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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 8h

Well I know what @levinchem.bsky.social will be lecturing about today. What a treat for fans of chemical kinetics!

Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 29/08/2026

If you're into reality/competition shows The Traitors is very fun. My wife made a whole new group of friends at work that she watches with.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 05/07/2026

Tell that to the people who have been lighting off rockets right outside our newborn's nursery window for the last hour+ 🙃 Still going at 10pm!! God I hate this holiday

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Reposted by Tyler Pearson

ritingon @ritingon.bsky.social · 03/07/2026

Short thread; please read. There's a striking difference in how academics who work with this sort of research see this issue versus lay opinion. NIH research is critical. Still, it does NOT make drugs, and the gap between where that research ends and a marketable drug begins is vast.

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Reposted by Tyler Pearson

By Cory Doctorow (GPG 0xBF3D9110957E5F4C) @doctorow.pluralistic.net · 23/06/2026

The literature on harms to kids from online platforms is complex and nuanced, rife with people citing small, ambiguous studies as iron-clad evidence that kids are being destroyed by the internet: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ype6... 1/

Three early 20th C newsies in pageboy caps, surround by hovering, staring robots, flying on jets of flame.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 13/06/2026

One of the saddest things (among many sad things) about higher ed these days is the full throated endorsement university leaders have given to students' offloading their critical thinking skills. And that's to say nothing of all the other externalities behind AI.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 06/06/2026

It only saves companies money when they pay heavily subsidized rates. When they are asked to pay the full cost (which they will have to be if the AI companies are going to have any hope of profitability) usage will drop dramatically. And then what will all of this buildout have been for?

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 27/12/2025

Nobody has died taking these peptides... yet! Horrifying to see this happening so broadly

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

Got into woodworking this year, so naturally cranked out a few projects to give as gifts over the holidays. Pictures are a watch box and a cheese board/slicer. Really happy to be able to give handmade gifts

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 26/12/2025

I had never heard of this movie until a friend had us watch it at a holiday hang this year. It was absolutely delightful! Definitely will be one I go back to.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

People probably want to believe that the medical establishment is holding back miraculous cures and whatever else. The whole "we are sharing what THEY don't want you to know" schtick. Like... no this is expensive because it's really hard and we're trying to keep you safe.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 19/12/2025

You would not believe the amount of time, effort, and money that big pharma companies spend to ensure their drugs are safe. The regulations that bind that industry are written in blood. People died because those standards weren't met in the past. People are determined to repeat history, I guess.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

My intention was to explain the message above. I was never trying to comment on McCain's character. But it sounds like you weren't asking in the first place. Sorry about that

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 10/11/2025

John McCain sided with the Democrats to originally pass the ACA

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

I'm married to a teacher so I do get the teacher's frustration with parents trying to fight them on grades. This is pretty outrageous though, especially this choice quote. Pretty insane failure on a shocking number of levels

The district failed to acknowledge that the teacher's answer violated scientific fact as well as the publisher's answer key, which confirmed the correct answer was heat and light, since "combustion is a chemical reaction that typically releases energy in the form of heat and light, which makes it an exothermic process."

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 04/10/2025

Hatch and my cat Daisy could be twins! They have almost exactly the same face 🥹🥹

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

In short, if you want to give your chemistry the best chance for reproducibility, use overhead stirring.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 20/06/2025

Even after just a few months working in a group dedicated to scale up and process transfer, this absolutely tracks. If your reaction is at all heterogeneous, it's likely there is a strong mixing component at play that will affect the chemistry across different batch sizes if not controlled.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 11/05/2025

It's not a solution per se, but I've been making homemade yogurt for a couple years now and have not bought it from the store since. Everyone I tell is really surprised at it, but it's actually extremely simple, especially if you have an instant pot.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 08/05/2025

There's a difference between AI being used to analyze well curated datasets and "gen-AI" which is being broadly peddled as the next big thing. The former has been in use for the societally useful things you mentioned far longer than chatGPT has been around too.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 14/02/2025

If a drug doesn't make it to market then the company has no way to recoup the substantial amount of money spent developing that drug candidate. So think of it as the successful drugs (<<1% of all drug candidates) subsidizing research into the entire rest of the company's pipeline.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

Oh yeah there's plenty of opportunism out there to be sure! But I'd just push back on discounting a whole field because it's occasionally over-hyped.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 30/01/2025

That's a pretty cynical way of looking at it. There's tons of value in optimizing older results and turning them into useful methods. Just because it showed up in a 1970s paper doesn't mean it's a reaction that someone would actually use. Obviously you should only do so with proper acknowledgement

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 18/12/2024

Boring chemistry is great! I also think further emphasis should also be put on techniques that use quotidian "off the shelf" materials. The barrier to me trying chemistry I'm not 100% sure about is wayyy lower if I don't have to wait for/make a fancy ligand/reagent.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 25/10/2024

