If you have yearned for a (relatively) simple and cheap way to make (almost) everyone’s favorite substance that’s all a-glow, this study will (probably) meet your needs: “A Practical, Biomimetic, One-Pot Synthesis of Firefly Luciferin,” Maria Kato, Kazuaki Tsuchihashi, Shusei Kanie, Yuichi Oba, and Toshio Nishikawa, Scientific Reports, vol. 14, 2024, article 30461. The authors […]
Chemists, some of them, do pay attention to their fingernails. A team at the University of California, La Jolla (an institution that seems to exist on April 1, when it apparently migrates from San Diego), has paid special attention. Details are in their study: “A Wearable Fingernail Chemical Sensing Platform: pH Sensing at Your Fingertips,” Jayoung […]
Strange and colleagues offer discouraging news in the hunt for a substitute for a mysterious substance: “On the Smell of Composition C-4,” William Kranz, Kelley Kitts, Nicholas Strange [pictured here —Nick Strange is now a graduate student at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville], Joshua Cummins, Erica Lotspeich, John Goodpaster, Forensic Science International, epub December 24, […]
Lingo and euphemism inspire the prose of this short treatise: “Di-Methyl-Doorknob and the Right to Know,” Harold J. Corbett, EPA Journal, vol. 11, 1985, p. 12.