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option=com_content&task=view&id=32694&Itemid=54 Apr 19 2013 Father-daughter team find good chemistry Written by Ellen Chahey

CONTRIBUTED PHOTOS SURE TO GET A GOOD REACTION Jack Driscoll and daughter Jennifer Maclachlan of Centerville are ready for a press conference last week at the American Chemical Society Spring National Meeting in New Orleans.

Theyre advocates for science education They put two houses on the market, one in Wellesley, one in Centerville. The one in Wellesley sold first. Thats how the family of Jack Driscoll wound up in one of the villages of Barnstable.

Now, Driscoll and his daughter Jennifer Maclachlan mastermind (a word they both like to use) a chemistry company on the Cape that looks for arsenic in fruit juice, rice, and even well water. Arsenic, as in old lace. Yes, said Driscoll, its the twentieth most abundant element on earth. It has been used as a pesticide, in paints, and in womens makeup. Even rice has it, and with brown rice used as a sweetener in baby food, arsenic has entered our lives on the Cape. Their business, although they live in Centerville, is now in Sandwich. Maclachlan said that she went to school as an English major and now calls herself a science communicator. Her father appreciates her work in his company because, he said, arsenic is even in bottled water and in the granite in countertops. Its important that people have access to that information. Father and daughter made a quick relationship in science. Both of my parents were very active in my classroom, and Im continuing that, said Maclachlan of her volunteer time in the Barnstable West Villages Elementary School. Exposure, Machlachlan said, is the key to encouraging girls into science. Their company, PID, which stands for Photo Ionization Detector, employs a technology everybody thought wouldnt work. said Driscoll. It cleans up vinyl chloride and costs about one-tenth of a usual test, he said. How did Driscoll get into science? The great science fiction writer Isaac Asimov is the answer. Driscoll and his friend David Hartwell were fans of the genre and in 1965 Driscoll took a class with Asimov at Boston University, where he studied as well as at the Franklin Institute and Northeastern University. After his schooling he worked for a company that was doing a project for NASA. Often the interface of science and people can become complicated, father and daughter have written on their website (www.analyzersource.blogspot.com). Someone was concerned, at a science fair, about the childrens hazards from using the red liquid in a flask that, the website said, was full of salt water from Barnstable Harbor. The purple liquid that scared the visitor, again according to the website, was cabbage juice, and the green stuff in another flask was vinegar, all harmless. Driscoll, who is public relations chair for the American Chemical Society Northeastern Local Section, wants to get all kinds of students involved in a love for and the study of science. Even though his daughter was an English major, she has picked up so much chemistry working with him, he said. When he heard a story about a schoolgirl who was discouraged from progressing in science,

Driscolls response was immediate. The girl was dissecting a frog when the double-period Advanced Placement biology class was interrupted by a bathroom break. The girl, not needing the bathroom, stayed at her table and continued to dissect the frog. Her teacher scolded her: Why dont you go to the ladies room and gossip with the other girls? Driscoll said when he heard the story, What I would have liked to have done would have been to have barged into that ladies room and gotten those girls back into science.

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