hypervalent_iodine

You will produce some NaOH, yes. The other thing you will form is carbonic acid. When you distill it you'll release a little CO2 and your distilate will only be water.

I would imagine you'd need a permit. You could always ask the staff at ebay, I'm sure they'd know.

Pretty sure it's flocculation or they just centrifuge the heck out of them following chemically induced cell lysing. A lot the time algae will autoflocculate too.

I had the unfortunate task of presenting at a seminar on something similar during my undergrad. As you say, there are universities and other private companies that use algae to produce feedstocks for production of 2nd gen biofuels. Using algae and bacteria does has marked advantages over other alternatives, such as corn, sugar cane, palm oil, etc. A lot of it comes down to the fact that you can have rows upon rows of floor to ceiling chambers for the algae, which are constantly cycled through to maximise their capacity to photosynthesise. So you end up with much, much higher amounts of biofuel feedstock per hectre per year than you do with other crops. I forget the exact numbers, but I remember that algae crops produced about 60000 tonnes/hectre/year more than the next highest yielding crop. The other factor is that you can build these facilities in the middle of nowhere, so you aren't disrupting subsistence farming communities or other crops used for mass production of food stuffs. The interesting thing about using algae (and maybe bacteria, I'm not sure) in this manner is that by starving them of certain cpmounds (nitrogen, for example), they can also produce much higher yields of triacylglycerol (the fatty acids used primarily for producing biofuel). They also produce a host of other useful fatty acids that are currently harvested for use in certain foods - baby formula, for example. I certain agree, they wouldn't be anywhere close to $30/barrel. Most of these types of plants are still very much in development. So far as I am aware, the extraction process for algae is quite costly - almost four times that of palm oil. I can't imagine it would be any better when using cyanobacteria. And of course there's the issues of contamination and actually turning the feedstock into a usable biofuel. All in all, I think bacteria and algae are a much better option that other crops, but there is a way to go before it is at all commercially viable.

It's funny, because I avoid symmetry operations on a daily basis.

I agree, Portal is amazing for that feature alone.

The Grignard reagent is being made with p amino-bromobenzene, so the amine is within the reagent.

DNA is found in every cell of your body. Even while you are alive, your DNA is constantly decaying. When you get buried, it keeps decaying until there's none left.

I think your opinion of what is 'interesting' and what is not might me a touch on the bias side. I loved chemistry in high school and I found it incredibly interesting. Physics on the other hand, I found completely dull (no offence to the physicists in here - you'll take pleasure in knowing that I have since seen my folly).

Damn. My PC is currently broken and I'm not going back into university for a few weeks, so I can't actually draw this out for you to understand it. I'll try my best for you though. What we will consider, to make this simpler for you, is if we only have an amylase chain that is two glucose monomers long. Your glycosidic linkage exists between C-1 of the first unit and C-4 of the next. What you need to then look at in these sorts of reactions is what the side chain residues of the amino acids are. In this case, they all have carboxylic acid side chains, so you can be sure that there will be a protonation involved. Given that we are in the presence of an acid, the first thing that will happen is the oxygen connecting the two sugars together (the glycosidic O) will get protonated by the H in one of the COOH residues, leaving your now protonated oxygen with a 1+ charge and the amino acid residue as the carboxylate anion (COO-). You will then get the oxygen in the water molecule attacking the acetal carbon centre (The C-1 position on the first sugar) and at the same time, the bond between the C-1 and the protonated oxygen will be broken. This leaves you with your second monomer free and your first monomer with a doubly protonated oxygen at C-1. If you remember, we still have the carboxylate from the amino acid residue. This has to be put back to being COOH because the enzyme is a catalyst and needs to be regenerated, so the COO- will then pick up the extra hydrogen from the C-1 oxygen. Now you have regenerated the amino acid residue and changed that ROH2+ to an ROH (R = rest of the glucose molecule). You mentioned three acidic residues. This could be because there is more than one glycosidic linkage being disrupted or it could be to lower the pH of the localised medium. You would have to check that - maybe look at where they are placed in relation to the substrate.