Where's the dislike button on here 😔

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 25/10/2024

Back when I was an undergraduate we had a laptop repair/loaner system for situations like that. If your computer crapped out for whatever reason you could bring it to them and they'd fix it for just the cost of parts. Granted we also had well equipped computer labs as well.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 05/09/2024

Proposing this as a solution to poor pharmaceutical availability is like proposing burning down your house to get rid of bed bugs. This "solution" will literally kill people.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 12/08/2024

Haber Bosch process, water gas shift reaction, Ziegler Natta - big industrial processes basically. Lanthanide mining/separation is an interesting one too

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 04/05/2024

The chimney swifts have arrived in force here in #Chicago! No good photos yet but they've maybe even supplanted the sparrows as the most-heard calls in the neighborhood #birds

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 02/05/2024

A productive afternoon yesterday at Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary! Lots of people out sharing sightings with each other which was so nice! Some photo highlights for me were this *dramatic* downy woodpecker, a very cooperative common yellowthroat, and a lovely black and white warbler. #birds

A male downy woodpecker looking off to the side while perched on a tree

A downy woodpecker looking off to the distance. One imagines pensively?

A black and white warbler perched on a tree

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 01/05/2024

took a swing past Jackson Park and had some fun sightings - a Caspian tern swooping over the lagoon, a grey-blue gnatcatcher, an orange-crowned warbler (I think!), and a northern flicker, among others #birds

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 30/04/2024

Visited Montrose Point Bird Sanctuary today and was not disappointed - got some beautiful shots of a yellow warbler, a black capped chickadee, a female downy woodpecker, and a common yellowthroat, and a less beautiful shot of a peregrine falcon (!!) in flight!

A photo of a peregrine falcon flying over grass with Lake Michigan in the background

A common yellowthroat perched on a dead branch

A yellow warbler perched in a flowery tree

A black-capped chickadee perched on a branch

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 28/04/2024

Took my camera out for a spin at the beach. These were two of my favorite captures. I saw sparrows (song, house, and field sparrows), mourning doves, robins, red winged blackbirds, gulls, , ducks, cormorants, and, of course, pigeons on this particular outing.

A sparrow sitting in a budding tree with a patch of marram grass and Lake Michigan in the background

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 18/04/2024

there's a slippery slope between wondering what bird that is you're seeing to impulse-buying hundreds of dollars of camera equipment

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 16/01/2024

Things are getting tense over on the chemistry faculty search status tracker. Stay kind to yourselves!

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Reposted by Tyler Pearson

Debbie Gale Mitchell @heydebigale.bsky.social · 09/01/2024

Tips for succeeding in a chem class TL;DR: 1. Schedule weekly support 2. Expose yourself to the content early & often 3. “Chemistry is learned w/ a pencil in your hand.” 4. Reflect to seek out support 5. Reminder that your ability is changeable! #chemsky

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 07/01/2024

In Chicago there's a well known New Haven pizza place (called Piece) that the Yale club of Chicago caters for local events. Can confirm it matches up pretty well!

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 23/10/2023

What a huge honor to have our chemistry featured on In the Pipeline!

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Bethany Halford @bethanyhalford.bsky.social · 05/10/2023

These skeletal editing papers are so much fun to write about. I spoke to @levinchem.bsky.social and @tylerpearson.bsky.social for @cenmag.bsky.social about their aromatic atom swap.

cen.acs.org

Atoms swap spots in aromatic rings

New reaction replaces carbon with nitrogen

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Reposted by Tyler Pearson

Jake Yeston @jakeyeston.bsky.social · 28/09/2023

Lots of chemistry in Science this week! First up, @levinchem.bsky.social group turn aryl azides into pyridines with precise regioselectivity using a well-chosen oxidant www.science.org/doi/full/10.... Chemsky 🧪

science.org

Science | AAAS

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 28/09/2023

I owe a lot to my amazing coworkers, co-authors, and advisor @levinchem.bsky.social I came to the Levin group as an inorganic chemist with no practical experience in developing organic reactions. They took a chance on me and gave me the ideal environment to grow into the chemist I am today.

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Tyler Pearson @tylerpearson.bsky.social · 28/09/2023

Today it's my pleasure to present my magnum opus from my time in the Levin group: a site-selective benzene-to-pyridine "transmutation" Now, you can replace carbon atoms in benzene rings with a nitrogen with intuitive and predictable site selectivity! Read it here: www.science.org/doi/full/10....

science.org

Aromatic nitrogen scanning by ipso-selective nitrene internalization

The proper oxidant enables conversion of aryl azides to pyridines with the nitrogen atom selectively replacing the azide-bound carbon.

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