126b Q&R 26
===

Melissa: I'm Melissa.

Jam: I'm Jam

Melissa: and I'm a chemist

Jam: and I'm not

Melissa: and welcome to chemistry for your life

Jam: the podcast helps you understand the chemistry of your everyday life bonus edition.

Melissa: Bonus edition. Okay.

Jam.

Jam: Okay.

Melissa: It has been a while since we recorded

Jam: yeah, it has been a bit, huh?

Melissa: Our decaf episode came out last week, but we recorded it prior to Christmas. So think it's been like three weeks since we've seen each other.

Jam: Yeah. We see each other, but we have not recorded together. We haven't really chemistry, chemistry, EDE, you know,

Melissa: Yeah. We did have a really enjoyable time where we just did regular hangout stuff, a double date. We ate really good sushi. That was fun.

Jam: And it's nice to get a break from like chemistry, you know? So now it's just, there's just too much and you just want a break.

Melissa: Listen. I know I took a break. from chemistry to this, this winter, and I was excited to have two whole weeks off. It was a really nice, so. But that means that we need to pick up where we left off, which we're going to share some about what was going on in our lives. I almost think it's better that we waited now we can update our listeners on our lives as they are in the present. And I want to hear your Jam's coffee hour on decaf coffee, because we didn't get our coffee corner. We didn't get your coffee corner.

Jam: that's right. That's right. Okay. Yeah.

Melissa: So do you, yeah, let's start there. So why don't you go first, Jam? What has been happy in your week? And you can even maybe expand it since it's been almost a month since we've shared with our listeners how we're doing.

Jam: That's true. So the, the thing I was going to share about is still a thing I want to share about that. I didn't share it when we recorded. For the decaffeination episode, but I, my wife and I got a chance to go up to Kentucky where my brother and sister-in-law live. They have a little daughter she's about 10 months older than my son.

And then also the, just in November had a new little baby boy.

Melissa: Um,

Jam: And so it was cool. We got to take a trip up there and, uh, and get a chance to meet their little son and just get to hang with them for almost a week, which we had not done in a long time, since they'd moved to Kentucky, we haven't even actually visited them.

I don't think we've had, have had a chance to. So anyway, that was awesome. And it was also cold and actually winter up there, there wasn't snow or anything, but for the most part, a good chunk of the days we were there, it was like actually winter time.

And like cold enough to light a fire every night and that kind of stuff.

Melissa: Oh, that's fun.

Jam: But drink a lot of coffee, ate good food, that kind of stuff. And, um, and then we even did some gift exchange. Cause it's kind of earlier than Christmas, it was like the first week of December, but we were, we were together. We did it a little bit anyway, and mostly just gave gifts to the kids. So to the two year old and one year old and.

Melissa: that's cute.

Jam: But it was a lot of fun. It was very enjoyable and, um, just good to get to hang with family. Now, the only traveling we did in December, so we kinda got it out of the way early.

Melissa: That's nice. We had the opposite experience where we did more traveling than we've ever done. We went from here to Amarillo, from Amarillo to Mississippi, and then back here all in the span of about eight days. So that was wild.

Jam: Yeah. Seriously. That's crazy.

Melissa: But when we were in each of those locations, it was really restful and fun. We played capture the flag with Nerf guns with my family.

I was really

fun.

Jam: That's awesome.

Melissa: Yeah. I can post a cute picture of us posing for that. So

Jam: Yes, that'd be great.

Melissa: I think the thing I was going to share was actually relates to our sponsor, the Royal society of chemistry. They have a chemistry education research journal. It's called chemistry, education, research, and practice. And I submitted my very first ever paper for publication to that journal. I know very exciting. And it's not a conflict of interest because it gets reviewed by independent reviewers before they'll publish it. Those people probably don't even know about our podcast, but it's just very exciting that I finally have submitted a paper in my new research area.

Jam: Yes, dude that is awesome. Very cool.

Melissa: So that was an exciting thing, but now we're back in Texas, we're starting the new semester next week. And the weather's finally cold, hot Christmas is over. So things are looking bright now.

Jam: yes, definitely. It's kinda weird. How, just a little bit of gap of like recording or whatever, especially in this time of year where the holidays are happening. And it's like the turnover of a new year like now to the previous number of record, it feels like a lot has happened. It feels like a different time.

