Carl Percival

How to understand exoplanets — space scientists call on lab-based chemists to help Stronger links between researchers who work on Earth’s and other planets’ atmospheres, and between the experimental, modelling and observational communities, will help to interpret the astronomical da...

our Nature comment on exoplanets is finally out 🧪https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-025-03478-7

Wet Leg last night at the Greek Theatre. Great gig. Photo courtesy of @rburke.bsky.social

JPL has 3rd round of layoffs, lets go of about 550 employees The Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena laid off about 550 employees, or 11% of its total staff, on Tuesday.

Well I still have a job. 3rd set of layoffs within a year, let’s hope it is the last. Don’t even mention the fires, so many JPLers lost their homes. I lost my friend & mentor Stan Sander too, this has been quite the year. abc7.com/post/jet-pro...

JPL Workforce Update A message from JPL Director Dave Gallagher

here we go again :-(
www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/jpl-wor...

just got this text from my daughter, who is currently a Chem UG at Berkeley. Very cool!

Tonight’s entertainment.

I got to I see Kershaw’s last ever game at Dodgers Stadium tonight. What a career, a Dodgers legend!

Back at the ALS. But this time I got a day off and the family came up north and Ruby finally got to see UC Berkeley!

Pressure, Temperature, and Water Vapor Dependencies of the Bimolecular Rate Coefficients for the Reaction OH + NO + M → HONO + M OH+NO is an important termolecular association reaction in the troposphere and stratosphere that influences the atmospheric ozone budget. In this study, rate coefficients for the reaction of OH + NO + M → HONO + M were measured under conditions relevant to the troposphere/lower stratosphere over a temperature range of 228–298 K and pressure range of 50–750 Torr using N2 as a bath gas. Time-resolved kinetics were studied by pulsed laser photolysis-laser-induced fluorescence (PLP-LIF) detecting OH by laser-induced fluorescence. Data for the temperature range 258–298 K were fit to two falloff expressions, with the JPL expressions (k1,0N2 = 7.37 × 10–31(T/300 K)−2.90 cm6 molecule–2 s–1 and k1,∞ = 3.44 × 10–11(T/300 K)−0.1cm3 molecule–1 s–1) and IUPAC expression (k1,0N2 = 6.80 × 10–31(T/300 K)−2.81 cm6 molecule–2 s–1, FC = 0.81, k1,∞ = 1.96 × 10–11(T/300 K)−0.3 cm3 molecule–1 s–1). At temperatures T < 258 K, the measured rate coefficients were significantly higher than the IUPAC and JPL fits. To accommodate the rate coefficient deviation from the two expressions, data across the entire temperature range (228–298 K) was fit with two approaches. First, rate coefficients were fit with an empirical modification by adding a second falloff term to the JPL expression with a second low-pressure rate coefficient of k1,0N2 = 5.20 × 10–35(T/300 K)−30.4 cm6 molecule–2 s–1. Second, k1,0N2, k1,∞, and n were fit globally to the entire temperature data set, but FC was varied for each individual temperature, which increased with decreasing temperature. In the second portion of the study, the influence of H2O on the reaction rate was investigated using a N2–H2O mixture as the bath gas at 50 Torr and 273 and 298 K. The JPL and IUPAC falloff expressions were modified to include H2O as a third-body collisional partner consistent with a nonlinear mixture model. Fits to the data yielded the low pressure termolecular rate coefficients in H2O, k1,0H2O = 3.81 × 10–30(T/300 K)−6.04 and k1,0H2O = 3.31 × 10–30(T/300 K)−5.81 cm6 molecule–2 s–1, respectively. Experimental data were fit using MESMER give energy relaxation parameters of <ΔEdown,295 K, N2> = 170 ± 10 cm–1 and <ΔEdown,295 K,H2O> = 634 ± 20 cm–1, indicating that H2O is a 4× more efficient collisional quencher than N2 alone. The modified JPL expressions with the newly derived low pressure rate coefficients were implemented into a STOCHEM-CRI atmospheric model. Predictions of HONO concentrations with the new rates were up to 15% higher in remote tropical regions.

@meganwds.bsky.social first paper was published today, yay well done Megan 🧪
pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10....

NASA Science Spending Across the U.S.

dashboards.planetary.org/nasa-science...
Look at the economic impact that the investment in NASA has on every state. It won't just be loss of science but a huge hit to the economy. You get more $ back than you put in by a long way!

Please sign, so close….

Lets do this! The proposed cuts to science funding are just devastating. It threatens USA's leadership in science. NASA is one of the country's most famous brands, why would you want to destroy it?

NSF, NASA and NIH budgets per year, inflation adjusted from 2000-2025 along with the proposed cuts. NSF includes research component only. Massive cuts across all sectors, well below support spanning 25 years.

How bad will it be? Catastrophic.

Proposed cuts to #NSF, #NIH, and #NASA will set the US R&D landscape back 25 yrs+, cause economic and job loss now, and undermine innovations to come.

But, this is the WH's *proposed* budget.

Speak up now before it is too late.

(inflation adjusted $-s below)

Totally! Mars sample return cancelled too. All that infrastructure/years of research just wasted 🧪

That just sucks, sorry and it is telling that it doesn’t even make your top 100 :-(

Please send this to anyone and everyone, the proposed cuts would devastate science at NASA, and if MSR is stopped I can't see JPL surviving 🧪 aas.org/urge-nasa-su...

Yes and we need to get you all over soon.

I think @rburke.bsky.social has perfected the Ooni Pizza oven! It tasted as good as it looks 😋

So Proud of Ruby. Off to UC Berkeley to do chemistry!

Let’s go Dodgers! First game of the season for us 😀

Trump seeks to end climate research at premier U.S. climate agency White House aims to end NOAA’s research office; NASA also targeted

Does anybody want to hire a middle aged scientist? Looks like my days @ NASA are numbered 😢 www.science.org/content/arti...

He was just the best.

💔 I am heartbroken, Stan Sander passed away over the weekend. Such a lovely man and a great scientist. Here is the last picture I have of him at a group lunch, during happier times. Work will feel horrible today, he will be missed so much.

It does not seem like the appropriate time for America to be rolling back Climate protection policies does it!?

What the actual!?

It is not just CO2 data, this would be so short sighted, JPL have been waiting to get power to our Ozone LIDAR since the '22 eruption cut off the main power to the site. We have data on the ozone layer going back to 1993

Home The 13th International Conference on Chemical Kinetics will be held June 8-13, 2025 at Granlibakken Tahoe resort in Tahoe City, California.

icck2025.lbl.gov
Abstract submission deadline for oral presentations is March 16th for ICCK to be held at Lake Tahoe, CA, June 8-13, 2025. We have an excellent lineup of plenary and invited speakers, covering a wide range of problems in chemical kinetics.

I have been emailing House of Representatives senators, you name it. I can’t vote here, so it is all I can do…

That could refer to so many things, sadly! It is happing every hour at the moment this side of the Atlantic :-(

That sucks! It is all just pointless. So sorry Steve.