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Of general interest... Musings is an informal newsletter mainly highlighting recent science. It is intended as both fun and instructive. Items are posted a few times each week. See the Introduction on the Musings page for more information. Unusual microbes. A brief discussion of some of the oddities of the microbial world, organisms that capture our imagination by being different. Books: Suggestions for general science reading is an annotated book list. Most are about science of one kind or another, and much is for the general audience. The list includes some books of historic interest. Some pages of specific course-related content that may be of wider interest are: * Metric prefixes, from quetta to quecto Updated September 17, 2023. * Significant figures - a beginner's guide * ChemSketch - An Introductory Guide. * Chemistry practice problems. Links to practice quizzes, self-help worksheets, and more -- for a range of topics in general and organic chemistry.

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Musings

Musings is an informal newsletter mainly highlighting recent science. It is intended as both fun and instructive. Items are posted a few times each week. See the Introduction on the Musings page for more information.

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Course listings

      Chemistry courses

      Molecular biology and biotechnology courses

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General resources

Unusual microbes. A brief discussion of some of the oddities of the microbial world, organisms that capture our imagination by being different.

Musings. Musings is an informal newsletter mainly highlighting recent science. It is intended as both fun and instructive. Items are posted a few times each week; an email notification is available. See the Introduction on the Musings page for more information.

Books: Suggestions for general science reading.

Writing, drawing and viewing chemical formulas. An overview of programs that help you write, draw or view chemicals. It refers to the following, among others:

ChemFormula. ChemFormula is a Word macro to assist you in formatting chemical expressions.

The programs listed in this group are for drawing molecular structures. The drawings can be converted to 3D, and viewed either within a module of this program or within RasMol (below). The drawings are also easily imported into Word. The links are to guides that I have written.
* ChemSketch - An Introductory Guide.
* ISIS/Draw - An Introductory Guide.

RasMol - An Introductory Guide. Help getting started with the RasMol computer program for viewing molecular structures on your computer. Especially useful with Ch 3-4 (basic organic structures), 6 (chirality) and 15 (proteins), but also generally useful. Also see items above, for drawing structures that can be viewed with RasMol.

Chemistry practice problems. This page links to a variety of problems at various places on the web site. They include "quizzes" and "tests". They also include a range of self-help worksheets for selected introductory chemistry topics. For many, the general approach is that basic knowledge of the topic is assumed (that is, these are intended for review and practice), the main issues are presented briefly, and there are lots of practice problems.

Significant figures - a beginner's guide. A major purpose of the page is to help the beginning student sort out the most important -- higher priority -- parts of the sig fig story.

Files available for download. Current files include a periodic table handout; ChemFormula, a macro that helps you when using Microsoft Word for writing chemical expressions; and a kit for making your own buckyballs. It also links to the page of Chemistry practice problems.

Glossary. This glossary was started for the Organic/Biochem course, to supplement the textbook. However, over time, it seems useful to add terms for other courses or other web site topics that come up. Suggested additions (and comments) encouraged.

Further reading.
* Chapter handouts for    Chemistry (Intro, General)    Chemistry (Organic, biochemistry)    Molecular biology
* Materials posted under Biotechnology in the News. BITN
* A page focusing on articles with a medical emphasis; this page relates most directly to the Lipids and Metabolism sections of the Organic/Biochem course, but is becoming more general. Medical topics
* A page of older articles, which used to be in chapter handouts -- still of some interest, but older than I prefer for current handouts. Old articles
* A page describing how to find classic papers. Classic papers. This page lists sources of "classic papers", in both chemistry and molecular biology. Some are sources on the Internet, some are notes about printed collections. Reading some of the classic papers in a field can be a fun way to explore history -- and to discover the different style of scientific papers long ago.

Information about buying books (including textbooks). Includes links to sites that search Internet bookstores for a specified book.

Library matters. Information on using the library system, including electronic resources, and information on searching for articles, using databases such as PubMed (Medline). Includes sources of online journals, some of which are free. Parts of the page focus on UC Berkeley, but much of the information here will be generally useful to people not at UC. For example, PubMed is freely available to the public. Further, some may adapt the given information to their library system, and to other databases. Major topic areas here include: UC Berkeley library; electronic journals; journal articles; PubMed searches; citation searches.

List of pages of Internet resources. Many are listed by course, but many are general.
     Quick links to selected pages of Internet Resources...    Introductory Chemistry    Introduction to Organic and Biochemistry    Molecular Biology    Library matters    Science on the Internet: an introduction    Biotechnology in the News (BITN)    Biology - Miscellaneous    Chemistry - Miscellaneous    Miscellaneous
     More information and more links are on the List of pages of Internet resources.

Using your scientific calculator. A form to help you discover key features of your calculator, and to submit that information for inclusion here. Information for a small sampling of calculators is now available.

Metric prefixes, from quetta to quecto. Updated September 17, 2023.

Evening chem courses. Information about chemistry courses, especially Organic Chemistry, available in the evening in the San Francisco Bay area.

Some miscellaneous ideas for students... Each of these was written for a specific situation, and the details are dependent on context. Nevertheless, others may adapt them or get some ideas from them.
* Tips for success. Some general ideas to help students succeed in chemistry.
* Journal. Encourages a student to be aware of chemistry in the news.
* Project. Guides a student to study a particular chemical of interest in some detail.

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Recent changes    (most recent first)

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For an archive of selected older changes that may still be of interest, see the Old changes page. The most recent change listed on the archive page is April 14, 2015.

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Last update: November 18, 2023