Melissa: it does feel Like, that. And also. Our listeners may or may not be able to tell we are recording remotely again, because there is a new surge of COVID and there's been a lot of exposures. So we're trying to be really careful. And we're recording remotely for a little while now,

Jam: yeah.

Melissa: but hopefully that will have to go on for too long, but it does feel kind of like a new time because of that too.

It's almost like we're transported back

Jam: yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Melissa: to those days.

Jam: feel like that.

Melissa: Well, that.

was a nice catch-up to hear how you're doing, but also I want to know about your decaf coffee, things that you, you specifically said in the last episode that you wanted to share about them.

Jam: Yes, I, there are several things that I've experienced with decaf coffee that I thought would be interesting to share. Of course, I've only experienced. Probably about a dozen decaf coffees that I've personally had and roasted and whatever else. So it's not like exhaustive, almost everything I've ever roasted also has been Swiss water processed.

Uh, there might be one or two others that I've I've done, but, but almost like 90% will be Swiss water process, but just a few interesting things that I've noticed through roasting and drinking decaf here and there. That that would be cool for people to know is one that decaf beans look different. Um, which we probably would assume that there'd be some difference that would come from like all the processes we talked about in that

episode.

Melissa: Being in water would maybe soften and change the shape or something.

Jam: Yes. And there's something that's called a chaff or a silver skin. That's on this little film on all coffees. Uh, beans, coffee seeds, even after they're processed. Um, but when you decaffeinate them, that actually comes off somehow. And so there's.

Melissa: yeah, probably because of the water or whatever. It's.

Jam: Yeah. Yeah. And so that's one thing that changes, but also they just look a little bit, um, less green they're usually like, uh, uh, uh, kind of muddy brown. Um, whereas normal coffee beans that are not decaf have not been decaffeinated look like a pretty bright green, um, and decaf coffee beans just don't look like that.

They're there. You could tell it from a mile away, most people will be able to tell it's not like a secret at all.

Melissa: How interesting.

Jam: And so one thing that makes that a challenge for me is that as. As I'm watching coffee, beans roast, they change color. Usually the caffeinated beans would go from green to yellowish, to light brown, to brown, but because decaf beans are already kind of brown and they've already had things happen to them.

They don't go through the same color phases. They go from like brown greenish brown to brown, to brown, to brown, but they don't ever enter like a light and they don't ever have like a light brown phase. And it makes it harder to tell when they are done, because you don't have that visual marker nearly as much. They also have a much quieter first crack

we

Melissa: that doesn't surprise

Jam: Yeah. And the roasting episode, we talked about how that's usually a. Strong indicator.

Um, but decaf beans are pretty elusive. Their first crack is sneaky. And so I typically actually watch for what we talked about, the expanding, um, the fact that the coffee beans expanding and, and just get larger when they've cracked. That's easier to see with decaf coffee than with, uh, then trying to hear the crack.

It, at least in my experience.

Melissa: Yeah. that makes sense. My thoughts on the color is that I think chlorophyll has some degree of solubility in. Water and chlorophyll is that green pigment that makes plants have their characteristic green color that absorb sunlight and contributes to photosynthesis.

So I wouldn't be surprised. If green coffee beans have some of those pigments in them and they are soluble in water, which anyone who's ever done, the experiment where we put plant pigment and you watch it go up the coffee filter and spread out all the colors would have experienced that to some degree, or if you scrunch up leaves and then put water in them, the water will turn slightly green

Jam: Yeah.

Yeah.

Melissa: so that I could see some of the pigment coming out.

I didn't even think about that when we were talking about all the other flavor molecules. That coming out as well. When it's in the solvent, that solvent is water or, uh, uh, dichloro methane or something like that, either of those solvents, I could see taking out some of those pigments. Interesting.

That's very cool.

Jam: And I have one more, one more thing I've noticed that thought you might find this interesting about just this is not about the roasting process, but about the taste of a decaf versus caffeinated coffee. So this is probably not because the caffeine is taken out because I don't think caffeine is the thing that tastes the tastiest

Melissa: No, I think they've tested, adding caffeine back into decaf coffee and people couldn't tell the difference. I read that in.

a paper.

Jam: Yeah, so that seems intuitive to me. I'd be surprised, but I can tell the difference between I can, I can tell a decaf coffee, um, every, every single time. But one of the things that I've noticed when I look at like different places where different websites are, are stock places where I buy. Green coffee.

They've usually, um, put a list together or some sort of chart of some of the flavor profiles you can expect from a coffee and decaf coffees always have, uh, lower in the fruit. Um, the fruitiness tasting notes that would occur in coffee. So something about the decaffeination process tends to affect.

