Articles

This is instructions to use the ClampFit from the pClamp suite for ion channel analysis on the Mac.  The system this write-up is based on is OSX 10.6 (Snow Leopard), pClamp 10, and uses Winebottler 1.1.44. By way of introduction, Wine is the general open-source solution for running Windows-based software on UNIX-like systems (for example,… Read more

Why is LaTeX better than word processors?  Experience of a dissertation-writing (synthetic) chemist. is the tool-of-choice for writing in math, physics, and engineering.  Chemists (particularly synthetic chemists) tend to use word processors (e.g., Word) for their manuscripts, out of habit and not consciously choosing among alteratives.  Over the past 4 months I’ve transitioned to writing… Read more

Instructions to make TeXShop’s color scheme more… acceptable. TeXShop has default font and colors that is not conducive to long stretches of writing.  A more subdued color scheme, and a serif font, makes it much more pleasant to look at: Font selection is contained in Preferences.  Color change, however, requires going into command line (Terminal,… Read more

In the last post we downloaded and cleaned up a RSC template.  In this post we will add Wright’s chemstyle package to make writing in chemistry even easier, and explore some basic equation and typesetting usage of mhchem and chemstyle.  Chemscheme related items (e.g., auto-numbering of compounds) is in the last part of this series.… Read more

In this last part of writing chemistry with LaTeX, we will look at the chemscheme portion of chemstyle.  It offers automatic tracking for schemes and compounds, and is a major time-saver for synthetic chemists.  Download example packages here: version 1, version 2. Before we look at how to work with chemscheme, let me show you… Read more

A three part series that explore the Marriage Problem using Monte Carlo.  This first part lays out the premise of the “problem”. Plato asks Socrates, “Teacher, can you tell me what is love?”The teacher said, “Young man, I certainly can. But first, go to the wheat field, pick the most golden grain of wheat and… Read more