A collaboration between three universities is working to create a battery that is capable of powering microelectromechanical systems (MEMS). The work is especially important because no viable battery currently exists for these tiny devices. The three-dimensional battery will be a departure from current battery designs, which stack "positive and negative electrodes... like sheets of paper." As more...

The Department of Computational Quantum Chemistry at the University of Georgia makes available the Website, A Brief Review of Elementary Quantum Chemistry, designed by David Sherrill. The discussed topics are organized in a chapter format and include the Motivation for Quantum Mechanics, the Schrodinger Equation, Mathematical Background, Populates of Quantum Mechanics, Some Analytically Soluble...

Academic Earth provides videos of lectures by top scholars in "Subjects" that range from Astronomy to Entrepreneurship to Religion, from "Universities" as celebrated as MIT, Berkeley, Harvard, and Stanford. Visitors must register to view the lectures, but registration is free. There are over 1500 video lectures available, with more being added everyday. In addition to viewing the lectures...

Stephen Lower of Simon Fraser University presents this site on a visual approach to acid-base problems. Lower says that although he still finds it important to teach students to solve acid-base problems algebraically, more work should be done using graphics. Here are some of the reasons he gives against the algebraic method: "1) It can be an awful lot of work. Have you ever noticed that many of...

This Web site from the American Chemical Society features an interactive Periodic Table with the use of Shockwave. The information presented is divided into three sections. In the first, Periodic Table, students will find attributes such as melting point and molar heat capacity for the elements. The second part illustrates the electron configurations of each of the elements, helping students to...

A journal, began publishing in 2000 from American Chemical Society Publications, Biomacromolecules, is "an interdisciplinary journal focussed at the interface of polymer science and the biological sciences." A sample issue is available at the site, while other issues require a subscription.

Elementary school science teachers may want to check out Inquiry in Action, a free resource provided by the American Chemical Society. Here, readers will find a collection of fully developed lesson plans on chemistry-related topics that are "based on phenomena students observe and explore through hands-on investigations." As of this write-up, the collection includes lesson plans for kindergarten,...

What is the moon made of? What makes light coffee taste different than dark coffee? How much money is your laptop adding to your electric bill? Does eating turkey really make you sleepy? Reactions, a multimedia publication by the American Chemical Society (ACS), has created this collection of Infographics to answer these questions and more. Each infographic is informative, engaging, and connects...

There is a great deal of chemistry going on in every kitchen, even though most cooks may not be cognizant of the various interactions going on in the pot, wok, or oven. MIT's popular OpenCourseWare Initiative has recently made the contents of Dr. Patricia Christie's course on kitchen chemistry available on this site. Visitors to the site can download the syllabus, take in some assigned readings...

Stephen Lower, a retired professor at Simon Fraser University, created this expansive and instructive website as a supplement to formal chemistry education for undergraduate students. Visitors will find in-depth descriptions along with several diagrams dealing with chemical bonding issues including their properties, shared-electron covalent bonds, hybrid orbitals, coordination complexes, and...