Alex Speed
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awhspeed.bsky.social
Alex Speed
@awhspeed.bsky.social
Chemistry Professor at Dalhousie University. Interested in sustainable organic and main-group chemistry, and asymmetric catalysis, with phosphorus, nitrogen, and sulfur compounds. Camper, plant hoarder, and Victorian house enthusiast.
Sad news. Curling royalty, and a familiar face on the news while growing up. I fondly remember being interviewed by her at a science fair in 1998, not sure why I got picked out of the 100s of projects, but she was very nice.
www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Colleen Jones, champion curler and CBC reporter, dies at 65 | CBC News
Jones’s celebrated career paved the way for other women in sport and broadcasting.
www.cbc.ca
November 25, 2025 at 8:50 PM
Trying to articulate a thought I have about how we are sort of shaped by a discipline as a snapshot of how it is at the time we learn it, and because things advance at different rates, we slowly lose touch with how things we don't use much change. A couple of examples. I remember in (1/n)
November 25, 2025 at 1:53 AM
I grew up in a relatively dark area, and was familiar with the constellations, and more stars than you would see in an urban environment. However, I'll never forget the first night I saw the Milky Way from somewhere truly dark (Aug 30th, 1997......I remember that date precisely due to world events)
have you ever been somewhere so dark you could step outside & immediately spot the Milky Way? i traveled to the Upper Peninsula to learn about efforts to balance industrialization & economic growth with the preservation of starry skies:

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/24/s...
Fighting for ‘The Right to Night’ Under Starry, Rural Skies
www.nytimes.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:32 AM
The sky doing cool things:
November 25, 2025 at 12:23 AM
I make a motion that this word should be accepted.
Would have been a panagram too :(
November 24, 2025 at 11:22 PM
Ah, at least it will ship next month...... oh.....
November 24, 2025 at 7:24 PM
Over 3 years ago, with our paper on radical hydroarylation chemistry, I said that accounted for 1/3 of the glowing things that I'm always positing photos of. Here's a small peek of what the second third of the glowy reactions are!

chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...
Reaction of Dearomatized Heterocycles with Sulfur Hexafluoride (SF6) and the Pentafluorosulfanyl (SF5) Group
A Hantzsch ester, and other dearomatized heterocycles undergo aromatization in the presence of SF6 and base upon irradiation with 390 nm LEDs, reducing sulfur hexafluoride and releasing fluoride ion. ...
chemrxiv.org
November 24, 2025 at 1:30 PM
This kept me from getting Queen Bee yesterday..... what is a Boomlet?
November 24, 2025 at 1:19 PM
What does it say about me that I frequently miss chemistry-related words on NYT Spelling bee?
November 24, 2025 at 1:26 AM
Sobeys website has to be among the worst websites I have ever encountered. I go to it, it is set to some random store in Newfoundland. As I am trying to update my address, a dialogue for a "tour of a website" keeps on popping up, erasing my typing. When I click cancel, I can finally enter (1/n)
November 22, 2025 at 5:03 PM
Old man yells at cloud moment: the continued enshittification of our productivity tools is exhausting. About 8 years ago, I started using the cloud, because I got tired of carrying a physical device from work to home every day. With a home computer, and work computer, I have (1/n)
November 20, 2025 at 5:28 PM
Reposted by Alex Speed
Exciting day, the first paper from my lab at the University of Regina in collaboration with the Steven lab at USask. Appearing in J. Phys. Chem. A @pubs.acs.org. We looked at excimer suppression in decorated pyrene derivatives.
pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...
Excimer-Suppressed and Oxygen-Tolerant Photophysics of “Arm-like” Substituted Pyrene Derivatives
Pyrene-functionalized materials are extensively employed in photoluminescent applications, owing to their extended π-conjugation and favorable photophysical properties. However, their luminescent performance is often attenuated by π–π stacking-driven excimer formation and molecular oxygen quenching. To mitigate these undesirable effects, a novel class of 7-tert-butylpyren-2-ol derivatives with extended “arm-like” substituents at the 1,3-positions have been synthesized and their luminescent properties in solution have been thoroughly investigated. While the 2- and 7-positions of the pyrene core are frequently modified with hydroxyl and tert-butyl groups, this work presents the first introduction of “arm-like” substituents at the 1,3-positions. The stretched-out “arm-like” substituents not only introduce steric bulk to suppress excimer formation but also change the symmetry class of pyrene and modulate electron density at its 1,2,3,7-positions. These effects tune pyrene’s energy levels and result in moderate (0.4) to high (0.7) fluorescence quantum yields and shorter-lived fluorescence lifetimes ranging from ca. 20 to 40 ns. These shorter lifetimes lead to a reduction of the pyrene derivatives’ susceptibility to energy scavenging by molecular oxygen. In addition, the specific form of the “arms” are important. Alkyl-containing arms and alkenyl-containing arms exhibit different decay pathways, which is reflected by their disparate nonradiative rates. Thus, the introduction of “arm-like” modifications represents a promising approach to modulate the photophysical behavior of an important class of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, highlighting their applicability in next-generation electronic and optoelectronic systems.
pubs.acs.org
November 19, 2025 at 9:43 PM
21 years ago, as an undergrad, my studio apartment, minutes from campus, was $625 a month. My tuition was on the order of $6000 per year.

