Fifty years ago this week, an explosion on the Apollo 13 moon mission stranded three astronauts hundreds of thousands of miles from home. You probably know that Fred Haise, Jim Lovell, and Jack Swigert made it home safely (water landing shown, with two of the astronauts in white). You may not know the chemist behind the rocket engine that saved them, which began its life as an apparatus for measuring chemical reaction rates. This bonus episode of Stereo Chemistry tells the story of the engine’s design with help from two of the people who created it. Listen now to a tale that starts with an explosion and ends with SpaceX’s pioneering reusable rockets, with one small step for a man along the way. CORRECTIONS: This episode was updated on April 15, 2020, to reflect that Fred Haise, not Ken Mattingly, flew aboard Apollo 13. On April 22, 2020, this podcast description was also corrected to reflect Haise's role and clarify that the photo shows only two of the astronauts.

 

To learn more about the chemistry of rocket fuel, check out Ep. 23 of Stereo Chemistry: https://cen.acs.org/physical-chemistry/astrochemistry/Podcast-rocket-chemistry-blasted-off/97/i42

Image credit: NASA

Chemistry is going the way of computing: It’s getting smaller and faster. High-throughput experimentation, or HTE, is part of this push. Borrowing from biologists and biochemists, HTE has brought in microplates and multichannel pipettes to miniaturize reactions, as well as robots to run those reactions rapidly without sacrificing precision. But it’s also been around for decades. So why are so many in the field excited about HTE right now? Stereo Chemistry looks at the technology and culture shift behind the current buzz.

See more at cenm.ag/showmetherobots.

Nominate an amazing early-career chemist for our annual Talented 12 feature at cenm.ag/t12nom

Photo credit: Shutterstock

As the novel coronavirus responsible for causing COVID-19 continues to spread, questions about the virus, the disease, and its impacts on our daily lives mount. To help you stay current with the science, policy, and business implications of this outbreak, C&EN has made all of its coronavirus coverage freely available at cenm.ag/coronavirus. And in the latest bonus episode of Stereo Chemistry, we discuss one of the largest questions on the business front: How is the coronavirus affect-ing the global drug supply? UPDATE: This podcast was updated on March 18, 2020 to help ensure listeners are aware of the podcast's original publication date (March 10).

Image credit: Shutterstock

Stereo Chemistry talked with six chemists who spent a year in Washington on a policy fellowship to find out what they learned and what advice they would give to other scientists who are interested in science policy. 

Check out Andrea Widener’s AAAS policy fellows story on C&EN at https://cen.acs.org/policy/Lessons-learned-from-a-year-in-Washington/98/i4.

And learn more about the AAAS Science and Technology Policy Fellowship at https://www.aaas.org/programs/science-technology-policy-fellowships.

Photo credit: James Kegley

Climate change is on the public’s mind, thanks in no small part to the efforts of Swedish activist Greta Thunberg and protests and rallies involving young people around the world. In the latest episode of Stereo Chemistry, host Kerri Jansen talks to early-career researchers developing the tools and knowledge we’ll need to thrive in a changing climate. These scientists are part of a generation who will experience the effects of climate change throughout their lifetimes. They share what drew them to climate science and what keeps them motivated when the questions—and the obstacles—are so vast.

A script of this episode is available at cen.acs.org/environment/climate-change/Podcast-5-climate-scientists-share/98/i6

Read C&EN’s special issue on climate change adaptation at cenm.ag/adapt

Image credit: Ink Drop/Shutterstock

M&A, the FDA, and an empty elevator.

In this bonus episode, C&EN reporters Ryan Cross and Megha Satyanarayana share their takeaways from their time at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference a few weeks ago.

Read more about JPM 2020 here: https://cen.acs.org/business/investment/JP-Morgan-Healthcare-Conference-slow/98/i3

Image credit: Credit: Megha Satyanarayana/C&EN

Although the Wuhan coronavirus is currently dominating headlines across the globe, influenza kills hundreds of thousands of people worldwide each year. In the US, millions of people roll up their sleeves annually for a flu shot. But this ritual is confusing for many. Why is it that most vaccines are effective for a lifetime while the flu vaccine is only effective for a year? And why do we sometimes get the flu even when we’ve gotten the vaccine? The answer is evolution: the flu is constantly evolving to evade our immune systems. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, scientists who study flu evolution and pandemics explain what makes fighting the flu so difficult. For more, visit cenm.ag/flucast.

Image credit: US Army photographer

Late last year, C&EN contributing editor Mark Peplow toured a new battery company’s R&D facility in Sweden. That company, called Northvolt, aims to produce the world’s greenest lithium-ion batteries, to help meet the growing demand for electric vehicles. Ride along with Mark to learn more about the company, its work, and its goals in the first bonus episode of Stereo Chemistry.

Check out Mark's full story for C&EN here: https://cen.acs.org/energy/energy-storage-/Northvolt-building-future-greener-batteries/97/i48 

Image credit: Northvolt

The discovery of the ozone hole in the mid-1980s sent shock waves through the scientific community and society at large. As scientists scrambled to make sense of the unprecedented phenomenon, a clear culprit emerged. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—once thought of as near-miraculous compounds that revolutionized refrigeration—were suddenly revealed to be one of the biggest environmental dangers known to humankind. What followed was an international push by scientists, media, and policy makers to ban CFCs. In October 2019, NASA announced the ozone hole is the smallest recorded since 1982. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, we hear from some of the scientists who were instrumental in discovering—and helping heal—the ozone hole and who think lessons learned could help us fight climate change.

A script of this episode is available here.

To read more from C&EN on hot trends in chemistry, check out our 2019 Year in Chemistry issue at cenm.ag/yic2019.

Image credit: D. Murphy/NOAA

The discovery of the ozone hole in the mid-1980s sent shock waves through the scientific community and society at large. As scientists scrambled to make sense of the unprecedented phenomenon, a clear culprit emerged. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)—once thought of as near-miraculous compounds that revolutionized refrigeration—were suddenly revealed to be one of the biggest environmental dangers known to humankind. What followed was an international push by scientists, media, and policy makers to ban CFCs. In October 2019, NASA announced the ozone hole is the smallest recorded since 1982. In this episode of Stereo Chemistry, we hear from some of the scientists who were instrumental in discovering—and helping heal—the ozone hole and who think lessons learned could help us fight climate change.

A script of this episode is available at https://cen.acs.org/environment/atmospheric-chemistry/Podcast-solve-problem-like-ozone/97/web/2019/12.

To read more from C&EN on hot trends in chemistry, check out our 2019 Year in Chemistry issue at cenm.ag/yic2019.

Stereo Chemistry is a production of C&EN, the newsmagazine of the American Chemical Society. This episode was written by Giuliana Viglione and produced by Giuliana Viglione and Kerri Jansen. It was edited by Matt Davenport, Lauren Wolf, and Amanda Yarnell. Sabrina Ashwell is our copyeditor.

Music:

"New Land" by Ian Post

https://artlist.io/song/3201/new-land

"Breathe" by Ian Post

https://artlist.io/song/7532/breathe

"Verve" by Assaf Ayalon

https://artlist.io/song/28/verve