That part of a coffee,

Melissa: Interesting.

Jam: but, and this is just obviously subjective based on people's taste buds, but it's a common, you know, a lot of people agree on that. And, uh, but other tasting notes don't as much like nuttiness and like a cacau kind of note, things like that for some reason can, can stay in there. So if you have a really fruity coffee that you try to decaffeinate, you might lose a lot of the things that you want.

Um, in there at least they'll get. That reduced a lot, but if you have a really chocolatey or nutty kind of coffee, it might be a very similar once it's been decaffeinated.

Melissa: I wonder if that's because a lot of the precursors that in the roast ended up giving you those flavors aren't taken away, but the fruity flavors, whatever precursor molecules that react during the roast to give you those flavors, the precursors to them are taken

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: Interesting.

Jam: Yeah. It's pretty odd. So that's.

Melissa: That is.

Jam: That's why I think some people, if they do think they don't like the taste of decaf, it might be. That is the reason that maybe they're someone who likes those kinds of tasting notes and that's

something that's,

Melissa: things. Yeah.

Jam: but those are kind of my decaf observations over the years.

Um, and decaf is kind of odd, but it's also very cool.

Melissa: Yeah.

And I'm not as surprised also by the roast of decaf, not making as strong of a crack because sitting insolvent for any amount of time. I think would affect the integrity of the bean to some degree, like start breaking it down a little. So it's less of a sharp sound, less of an intense break because it's already been softened a little.

It's like the difference between snapping like a, like a chip versus a piece of bread, you know, like one's really hard and tough. And the other one's a little bit softer has been worked some or, you know, something like.

Jam: yeah, yeah.

Melissa: I could definitely see that. Well, that's cool. Thanks for sharing that. It's fun to think about the, at the molecular level where those observations you've seen are coming from.

Jam: Yeah. Yeah, it is. And it's like, it's, it's strange having to think about it from that scientific point of view and, and having learned about the different processes we talked about last week, um, while having all these just specific experiences that I have, that aren't scientific, but are just like every time I've had this, this has been the case or what a.

Melissa: Right.

Jam: yeah, it's

fascinating.

Melissa: do you have any decaf coffee beans on hand so we can see the color difference between the two.

Jam: I do. Yes. I have, um, one kind, but I have a lot of it, so

Melissa: That'd be cool. If we could see the picture of the, like a picture of those in contract.

Jam: yes. Yes. That's a great idea. Let's do it.

Melissa: All right. Cool. Well, do you want to dive into our question and response time?

Jam: Let's do it. Are you ready?

Melissa: I'm ready.

Jam: This first question is from Sam and she asked this actually, uh, about a month ago. And we're just now finally getting to it. Thank you, Sam. If you could go back in time and witness one moment in history, what would it be?

Melissa: You know, I don't have a really good answer for this. I mean, there's all these cool historical moments that you could see, but in some ways I think I'd want to see like my parents' wedding or. You know, something like that, like something related to my family or what I was like when I was a little kid,

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: um, you know, or see my mom some more, you know, those are kind of the things I think I'd want to witness, but I feel like I should have some cool chemistry historical moment, but I just don't have one of those.

Jam: Yeah, that's tough. Dang.

Melissa: And we've had a month to think about it.

Jam: I know, not that I really was thinking about it, but, um, we did have time, but I, I think I like your answer about what is his name from your own life? I do feel like Sam wants something from history, like a known moment of lots of people that we have recorded somewhere, you know, that we've all learned about in school or something like that.

Um, but I like the idea of getting to witness something like, whoa, I'm a fly on the wall at my own family Christmas when I'm like three years old or something.

Melissa: right? Yeah.

Jam: That'd be kind of cool.

Melissa: That would be of cool.

Jam: I think one thing that comes to mind and this isn't like a specific moment, but, uh, I think other people could relate to this a little bit is I've read a lot about the life of Jesus. And I think it'd be pretty cool to witness some part of that because just like any figure from like old, where we have a lot of historical accounts or some witness accounts, or just some writings of any sort of.

Uh, religious figure in the past, we kind of build up an idea of what we think they're like, and, and we just have, we only have what was written in what has been handed down. So be kind of cool to, to get a peek behind that with somebody, a character like Jesus, or fill in your own, your own person from a religion that you're interested in.

