Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · 10d

New chemistry on an alien world, set to rewrite textbooks. Cooler than clathrates! Great Collab with @starsarecalling.bsky.social and colleagues at NASA-JPL. #chemsky
rahmlab.com/2025/09/28/p...

Polar Opposites Attract on Titan

As a scientist, it is a good feeling to come across something that contradicts textbooks. Better still to contribute to a discovery that could help explain chemistry on a planetary &#821…

rahmlab.com

2 9

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · 13d

Could there be 👽 life in Venus’s clouds?
Up to six missions are planned to explore our hot neighbor.
In our latest #astrobiology paper, we ask: Could carbon-free heteropolymers be the backbone of life in sulfuric-acid–rich clouds? Check it out!

🔗 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

On the possibility of carbon-free heteropolymers on Venus: a computational astrobiology study | QRB Discovery | Cambridge Core

On the possibility of carbon-free heteropolymers on Venus: a computational astrobiology study - Volume 6

www.cambridge.org

1

Reposted by Martin Rahm

Werner Dobrautz @dobrautz.bsky.social · Sep 3

Excited to see our work featured by Digital Discovery!
Tired of quantum noise ruining your chemistry sims?
Our new MREM method brings multireference insight to error mitigation—boosting accuracy for strongly correlated molecules on NISQ hardware.
Proud of this collaboration with @rahmlab.bsky.social

Digital Discovery @digital-discovery.rsc.org · Sep 3

Tired of quantum noise ruining your chemistry simulations? Our new MREM method brings multireference insight to error mitigation, boosting accuracy for strongly correlated molecules on near-term quantum devices.
@rahmlab.bsky.social @dobrautz.bsky.social
Read the paper here: doi.org/10.1039/D5DD...

2 8

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Aug 12

A few last-minute spots opened for Telluride workshop, “Chemical Origins of Life as We Don’t Know It.”
meetings.telluridescience.org/meetings/wor...
Interested? Please email/DM me or Rick Remsing (at Rutgers) a short note on your background & motivation.

📝 Travel, etc. not included.
#astrobiology

https://meetings.telluridescience.org/meetings/works…

1

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Jul 24

💥 How much energy can be squeezed into chemical bonds before reality objects? A part of my scientific journey has been focused on answering that question, by both modeling and making extremely energetic materials.

In this blog post, I reflect on that pursuit rahmlab.com/2025/07/23/a... #chemsky

A Quest for the World’s Most Energetic Compound

In a recent article, Lara Harter and Guillaume Belanger-Chabot (both at Université Laval in Quebec) and I computationally investigate the feasibility of making dinitroacetylene (C2(NO2)2; see Fig 1…

rahmlab.com

12

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Jul 3

Machine learning + quantum computation of chemistry. It doesn’t get more “it”. Great collaboration - we’ve learned a lot!

Simon Olsson @smnlssn.bsky.social · Jul 3

New pre-print from PhD student Hang Zou on warm-starting the variational quantum eigensolver using flows: Flow-VQE! Flow-VQE is parameter transfer on steroids: it learns how to solve a family of related problems, dramatically reducing the aggregate compute cost!

4

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Jun 29

Bluesky needs more music, and the world needs more nerds. This, ladies and gentlemen, is a blast from the past. And a reminder not to underestimate the chemists 😉. #chemsky youtu.be/f8FAJXPBdOg?...

The Molecular Shape of You (Ed Sheeran Parody) | A Capella Science

YouTube video by acapellascience

youtu.be

1 3 23

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Apr 22

Do you aspire to chemical understanding of condensed matter? Then this book is for you: Solids and Surfaces by Roald Hoffmann! #chemsky archive.org/details/soli...

Solids And Surfaces A Chemists View Of Bonding In Extended Structures : Roald Hoffmann : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

The book begins with the language of crystal orbitals, band structures and densities of states. The tools for moving back from the highly delocalized orbitals...

archive.org

2 19

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Mar 30

Bluesky link was botched! Use this: www.chalmers.se/en/about-cha...

Vacancies

www.chalmers.se

2

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Mar 29

#PhDposition in Computational #Astrobiology & #QuantumChemistry! Join us at Chalmers in 🇸🇪. Collab with NASA's JPL and @starsarecalling.bsky.social in 🇺🇸. @astrobiology.bsky.social @thephdplace.bsky.social @bluemarblespace.bsky.social #chemsky #compchem
www.chalmers.se/en/about-cha...