Just for fun, the average starting NSERC grant for a new prof was more than they typically are today (NOT adjusted for inflation).

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
The numbers don't lie: The struggle is real for Gen Z students | CBC News
High tuition, rent and unemployment rates mean getting by as a Gen Z student is difficult. But do they have it the worst?
www.cbc.ca
November 19, 2025 at 1:43 PM
TIL X, ChemRXIV, JACS and Angewandte all rely on Cloudflare.
November 18, 2025 at 2:10 PM
Weird experience, using a Doodle Poll set up with somebody in a different time zone. Double checked it said times were in Halifax Time, and we came to a consensus. I picked 2:00 Atlantic Time, and they came back with everyone being available at 2:00 Eastern Time. (1/n)
November 18, 2025 at 2:15 AM
No hints, no autocheck. That's definitely my record for a Friday puzzle.
November 15, 2025 at 1:02 AM
Does anyone in Canada have a good suggestion for a flammable storage fridge vendor?
November 14, 2025 at 9:30 AM
TIL there's a medicine for increasing a cat's appetite that can go in their ear!
November 14, 2025 at 1:26 AM
I know there's a lot to unpack here, and probably a pretty sad backstory, but this made me chuckle. Could have ended a lot worse, like my namesake movie.

www.cbc.ca/news/canada/...
Man who took Hamilton bus on joy ride 'did a great job' driving, left no dings, say police | CBC News
He made several stops along the way, allowing passengers to get on and off, police say. He was then arrested.
www.cbc.ca
November 13, 2025 at 1:22 AM
Writing problem set answers in chemdraw, and the typing got glacially, frustratingly slow.... I was at a loss why, until I realized I had the "analysis" window on, and it was recalculating the masses of the atomic symbols in my written answers, and updating each time I wrote a letter!
November 12, 2025 at 10:46 PM
I'm curious, given the huge contemporary importance of photoredox chemistry, and radical chemistry, when people cover it in organic chemistry courses they teach? I don't cover it in my third year course. I think back to when I was a student, and olefin metathesis was really emerging (1/n)
November 12, 2025 at 12:18 PM
If you don't have clouds, look up!
November 12, 2025 at 1:57 AM
Nov 11th always makes me think of a few things. The only one that's really my story to tell:
20 years ago today, I took advantage of no school to write the GREs, which sent me on the path to doing my PhD in the USA. Times are very different nowadays, and I would not (could not) follow the same path.
November 11, 2025 at 12:47 PM
Funny, PAVLOVA is a word, but PAVLOVIAN is not.... would have been a Panagram! Though now I have a craving for a certain food item... might even be drooling.
November 10, 2025 at 1:18 PM
Not the greatest day, so I'm going to read a story about psychic vampires who steal people's souls so they don't age to cheer me up:
November 6, 2025 at 10:42 PM