But I think that would be cool because. There's so many things that, that maybe could be more grounded if we got to see it ourselves, instead of just the few things accounts we have or whatever.

Melissa: Yeah. And sometimes it's hard with like those very old accounts and they've been passed down for So.

long. Is it a totally different culture. so you're like, how did that really go down? How much of that was metaphor? How much did that happen? Exactly.

Like it, says, you know,

Jam: Yeah, Separated

Melissa: example,

Jam: and so many different cultural differences and language and stuff. I just think it'd be cool to, to witness that. So I don't know.

Melissa: I think about that a lot with how weird it would be if people came and read our stuff now and try to translate it, like when you're texting someone and you make a mistake, And then you just fix it on the next line, you know, you're like, Hey, how's your fog doing? And then you're like dog,

Jam: Yeah.

Yeah.

Melissa: because you, everybody in that conversation knows.

And then a hundred years from now, or a thousand years from now, someone comes and sees that and says, what could they have meant by their fog? Not doing well and saying dog, you know,

Jam: And then they'd be like, oh, I think people use dogs as slang. Remember, so they would just call each other dog for like their friends. And that's what they must admit.

Melissa: Oh, my gosh,

Jam: You know, every, so many ways for it to go wrong and get

Melissa: be. So it would be interesting to get a first hand account of however, those very old things went

Jam: Yeah.

Yeah.

Melissa: That's a good one. I think I do think ancient civilizations as a whole would be more interesting

Jam: Definitely. Somebody most mystery there, you

know?

Melissa: history. Yeah. Or even when dinosaurs roamed the air.

Jam: Oh yeah, dude, that'd be awesome.

Melissa: That would be scary.

Jam: imagine really seeing them and be like, oh, we kinda got that wrong. Like, yeah, we

had this, we had the skeletal structure. Right. But wow. They look weirder than we thought or something

like

Melissa: Or, and especially dinosaurs here. like if I was in my, where my apartment is right now and went all the way back, I could see what this land looked like before we

mess it all up, you know?

Jam: I think, I think by, I think a lot of places actually underwater, I think Texas is. It's a big one. So you might not want to be where you're exactly are. Sorry.

Melissa: I'll be on a boat. I'll be safe. I'll be floating above the

situation.

Jam: can see like the water dinosaurs or whatever those are called.

Melissa: Yeah, that would be crazy.

Jam: yeah,

Melissa: Very cool. Okay. That was a good question, Sam. Thanks for making us use our creative

Jam: Yes, yes. Thank you, Sam. Moving onto the next one. This question is from Esti. And she asks, why is fluoride bad for our bones or for our health?

Melissa: So that's a good question. It's not completely bad. This, one of the things that I think is a good gray area to kind of talk about nothing really in science is fully black and white. There's a lot of gray.

Jam: Hm.

Melissa: So we did an episode on fluoride in your teeth and how it can help with cavities. So if you want to go back and listen to that, that exists.

So in that way, it's actually good for your bodies in your health, but if you have too much of it, or if you ingest too much of it, it can cause problems with your body. And I think specifically your bones. So I think to go into that would have to be a whole episode. And I liked that episode idea. So I added it to my list, but I did want to address Esti's also account.

So I'm sure she knows this. And it was just like wanting to talk more about the bone side of things. But I did want to use it as an opportunity to address that, that idea of things in different substances really can have different effects. So in the meantime, go check out that fluoride episode. If that's something that's interesting to you and I've added how fluoride in larger doses can negatively impact us to our episode ideas list.

Jam: Nice.

Melissa: And also this is a good opportunity to address another gray area that Dr.

Diane Mason, she is an Meredith faculty at UNT. So she used to work at UNT, but she's retired now. She also specialized in chemistry education and she wrote in and reminded me that I kind of made an overgeneralization. So this is a really good point. And I did want to talk about it. I stated that when you heat things up, other things dissolve more in it.

So if you have a solvent and you heat it up, other things will dissolve more in it. That is true for solids into liquids. And I think for liquids into liquids, although I don't know, a hundred percent, and I talked about all the ways you see that, like, if you heat up water to run it over something, or, you know, you heat up water to dissolve.

You can dissolve more sugar and tea. That's hot, then cold tea. We talked about that. There is an exception though, which is gases. Don't dissolve more in hot substances. And I think if we're going down to the molecular level, the reason for that is because the more heat you put into gases, the more they're moving around.

So they're trying to escape

right.

