This has to be one of the funniest/strangest blogs:blog.tenderbutton.com
He recently performed NMR and TLC on his earwax.
I love his rant on old crappy bottles of reagents. (Great graphics too!)
And his love for dirt cheap reagents with antiquated warning lables.
I really like this TBSCl, mainly because of the packaging. The bottle looks like a giant pickle jar. The best part is the little corrosive warning icon. I'm pretty sure it's supposed to be that familiar graphic of the acid melting through the guys hand, but it's so poorly rasterized and pixellated that it's almost unrecognizable. Awesome.
I like it!
(P.S. Dear ScienceBlogs - GET THIS GUY after the withdrawal of FrinkTrank we need some extra wackiness!)
More like this
Each lab is like a tribe, it has its own particular traditions and rituals. X is stored here, Y is stored there and Z is made up fresh. We share reagent A, we make our own reagent B, we buy a kit for reagent C.
Normally, iodine just makes one bond, as you'd expect from a halogen. Some compounds, though, force it into lively higher oxidation states (hopefully without the tendency to explode, as some highly oxidized iodine reagents worryingly exhibit).
Last November I mentioned the Dess-Martin reagent. Hypervalent iodine reagents are mild oxidants that tend to be more soluble in organic solvent than many of the alternatives.
I just read an EXCELLENT opinion in the July 6th edition of Nature, Illuminating the black box. Note to biologists: submissions to Nature should contain complete descriptions of materials and reagents use
I once knew a technician who, when his restriction digests didn't work, would write "BAD" on the tube of buffer - and then put them back in the freezer.
One of my favorite blogs. Seed should give this person a blog and a regular feature in the magazine.
This guy is super-cool.