  to come and cause trouble - the "Mineriad". Nice lads, most of them. They were wearing wellies and carried sticks (see above), slept in the parks, and shouted "Jos Iliescu" ("Down with Ion Iliescu", the President). Now, this confused me because I had thought it was Iliescu who had arranged for them to come in the first place, laying on trains etc (maybe a Romanian reader can clue me in?).

The night was full of the sweet aroma of CS-gas: Jean-Louis said he'd already experienced that, much worse, in '68. Next morning, they marched to the parliament building. We tagged along, at the back, so we missed the fighting, hundreds injured, deaths etc. They petrol bombed the parliament and the Prime Minister (Petre Roman) resigned. That was a momentous visit, I guess. The conference led to my establishing a strong association with the guys there, who throughout everything had maintained a love for science. I brought students back to Germany, France and the USA, and they did great stuff.  I want to go back to Romania, back to the monasteries in Moldavia, the mountains of Transylvania, to Bucharest, and all the friends I made there. Maybe even, one day, to drink beer with miners in the Jiu valley..........