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Molecules: You'd better learn to live with them.
September 29, 2006
Category: Not Really a Molecule
Is a blogger and synthetic organic chemist in Barry Trost's group at Stanford. He has successfully e-panhandled his way to an iPod. He will not be blogging anymore starting in a couple days (presumably because it's dissertation time for him)....
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 5:05 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Food
Another member of the unusual collection of decent-smelling thiols (take a look at the previous entries on diallyl sulfide and ethyl thiolactate) is furfuryl mercaptan: Furfuryl mercaptan smells of coffee. You'd expect it to smell awful, but it doesn't. Fragrance...
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 3:18 PM • 2 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 28, 2006
Category: Polymers
(Oops, this should have been published on Tuesday. I didn't click publish. Sorry!) Certain bacteria, under certain conditions, will excrete plastic. The one above is a polybutyrate, but many are possible. This is neat, first of all, because it's bizzare....
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 12:00 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 27, 2006
Category: Food
Check out Khymos, a molecular gastronomy website, as I work my way through it too (thanks Jase!)...
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 8:20 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
Category: Polymers
Inspired by Keith's comment on polylactic acid's tendency to deform under heat, and procrastination, I just did a quickie test of the heat-deformation characteristics of my polylactic acid bottle. I took my PLA bottle and a cute little PET bottle...
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 6:43 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 25, 2006
Category: Polymers
This weekend I came across Biota brand spring water, which is the normal expensive kind of spring water (the kind where they make a point of saying where in the earth it came from rather than obfuscating the "municipal source"...
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 7:02 PM • 3 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 22, 2006
Category: Medicine
Inspired by the comments yesterday, here is a compound that was used in early human genetics: phenylthiocarbamide, or PTC: PTC is one of those molecules with the puzzling properties of tasting bitter to some, and like nothing at all to...
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 5:09 PM • 7 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 21, 2006
Category: Synthesis
This is one that will be familiar to anyone who works in chemistry, but I was a bit surprised to see it the first time I went into a lab. Certain compounds, called esters, can be prepared from an acid...
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 8:07 PM • 14 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 20, 2006
Category: Not Really a Molecule
Going through endless, endless NMRs....
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 9:33 PM • 0 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
September 19, 2006
Category: Synthesis
Yesterday's entry on crown ethers demonstrated a way to do reactions with a mixture of polar and nonpolar substrates. These crowns allowed for ions to be brought into the nonpolar solvent. Another approach is to just throw up your hands...
Posted by Molecule of the Day at 8:06 PM • 1 Comments • 0 TrackBacks
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