Relaunch of ChemSpider

Announcement of Relaunch of ChemSpider
From announcement: “The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) will be re-launching ChemSpider, its free, online resource for chemical structure searching, at the American Chemical Society’s Fall 2009 National Meeting and Exposition in Washington, DC, August 16-22.”

WolframAlpha and Chemistry

WolframAlpha Chemistry 101
Check out all the chemistry data and computations on WolframAlpha. If you haven’t used WolframAlpha yet, go there now!

CAS Launches Free Web-Based “Common Chemistry”

Common Chemistry Press Release
This is a neat resource for the general public. It allows people to look up CAS Registry numbers and chemical names. It isn’t comprehensive, but does contain information on “7800 chemicals of widespread and general interest.” Direct link to Common Chemistry: www.commonchemistry.org

Biology and Organic Chemistry Fun

Happy Friday! Wow, can you believe it is January 9th already? Time flies, especially when you are having fun with online science resources.

I thought we could begin with this fabulous cartoon from xkcd.com. If you don’t read this webcomic, I highly suggest you start–it is fantastic.

 

xkcd.com comic 520: Cuttlefish

Online Labs from McGraw-Hill
These online labs are Flash-based and meant to be supplemental to one of their textbooks, but can also be used as standalone resources. There are 31 virtual labs covering a wide-range of topics. These might be good additions to introductory biology labs or as homework assignments.

Organic Chemistry Animations
It is always cool to see animations of chemical compounds, but this site takes it a step further and shows organic chemical reactions that are interactive. Did I mention the animations are in 3D? This site is sure to help undergraduates in organic chemistry classes understand what is actually happening during chemical reactions. This site uses Java for the animation.

Have a great weekend. There will be more science fun coming next week; stay tuned.

Green Chemistry

Interactive Teaching Units: Green Chemistry
This is a site that has modules, called Interactive Teaching Units, that teach students about “green” chemistry and sustainability. So far there are four units. A highly useful and timely site for chemistry student lessons.