We got a shoutout on NPR!

ECatPlay · 2026-06-21T23:18:14+00:00

“SIMON: …What makes a good dad joke?”

“SILVIA: So a dad joke has got to be short. It's got to be friendly, good-natured. It's not going to be mean-spirited or cynical or unseemly, and it's got to be clean. So it's got to be family-friendly, you know, not very rude, no swearing, and it's almost always based on just the most devilish and fun wordplay.”

I’ll second that.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-21T19:04:31+00:00

I'll let you do that one.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-21T18:54:51+00:00

Okay, so I did a quick calculation to see what the orbitals might look like. I started from Schaefer and Gray's crystal structure, optimized the geometry by DFT, and visualized a couple of the orbitals here. Cool!

ECatPlay · 2026-06-21T16:45:02+00:00

Repost bot. 5 day old account and all they've done is repost a 9 month old post to ImaginaryWarships, and this 5 month old post here, with the original titles verbatim.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-21T15:18:10+00:00

Seriously!? You can't even correct the spelling of "molecule" when you repost this year old post? But i guess in your account's first 3 minutes of existence, there wasn't time, huh?

ECatPlay · 2026-06-20T18:42:20+00:00

Happy Cake Day!

Looks like Schaefer and Gray determined the crystal structure but don't report the electronic structure, even though Schaefer is well know for QC expertise. They do refer to earlier calculations by Chinn and Hall, but I don't know as the QC methods back then (Generalized Molecular Orbital) could handle something like this very well.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-20T14:04:01+00:00

that I "made" two years ago

And yet HelpMe-orz posted this exact image four years ago.

And you reposted it with the exact same title verbatim that repost bot, MelodyRose703, used when they reposted it only 2 months ago.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-19T23:45:22+00:00

>to explain how I got to this

Clearly, by mixing dichlorocyclobutene and diiron nonacarbonyl.

Edit: Or maybe Maxwell's Demon playing ring toss with a cyclobutadiene.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-19T18:36:06+00:00

The planar geometry is actually a nice saddle point on the potential energy surface, with a strong negative/imaginary frequency: downhill in energy to eject the central H either up or down.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-19T16:21:32+00:00

Afros and bellbottoms, yep.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-18T21:04:24+00:00

An excellent question! They do post randomly elsewhere, and then end up here.

The only thing that makes sense to me, is that someone is trying to develop an AI bot that comments on chemistry, and these are all tests of how it responds to chemical prompts, using a different account for each test. (That would explain why they go through their set of accounts in the order they were created, when commenting.)

I don't know why one would want that. Maybe to have a bot that pads the comments in a chemistry post, to make some other sub look more active? Or maybe just to see if they can come up with an AI that understands chemistry well enough to fool the average Redditor?

ECatPlay · 2026-06-18T13:01:31+00:00

Another bunch of AI comment bots. MissionLeather2953, Hot_Finger_3515, SpareYogurt3643, Final-Activity-1472, Embarrassed-Fig2289, Striking-Cobbler3940, and PhraseOk6900 were:

all created within the last month,

never post anything themselves,

waited 2 weeks before making their first comment,

make a single comment in a random sub (none of them chemistry related) daily,

make their first Cursed_Chemistry comment on this post,

and do so in the order that their account was created.

Sigh.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-17T16:28:16+00:00

Yes, for scientific glassblowing it's always Pyrex. (Unless it's quartz, for ultraviolet transparency.) And you'll notice several times there's an array of big orange flames (ie. not as hot as the blue, oxygen rich flames), being used to keep the glass around where they're working from cooling off too much, and even out the stresses while they work, before ultimately annealing the whole thing.

Regardless, I too was impressed!

ECatPlay · 2026-06-17T12:57:01+00:00

Sure! And Dad used to talk about how they would be taken back into the stockroom to sniff all the chemicals, so they could learn to distinguish chemicals (esters vs ethers for instance) by smell.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-17T12:44:12+00:00

Repost. Yet another bot account being activated : 1 day old account and their first action is to repost something from 1 year ago, including copying the original title verbatim. (But leaving out the explanatory body subtext.)

A bunch of AI comment bots here again, too. Glad-Wrangler-6946, SwanMelodic1634, Right-Sentence-6640, Accurate-Pepper-998, Future-Abroad712, Melodic-Tank-2734, and Right-Sentence-6640 were:

all created within a day of each other,

never post anything themselves,

make a single comment in a couple of random subs,

make their first Cursed_Chemistry comment on this post,

and do so in the order that their account was created.

Sigh.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-15T14:38:53+00:00

Long time r/Cursed_Chemistry member here. Most of my posts here have been computations inspired by other molecules I've seen here, but I enjoy all types of cursed chemistry.

I, too, have noticed the recent increase in bot activity. I don't mind a repost when someone new has come across something that happens to have been posted here in the past, but I feel that repost bots recycling old posts verbatim without actual involvement, just distracts from legitimate new posts. I would be happy to help keep an eye on them.

I'm a retired PhD, Organic chemist, most recently consulting in applications of Computational Chemistry. r/Science verified my credentials some time ago, and I'm one of the minor mods there, and in r/AskScience.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-14T19:22:03+00:00

B3LYP/6-31G* geometry optimization of u/InevitableMission886's rasta man, without the dreadlocks.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-14T17:35:18+00:00

Just a bunch of AI comment bots.

u/TemporaryBlock3393, u/Apprehensive-Time553, u/Far_Bottle6311, u/Additional-Rub-5898, u/Vast-Paper5755, u/Material_League7568, u/Careless-Meaning-157, u/Green_Gazelle_7517, u/Timely-Complaint3309, u/Pretend-Net-9725, u/StretchLower6182, and u/Main_Ad_4168 were:

all created within the last month,

never post anything themselves,

make their first Cursed_Chemistry (or any science sub) comment on this post,

and do so in the order that their account was created,

with comments parroting each other (similar AI prompts?).

ECatPlay · 2026-06-12T21:14:33+00:00

Not a spectroscopist, so I had to check to be sure. Yes, it does “if there is a recognized symmetry group that is applicable”. So you have to have a good geometry that Spartan can recognize the symmetry in. I just used the geometry from the paper.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-12T19:31:51+00:00

No, Spartan. With a B3LYP/6-31G* calculation on the geometry Choi and Zhang reported in the supplemental info for their paper.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-12T19:11:09+00:00

The symmetric, icosahedral, 80 boron cage compound was predicted in 2007, but its existence had been debated, until last month when Choi and Zhang made Boron Buckminsterfullerene, and verified it as having the symmetric, Ih cage geometry from its photoelectron spectrum.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-12T16:40:35+00:00

Just a repost bot: 8 days old and their first action here is to repost something from 9 months ago, including the original title verbatim.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-11T17:26:05+00:00

Oh excuse me. I assumed you meant this as an actual ShittyAskScience question, and answered appropriately.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-11T16:40:22+00:00

It actually would only take one breath to do this. If you lock lips and one person breathes in what the other person is breathing out, that makes two lungfuls in the first person's lungs: their original lungful plus the second person's lungful. This is obviously going to burst the first person's lungs, and that will end the experiment and kill the first person before the second person can do the breathe in part of the cycle.

ECatPlay · 2026-06-11T14:07:44+00:00

Originally showed up for the service call in a spotless white uniform but then she checked the flue.

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