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The author is not a physician. The content on this website does not, and is not intended to constitute medical advice. It should not be relied upon when making medical decisions. It is not intended as a substitute for advice from your physician or other healthcare provider.

Biology:

EDAC (Water-Friendly Condensing Agents)

Category: Biology

Awhile back, I discussed dicyclohexylcarbodiimide: a condensing agent that helps turn biological monomers (like amino acids) into polymers (like proteins). People use it a lot on peptide synthesizers for this purpose, where the peptides are made in organic solvents. A...

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Ornithine (O RLY?)

Category: Biology

Ornithine is an amino acid that occurs naturally in the body, but mostly as an intermediate in your body's nitrogen disposal cycle....

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Hydroquinone (Antioxidant or toxin)

Category: Biology

One of the most heavily trafficked entries on this site is that on TBHQ. While it's an antioxidant, it's a synthetic one, and some have suggested it might be toxic. Another antioxidant, ferulic acid, found in wheat, works on much...

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Phthalocyanine (More giant chromophores)

Category: Biology

Longtime readers will know I like big dye molecules....

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N-Cyanoimidazole (It's hard in water!)

Category: Biology

All of life links up biomolecules effortlessly, from the august readers of this blog, to the humble bacteria that colonize the half-eaten food on their desks. It makes it frustrating for scientists who are trying to synthesize them. We have...

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Biotin (Different things to different people)

Category: Biology

Biotin is just a vitamin to most of us. To a lot of biologists, though, it plays the unlikely role of some of the strongest glue around....

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Cori Ester (Don't touch that if you don't understand what it does)

Category: Biology

I have a lot of sympathy for graphic designers. For every one preaching to you about how you can't possibly appreciate whitespace on the same level she does, there's nine out there slogging away doing honest work. The ones who...

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Back tomorrow...

Category: Biology

But if you've never read it, check out Can a Biologist Fix a Radio?...

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Dicyclohexylcarbodiimide (An even smellier way to make proteins than bacteria)

Category: Biology

Making biomolecules is tricky - getting a reasonable quantity of whatever DNA or protein you're after can take what seems like heroic efforts. You're made acutely aware of the fact that the humblest bacterium does this without breaking a sweat....

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Selenocysteine (#21)

Category: Biology

Amino acids impart lots of functions to proteins, and a lot of the interesting chemistry happens at a few residues. Many hydrophobic residues like valine and leucine play a huge role - they don't like to touch water, and they...

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