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by chrisseaton 2386 days ago
> I don't see how to open source work requiring a femtosecond mid-infrared laser or a prep requiring a synthesis lab with all the reagents, labware, and safety equipment.

You can put text documents on GitHub describing process, in the same way as you can code and data. If you have some setup with a femtosecond mid-infrared laser or prep requiring a synthesis lab with all the reagents, labware, and safety equipment you can open source the bill of parts, the build instructions and the lab book. It'd probably be very valuable to do that so please do!
1 comments
OldGuyInTheClub 2386 days ago
Here are the freely available supplemental data to a paper in the Journal of the American Chemical Society blending organic synthesis, computation, and spectral characterization. 122 pages of exquisite details from a multi-lab collaboration. Lots more like it out there.

Note: I am not in any way affiliated with this research or the labs involved. This came out of a quick search.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/suppl/10.1021/jacs.6b13031/suppl_fi...

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chrisseaton 2386 days ago
Doesn’t that prove my point? I know people post their artefacts. I often review them. Not sure what you’re trying to say?
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OldGuyInTheClub 2386 days ago
Reproducing that paper will be very difficult even though all the information is out there. There is a world of science outside of data processing.
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dekhn 2385 days ago
I think most people who have worked in science long enough realize that publications are not even minimum-viable: they often omit absolutely necessary information. Sometimes this is intentional, but most of the time, it's just assumed that the reproducer is working in a world-class lab and gets advice/help to implement state-of-the-art work.
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chrisseaton 2386 days ago
> There is a world of science outside of data processing.

Yes, but that's documented in lab books and procedure documents. Or at least it should be! If it isn't, how are they able to explain their own research? And those can be open sourced.

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OldGuyInTheClub 2386 days ago
The ethos of documenting and describing research in detailed technical publications has been around for a very long time. That supplemental data I referenced has a phenomenal amount of detail and is only one example. They have done as good a job of open sourcing as is possible. Having read other papers from those lab chiefs (Zare, Houk, Baran, Grubbs, Stoltz) I know that they are scrupulous about the detail they publish.

Even so, very few people will be able to replicate that work outside without a very well funded laboratory or collaboration of their own. Lab notebooks contain a vast amount of tangential or irrelevant data which are distilled into the publication. What good is a process document for obtaining an x-ray structure if the diffractometer costs a fortune and is a shared departmental or even national resource? In your example, how deep does the bill of materials go? Is it sufficient to state that one needs a Bruker FTIR or Coherent optical parametric oscillator or do those have to be decomposed into the lowest-level components?

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chrisseaton 2386 days ago
> Even so, very few people will be able to replicate that work outside without a very well funded laboratory or collaboration of their own.

That's not a reason to not be open about it!

> What good is a process document for obtaining an x-ray structure if the diffractometer costs a fortune and is a shared departmental or even national resource?

I think it's inherently good! Even if you think can't use it right now, it's good to put it all out there for people looking and into the archives to keep it for the future.

> In your example, how deep does the bill of materials go?

Well if bills of materials are available for your components themselves then you don't need to break them down yourself.

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