Jam: They're trying to stay a gas or,

yeah.

Melissa: they don't want to be dissolved in the solution. So that's why hot sodas have less fizz than cold soda. So we store sodas in cold water so that they have our fizzier or in cold environment so that their fizzier.

Jam: Okay. You're right, right.

Melissa: And that's what my high school chemistry teacher told me.

When you're thinking about dissolving gasses, think about how you want your soda. You want it cold. And with the lid on, in the fridge, that's how you're going to store it because most gasses will stay dissolved in liquids. If they're under pressure in colder temperatures.

Jam: Mm.

Melissa: So, thanks for pointing that out.

Dr. Mason, I definitely don't ever want to be too general. I think that's a good thing to recognize that the balance of teaching one subject, I might make general statements that apply in that area, but if we zoom out, I've maybe made it too generalized. So that was a good reminder.

Jam: This next question is from Shirin S. I hope I'm pronouncing that correctly and sorry if I'm not. Shirin asked, how long does it take to be a professional chemist? What job opportunities will I have?

Melissa: Okay, this is a fun question for me to answer. Um, First, I would say it depends on what kind of job opportunities you want, because you can kind of pick your education level to go based on that. So if you have a bachelor's degree in chemistry, most of my friends who did that and stopped there, did quality control work.

So nearby us. We have a lot of breweries, like Budweiser, I think is one that's nearby. And, Uh we have Alcon that actually makes contacts and contact solutions. So I had several friends who worked at those places as quality assurance, chemists, and that is a professional chemist, but it's not really super creative work.

It's kind of, it can be kind of boring honestly. And not many people like it. It depends on what you're looking for. It also doesn't pay as well as you probably would want. So many of my friends got bachelor's degrees and went and did that kind of quality control work and then decided they didn't love it in switch gear.

But having a degree in chemistry, you've learned a lot of problem solving skills. So we have a friend who has a bachelor's degree in chemistry. We did research together and now he does software development because he's really good at problem solving. So he kind of switch careers, but he's not professional chemist, which is what was asked because he can do different things to the bachelor's degree in chemistry. But then. If you keep going I think as a master's level, you have more opportunities to do research, but you are usually going to be supervised pretty heavily and it's less creative again. Then if you get to the PhD level and that's in the United States and the United States, it's different, you know, but um, most people go through the career path.

If they're trying to be a full-time professional chemist of bachelor's degree for about four years, and then. They go into graduate school. They usually go straight for their PhD has been my experience in the United States. It's different in Canada and other countries. And then after their PhD, which takes anywhere from four to six years, usually on average, they can go on to either go straight into industry or do what's known as a postdoc where you get to do extra research in a different environment and you can kind of hone your skills.

And then go into either industry or start your own lab in academia. So those are kind of the basics of what you could do. And usually I would say people have begun their careers out of all of the postdoc and everything when they're around 30. So I guess that would be. 10 years of school, usually, um, 10 to 12 for me, I took some time off.

So, but first formal schooling, I had four years of my bachelor's degree and then three and a half years for my master's because I switched halfway through. So that's seven and a half, and then it looks like I'll finish my PhD in also about 2019. Also about three and a half. So what's that 10, 11 years of schooling.

And then if I want to go on to post-doctoral research that actually pays a little bit better. It's less like school it's sort of the soft start of your career. But so I would say probably you're looking at anywhere from four to 12 years of school, depending on what you want to do. Yeah. So it takes a while, but I think it's worth it.

It's been really fun. And there's also a lot of other job opportunities, depending on what you specialize in. So if you want to do work in a research lab, there's all kinds of those, both in academia and an industry. So I have friends that did internships, making paint, doing makeup, working on plastics, all that kind of stuff.

There's also electronics have a lot of chemistry involved in.

Jam: Mm.

Melissa: And if you're more on the computational side. So chemistry education researchers have a lot of data analysis. So you can do jobs like that. You can work on curriculum development, but that's less of focusing on chemistry. If you want to be in a lab, it's primarily research and development in industry or research in a lab where you're running the lab is mostly what I've seen.

This is really relevant for you Jam when your career, as a chemist.

Jam: to say that my biggest takeaway from that is it seems like you got to love the journey because that destination is not coming fast for a lot of you guys.

Melissa: Yeah,

that's definitely true. And for me, so I'm a professional chemist, but I do research in chemistry education. So I'm not in a lab at all. And I know a lot of computational chemists who have that same thing. And also I teach and also have a podcast already science communication. So clearly there's other job opportunities.

