How has the Internet changed chemistry?

See this C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News) special issue: http://internet.cenmag.org/

What's New: SciFinder

A few new features, introduced last month:
http://www.cas.org/products/scifinder/whats-new-in-scifinder

PhD students interested in chemical informatics?

(from scifinderinfo@cas.org)

CAS is now accepting applications for the 2011 SciFinder Academic Exchange Program (SAEP)

This extraordinary opportunity is for outstanding PhD chemistry students to exchange ideas about chemical informatics with CAS senior management, editorial scientists, and technical specialists.

Selected participants spend 4 days in Columbus, Ohio with CAS senior management and scientists to discuss how information gained through tools like SciFinder greatly help their research and to share what gaps they see in information services and tools. Students also get the opportunity to tour local research organizations such as Battelle Memorial Institute, The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center,
TechColumbus, and other local research organizations.

Additionally, participants are invited to join their chemistry colleagues at the 242nd ACS National Meeting and Exposition, to be held in Denver, Colorado, in August 2011. All expenses are paid for this unique experience, and participants receive a $1,000 stipend.

Don’t miss out on your chance to apply – all application materials are due April 30, 2011.

Just visit http://cas.org/products/scifindr/saep/application.html to apply.

Colors of Chemistry Photo Contest

Post a photo with a chem-related blurb and vote:
https://colorsofchemistry.org/gallery
(Contest rules and prizes are here)

New Interactive SciFinder Training Calendar Now Available

From the CHMINF-L list:
SciFinder customers can quickly view the dates, times, and descriptions of the various types of training that SciFinder has to offer, now in one convenient location. Visit http://sfcalendar.cas.org/ to view and register for SciFinder training opportunities.

Printed Chemical Abstracts to Cease January 1, 2010

From the CHMINF-L List and CAS' web site. SciFinder (Web and desktop access) will be unaffected.

http://www.cas.org/products/print/ca/index.html

SciFinder and Mac OS X 10.6

From the CHMINF-L list:

CAS is committed to SciFinder support for major upgrades to key operating systems and we test these systems to ensure that they work optimally with our products. Testing of the web version of SciFinder with the newly released Mac OS X 10.6 (aka Snow Leopard) is currently in progress. We are happy to report that preliminary testing has not revealed any significant issues; however, if significant problems should be identified CAS will provide customers with an update.

In regards to JRE versions, Snow Leopard comes with Java SE 6. This is not a new version and was previously supported in Mac OS X 10.5. No significant issues have been identified in preliminary testing using Java SE 6 with Mac OS X 10.6.

CAS Launches Free Web-Based Resource "Common Chemistry(tm)" for General Public: Links to Wikipedia records provided in collaboration with Wikipedia

This announcement about Common Chemistry came across CHMINF-L yesterday.

The site has about 7,800 CAS Registry Numbers "of widespread general public interest."
It claims to be "helpful to non-chemists who know either a name or CAS Registry Number® of a common chemical and want to pair both pieces of information."

One can search by chemical name or CASRN.

If searching by chemical name, checking the "Exact Chemical Name Match" seems to be helpful. For example a search for ether without the Exact Chemical Name Match brought up several hundred matches, the first of which was the "Anaesthetic ether" I was thinking of.

However, this might not be immediately apparent to someone of the general public, since the listing for the record looks like:
Registry Number: 60-29-7
Molecular Formula: C4H10O
Chemical Name: Ethane, 1,1'-oxybis-
Show Synonyms

(The show synonyms option expands below the hit, so one could determine that it is the record for anaesthetic ether from that.)

However, using the "Exact Chemical Name Match" with ether brings one directly into the record, where the list of synonyms is displayed, along with a chemical structure and the Wikipedia link.

Link to Common Chemistry: http://www.commonchemistry.org/index.aspx

The full press release is here:
http://www.cas.org/newsevents/releases/
commonchemistry051209.html