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UC Berkeley Chancellor Robert Birgeneau signed a memorandum of understanding in April, committing the campus to sharing scientific and technical expertise with a new X-ray research center under construction in Jordan. The center, called SESAME, unites scientists from throughout the Middle East.

UC Berkeley's Essig Museum of Entomology is opening up its collections to citizen scientists through a project called Calbug. The project crowdsources the digitization of a million handwritten field notes that accompany insect specimens, many of which were collected more than a century ago.

“Selective Metal-Catalyzed Transfer of H2 and CO from Polyols to Alkenes” Verendel, J. J.; Nordlund, M.; Andersson, P. G. ChemSusChem, 2013, 6, 426-429. DOI: 10.1002/cssc.201200843

In a recent post I commented on the byproducts of dehydrogenative decarbonylation, namely H2 and CO.

I wondered whether this gas mixture, syngas, could be used in a subsequent reaction. This would improve the atom efficiency of the reaction and potentially also improve the safety (of both the syngas-producing and syngas-using reactions). Both are goals of green chemistry and I especially appreciate avoiding rolling cylinders of toxic and/or flammable gases around the lab.

After some digging I found some cool stuff, the most recent being the work from the Andersson group at Upsalla wherein the syngas produced from polyol deoxygenation is used in a subsequent hydroformylation of styrene. In addition, I found Madsen’s excellent paper, which includes lots of interesting references (such as this, where the CO liberated from decarbonylation of cinnamyl alcohol is used in the Pauson-Khand reaction. Note that cinnamyl alcohol can trap the evolved H2! Neat!).

In Andersson’s work the syngas-producing step is catalyzed by [Ir(cod)Cl]2 with (S)-BINAP in Reactor A (similar to Madsen’s work). The hydroformylation is simultaneously catalyzed by a different molecule, Rh(H)(CO)(PPh3)3, in Reactor B.

Since both reactions are known reactions, the major contribution of this work is a proof-of-principle – ie, that subatmospheric syngas produced in one reaction can be utilized for a subsequent reaction. Moreover, I think the reactor design is straightforward and something any glass shop could handle.

And for the big picture, I find the atom efficiency of the dual reaction appealing, especially in the context of conversion of biomass to fuel and commodity chemicals where evolving a portion of your ‘fuel equivalents’ for every molecule of biomass would be wasteful. Since the decarbonylation reaction tends to require > 150 C, I hope to see better catalysts in the future capable of mediating this reaction at lower temperature. With the number of potential H-bonds present on a polyol, perhaps secondary coordination sphere effects would be a possible research direction.

Whether we’re listening to Bach or the blues, our brains are wired to make music-color connections depending on how the melodies make us feel, according to new research from UC Berkeley. For instance, Mozart’s jaunty Flute Concerto No. 1 in G major is most often associated with bright yellow and orange, whereas his somber Requiem in D minor is more likely to be linked to dark, bluish gray.

More than 50 students and 30 alumni of Berkeley's Biology Scholars Program gathered recently in the Durant Hall atrium to thank Chancellor Robert Birgeneau and Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost George Breslauer for their support.

Douglas Clark, the current chair of the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering and the Warren and Katharine Schlinger Distinguished Professor in Chemical Engineering, has been designated the new dean of the College of Chemistry.

Applied mathematicians James Sethian and Robert Saye from UC Berkeley and Berkeley Lab have discovered a way to mathematically describe the evolution of bubbles in a foam, and have used the equations to create a computer-generated video showing how the process proceeds.

Three young faculty members - Nicole King, Michael Rape & Russell Vance - have won the most sought-after appointment for a researcher at any American university: as a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator. The institute will pay their salaries in the Department of Molecular & Cell Biology and provide research funding, freeing them from constant application for federal research grants.

Some 44 years ago, the late chemist Melvin Calvin and colleagues at the Space Sciences Laboratory analyzed moon dust brought back by Apollo 11 and 12, published a paper, and then stashed the dust on a shelf. Archivists at Berkeley Lab rediscovered the precious material, vacuum sealed in a jar, and have returned it to NASA.

How does San Francisco Giants slugger Pablo Sandoval swat a 95 mph fastball, or tennis icon Venus Williams see the oncoming ball, let alone return her sister Serena’s 120 mph serves? For the first time, vision scientists at UC Berkeley have pinpointed how the brain tracks fast-moving objects.

UC Berkeley cooperative extension specialist Peggy Lemaux's efforts to engineer crops to reduce malnutrition in developing countries.will be featured in a half-hour program, "Next Meal: Engineering Food," that will be shown on KQED's Quest on Wednesday. The program explores the pros and cons of GM crops, as well as the future of research and regulation.

Structural biologist James Berger, immunologist Daniel Portnoy and mathematician James Sethian have been elected members of the National Academy of Sciences (NAS), one of the highest honors given to a scientist or engineer in the United States.

Most physicists suspect that antimatter and normal matter weigh the same, that is, they are affected the same way by gravity. No direct measurements exist, however, that prove they do. UC Berkeley scientists, part of the ALPHA collaboration at CERN, are working on just such an experiment and have some very rough results.

On April 25, World Malaria Day, the non-profit Zagaya released a video Illustrating why, in the words of UC Berkeley synthetic biologist Jay Keasling, “it took a village” to create an accessible treatment for malaria that will be essential to eradicating the disease.

Physicist Fabiola Gianotti, co-discoverer of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva, Switzerland, will deliver a free public lecture, “The Higgs Boson and Our Life.” The talk is part of a 3-day celebration of UC Berkeley physicist Bruno Zumino, whose theory of supersymmetry has emerged as a possible explanation for the variety of fundamental particles seen in nature.

Ten Berkeley professors have been named members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a prestigious 233-year-old honorary society of national leaders from academia, business, public affairs and the humanities.

A contact lens on the bathroom floor, an escaped hamster in the backyard, a car key in a bed of gravel: How are we able to focus so sharply to find that proverbial needle in a haystack? UC Berkeley scientists have discovered that when we embark on a targeted search, various visual and non-visual regions of the brain mobilize to track down a person, animal or thing.

Three Haas professors are bypassing traditional grants and going straight to crowdfunding to raise money for a study on how to get people in rural Uganda to replace dangerous kerosene lanterns with life-changing solar lamps.

Jay Keasling, a professor of biochemical engineering, associate laboratory director at Berkeley Lab, CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute and director of the Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center, is the recipient of the 2013 George Washington Carver Award for innovation in industrial biotechnology. The award is presented annually by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO).

With the support of a Bakar Fellowship, researcher Neil Tsutsui is testing the pest-control effectiveness of a synthetic version of a natural ant pheromone he discovered. The fellowship, which supports innovative research by early career UC Berkeley faculty, is accepting applications for the 2012-14 year now.