Ryan Hellyer

Tag: chemistry

  • Louis Pasteur: The Space of Life

    A photo of mine from the Heidelberg Castle has been used in the documentary “Louis Pasteur: The Space of life“. The image used is from the chemistry laboratory at the castle and was used as the background for the laboratory of Jean Baptiste Biot, the man who discovered the chiral nature of tartaric acid.

    As you can see below, they’ve zoomed in, then shrunk it, flipped it horizontally and used it as a background for scenes showing Louis Pasteur and Jean Baptiste Biot. It seems ironic to me that they used a mirror image for the background of a documentary about chirality :p

    Louis Pasteur and Jean Baptiste Biot
    Jean Baptiste Biot
    Jean Baptiste Biot
    heidelberg_lab2
    My original photo from Heidelberg Castle

    The documentary can be viewed on the LaRouche website:

    My photo can be seen in the background between 6:20 – 7:46 and 19:58 and 22:02.

  • Chemistry lab in Heidelberg

    Our lab got renovated recently. It doesn’t look anything like this old school chemistry lab we saw at the Heidelberg castle though!

    heidelburg_lab2

    heidelburg_lab3

    heidelburg_lab4

    heidelburg_lab1

  • People in Israel

    Someone complained that I don’t post enough photos of people! The reason I don’t normally post photos of people is because I’m not very good at taking them and I often never get around to asking permission. To keep my readers happy, here are some photos from Israel containing real live human beings 🙂

    This is one of the few photos I took of people while in Israel. Vicki Argyle is on the left and Gemma Christian is on the right.

    Vicki Argyle and I on top of Davids Castle in the Old City of Jerusalem.

    One of numerous ugly photos of me taken by Vicki.

  • NMR Quench

    Our 500 MHz NMR machine quenched itself today 🙁 Here is an awful quality photo I took of the aftermath.

    NMR Quench

    NMR Quench

    To make things worse, our other machine (300 MHz one) has been out of action since late last year, so we now have no NMR access whatsoever … for any non-chemists out there, this is bad, VERY bad!

    MRI Quenching

    I did some YouTubing and found this video of an MRI machine quenching itself (MRI and NMR are very similar instruments).

    [youtube width=”350″ height=”292″]http://youtube.com/watch?v=1R7KsfosV-o[/youtube]

    Liquid Helium

    The NMR machine was full of liquid helium. The quenching involved the liquid helium evaporating very rapidly. Here’s a video about the properties of liquid helium and a video of a liquid helium fountain.


  • Soccer

    I’m out of action from playing sports at the moment due to my silly shoulder popping it’s self out of the socket again 🙁 But the chemistry department soccer team said they were usually short of female players so I dragged along Becky Brassett to help them out. The games are played 9 a side on a field hockey turf. Here are some photos I took at the game.

    Aggression

    Here are some demonstrations of why NOT to play soccer on a sand turf!

    First up, Graeme trying to get the ball by running through his opposition.

    Graeme getting rough

    Next up, a girl from the opposing team wipes out quite spectacularly trying to change directions.

    Soccer Wipeout

    This aint track and field …

    Soccer Wipeout #2

    Graeme … WTF?

    Graeme levitating

    (more…)

  • Natasha round

    Natasha came round to visit. She let me wear her lip pucker-upper 🙂 And Dars took this photo of us.

    Natasha Munro at my flat

  • Sally’s inaugural professorial lecture

    We had another Brooker Bunch group photo done. This time was by a professional photographer and will be used in advertising for Sally’s inaugural professorial lecture. As you can tell, I’m not a big fan of having my photo taken 🙁

     

    Sally Brooker’s professorial lecture photo

    EDIT: Here is another group photo I found that needed adding.

  • Brooker Bunch and visitors

    We’ve had quite a few visitors to the Brooker Bunch research group recently including Jane Nelson and Grace Morgan. This photo was taken facing away from the University of Otago Chemistry Department. From left: Jane Nelson, Grace Morgan, Humphrey Feltam, Ryan Hellyer, Jonathan Kitchen, Andy Noble, Owen Clements, Sally Brooker, Nick White and Scott Cameron.

    Brooker Bunch March 2007

  • The communicator

    My dear friend Debbie Jordan won an award recently for “outstanding communicator” at the NZIC conference in Rotorua. Here’s the poster she presented at the conference.

    Debbie Jordan with her poster

    and here’s a demonstration of Debbie using her subtle but effective outstanding communication skills 😛

    Debbie Jordan communicating

  • Lehn Stock photos

    The poster presentation at Lehn Stock 2007 was a good chance to network with chemists from other parts of the country.

    A rather stunned looking Matt Polson walking in front of my attempt to take a photo of the Steel group from Canterbury. Matt used to be my lab demonstrator many moons ago.

    Matt Polson and the Steele group

    My fellow Brooker bunch members Scott, Humphrey and Jon getting into the spirit of Lehn Stock 2007.

    Jon Kitchen drinking with the monkeys Scott (left) and Humphrey (middle)

    A nice photo of Jon Kitchen and Lisa McLintock during the poster presentation at Lehn Stock.

    Jon Kitchen and Lisa McClintock