If you're interested in doing other things that are tangentially related to chemistry, I would really just keep an open mind. I mean, I didn't really know what I wanted to do until I was three and a half years into my first PhD program, you know? And even now I like so many different things that it's been hard narrowing down my path after I graduate.

So don't lock in what you think you want to do early

Jam: Hm. Hm. That's good advice.

Melissa: Thank

you.

Jam: one, this one's kind of on the same, in the same vein a little bit, but this is a question from Beth K. Beth asked advice for someone who wants to go into pharmacology.

Melissa: Okay, that's a good question and everything I just said applies,

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: but also just for those who don't know, pharmacology, just kind of a broad definition is really working on identifying how chemicals, drugs, whatever we're taking pharmaceuticals or otherwise. Are impacting human beings, but also nature overall.

So there's a lot of different areas where you can hone in on pharmacology. And as far as I understand, it's a heavy research area. So everything I said really does still apply. But one thing I kind of want to say as far as education is, you know, typically you're going to do undergrad and then PhD and then a postdoc.

For your undergrad, it's tempting to go to a really fancy, big name school or a school that you've always dreamed of. That might be more expensive. I think it's worth it to get scholarships and start out at a community college or somewhere that's more affordable because you're still going to get out everything you need to get out of those classes.

And I would really pay close attention and try to learn well, not just memorize pass and get through organic chemistry and biochemistry because. Knowing how electrons move and molecules behave and how that happens in the body, which is a big focus of biochemistry is really going to help you lay a strong foundation for pharmacology, but also just for anyone interested in research.

I agree again, say that same thing, your big name schools. Don't matter, wherever you go to school, what you put into it is what you're going to get out of it. I know people who went to really fancy schools and did not learn a lot.

Jam: Yeah.

Melissa: And then when you get to grad school, try to find a university where there's multiple people doing research that you're interested in and choose an advisor who is kind and has similar values to you, because that is really, really important in your long-term success.

My advisors believe in taking time to spend with your family, they believe mental health is more important than getting things done on a schedule. They believe that science communication is important. And that's given me the freedom to do all the things that I do right now that you guys are listening to me talk about chemistry.

So if you don't have a good advisor who supports you, it's gonna make things a lot harder.

Jam: Hmm.

Melissa: And one of the ways you can find out how your advisor is, is by asking their grad students when the advisor's not around and ask specific questions, like how often are they in the lab? How do they feel about careers that are different than their own?

How do they feel about taking weekends off, ask those kinds of questions to try to get a true specific questions, to get a true understanding of what your advisor's like. That's my best advice for grad school as a whole. I'm not in pharmacology, so that's the best I can say.

Jam: I mean, that sounds really helpful. I mean, I feel like even though the, the topic of the study is different, but those pieces of advice are like priceless, honestly.

Melissa: Thank you. And I did start a Tik TOK. Um, my handle is @ organic Melissa, where I talk about specifically organic chemistry, but also advice on things you can do besides just pre-med. If herbicides just being a doctor, if you're pre-med or ways to get involved in research and stuff like that.

Jam: And are you a hundred percent, um, USDA organic or just curious? Cause,

Melissa: Yeah. A hundred percent USDA

Jam: okay, cool. Nice.

Melissa: No, I meant organic as in carbon based. I'm a carbon based Melissa.

Jam: Nice. Okay, cool. That helps actually distinguish you from the other Melissa. I actually know a couple. And so knowing that you're the only carbon-based one is really helpful. So.

Melissa: So that's it. That's my advice for everyone who wants to go to grad school or do research of some kind it's I know it's a lot of things, but I've been around the block. So I have a lot that I want to share

Jam: Yes. Yes. That's awesome. That's helpful.

Melissa: well, this was a fun, but kind of long Q and R to send you guys, back into the next semester. Start your year off. Right?

Jam: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. And a good question. I mean, like we got to start it on. The fun, tough one about history, but then also got into some really cool practical stuff about grad school. So it had

everything.

Melissa: definitely. It did definitely.

Jam: so much for your questions. You guys sitting in questions about whether it be fun to get to know, ask questions or follow-ups about chemistry or life stuff and studying, and career stuff is awesome.

So keep those coming. We really love it.

Melissa: This episode of chemistry for your life was created by Melissa Collini and Jam Robinson. And we'd like to get a special, thanks to E Robinson who reviewed this episode.