Vacancies

www.chalmers.se

1 7 13

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Mar 26

Oppose the layoff of the NIST Atomic Spectroscopy Group! #chemsky chng.it/wv4cFszkWG

Have you seen this petition yet?

Oppose the layoff of the NIST Atomic Spectroscopy Group

chng.it

1 2

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Feb 15

The #EU should dedicate substantial resources to attracting American top reseach talent, asap. Then double research funding, collectively and nationally. It’s time to pick up the ball. www.science.org/content/arti...

‘My boss was crying.’ NSF confronts potentially massive layoffs and budget cuts

Trump could propose slashing agency’s budget by two-thirds

www.science.org

1 4

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Feb 15

Just don’t let anyone in charge know that FOREIGNERS 👻 also rely on NIST. Including pesky freeloading Europeans.

3

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Feb 9

#Chemunity is a better tag than #chemsky! Works on all media!

1 1

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Jan 22

$500 billion = Not peanuts. I think they have found something. openai.com/index/announ...

Announcing The Stargate Project

openai.com

1

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Jan 22

The idea of a Boltzmann brain, a 🧠 spontaneously appearing someplace in space believing it is you granted the universe is large enough, is bogus. In contrast, here is evidence for the Boltzmann hut (Swedish: koja), a series of branches randomly assembling to form a hut. #thermodynamics #chemsky

1 2

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Jan 22

😂 I did my best 🤦‍♂️

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Jan 15

Werner is great - check it out! #compchemsky

Werner Dobrautz @dobrautz.bsky.social · Jan 14

PhD/PostDoc in Quantum Computing for Quantum Chemistry

Have a look if you want to develop novel quantum computing approaches to enable accurate electronic structure calculations: dobrautz.github.io/jobs/

Sharing and endorsing would be greatly appreciated <3

#chemsky #quantsky #quantum #chemjobs

Jobs | Werner Dobrautz

Open positions in our group

dobrautz.github.io

1 3

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Jan 4

During the holidays, I revisited an idea I bring up (usually after a few drinks): A Theory of Food #Evolution! 🥖🍕 Just like species evolve, so does food. Which food risks extinction, and what food evolution will happens in zero gravity? #FoodForThought #recipes #culinary
rahmlab.com/2025/01/04/a...

A Theory of Food Evolution

During the holiday season I got reminded of an idea I sometimes bring up jokingly (usually after a few drinks): A theory of food evolution! It goes something like this: Food is an evolving story of…

rahmlab.com

1

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Dec 28

I am sad to see this post not trending, must mean the world have worse problems to deal with. Nah.

1

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Dec 18

Raise your hands if your only problems running #Mac relate to #Microsoft! Here’s what Word had the balls to ask after failing to sync to OneDrive and proceeding to spinning-wheel-freeze on three separate attempts. Note how the “submit” button is greyed out. #1stworldproblems

1 2

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Dec 16

Interested in pursuing a #PhD in #nanoscience at Chalmers University of Technology, #Sweden? Our excellence PhD positions are now open, featuring a range of top PIs. If you specifically want to join my research group, feel free to PM! #chemsky #chemjobs #compchemsky www.chalmers.se/en/about-cha...

Vacancies

www.chalmers.se

2 2

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Dec 12

Here’s an idea: Imagine a #currency literally powered by carbon-neutral #energy. Could this help #SaveTheClimate? Let me know what you think. Share to reach those who might help bring it to life: rahmlab.com/2024/12/07/p... #Sustainability #GreenFuture #CleanTech #Altcoin

A Current-based Currency To Save Our Climate

The world would clearly benefit from abundant access to carbon-neutral electricity. However, a significant obstacle lies in the basic economics of supply and demand. As electricity production incre…

rahmlab.com

1

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Dec 10

Reached 500 followers, almost exclusively scientists, without a single crappy bot. Great place! #chemsky 🧪

5

Martin Rahm @rahmlab.bsky.social · Nov 30

Example of nonsense #science reporting ”Just half a pound of the stuff may remove as much carbon dioxide as a tree can, according to early tests. ”. What!? Maybe if the #MOF is reused A LOT? #chemsky www.theguardian.com/environment/...

New powder that captures carbon could be ‘quantum leap’ for industry

A ‘covalent organic framework’ can be used to capture carbon to store it or convert it for industrial use

www.theguardian.com

2 1 9