I keep forgetting to reply to this post. Yes, you can do it with TBDMS as well as TBDPS. I have not tried reacting benzyl or t-butyl, but from memory it can be done (I'd have to check my PG book). I tend to like silyl protecting groups on C6 anyway - they stay put and do what they're told more often than not, which is great. There is nothing worse than a migrating protecting group that thinks it can go where ever it damn well pleases after I've gone to all the effort of attaching it - not normally too much of a problem with C6, but it does happen. Also, selective deprotection is nice and easy and doesn't require anything harsh, which would be great for what you're talking about. I haven't had to work with transition metal chemistry since undergrad. I have to say, I'm happy for it. It was never a strong suit for me.

That is unfortunate. I have always been lucky enough to have become friends with many of my professors before I decided to work with them. I guess that comes from having a small cohort - pretty common for chemistry where I am. Some professors certainly are dumbfounded with new technology, though I tend to believe that it's more a case of skepticism. As you say, you can't really blame them. I've been to conferences where Skype has been used and it's always gone well, though I am not sure how it would work with lab supervision. Hands on tutoring has always worked best for myself as well as the kids that I tutor - in my experience, anyway. Security issue - definitely. Especially in chemistry and labs working with highly contagious specimens. At my uni we had to massively increase the security of the chemistry building because people would just walk in and take stuff like iodine and various other things for making all manner of drugs. And I certainly wouldn't say that all students are honest, so giving them access to fully equipped labs would definitely be a problem in terms of security. You could argue the same for anyone in a lab really, I think it's a case of picking the ones who really want to do science that you'd be after. That's kind of a hard thing to say if they're fresh in uni/college. In reference to your last point, I have come to learn never to underestimate how stupid some people can be. If you do much tutoring or you've ever worked in retail or hospitality, you'll know what I'm talking about.

Is there a problem with making a Grignard reagent with an intramolecular amine in it? I didn't think there was. Again, it's been a while since I've worked with Grignard.

From wikipedia: "To eliminate soluble wastes, which are toxic, most animals have excretory systems. In humans soluble wastes are excreted by way of the urinary system, which consists of thekidneys, ureters, urinary bladder, and urethra. The kidneys extract the soluble wastes from the bloodstream, as well as excess water, sugars, and a variety of other compounds. Remaining fluid contains high concentrations of urea and other substances, including toxins. Urine flows through these structures: the kidney, ureter, bladder, and finally the urethra. Urine is produced by a process of filtration, reabsorption, and tubular secretion."

This is definitely true. They key is to get out there and talk to people - a lot of people in their undergrad seem to have a perpetual fear of actually going up and talking to their professors or other researchers about getting involved. This very much depends on what kind of labs they're looking at. I wouldn't, for instance, let someone out of high school or in their first year near a chemistry or PC2 lab. Computer based projects are harmless and often require little foundational knowledge. My point from before was that many projects do require more background understanding (practical or theoretical). I have read some of your posts before, Genecks, and I am of the opinion that you are quite an embittered person when it comes to working in labs - perhaps rightfully so, I do not know. There are sometimes reasons other than 'there is not enough space' for a professor or other research group leader to not want to take on other students. For instance, I know of professors who are only part time and do not have the time to give extra students their full attention. I actually think that people who take on too many students, even if not at 'maximal efficiency', are not doing the right thing. If they have too many students they cannot direct the correct time that each person is due and often times, students can fall because of a lack of proper supervision. Especially people doing honours. There are of course the labs that use their post docs and RA's to do the supervising. This is generally not a correct way to manage things as RA's and post docs do not have the understanding of the course work and criteria that a student must make to meet university requirements for what they are doing - i.e. they do not (usually) understand the system well enough to actually be able to supervise properly. This is true, but the OP is saying that people aren't allowed to explore their 'creativity' in undergraduate science. Getting a placement in a lab as you have described it really only requires basic practical techniques. Exploring one's creativity and testing theories requires more in depth and expansive foundations to be set within their theoretical knowledge as well as their practical expertise. The problem that professors have with first year students is that they are a safety hazard - they have no proper lab experience. It is true that you can train them, but it is far easier and far safer to train them in an environment where they are strictly supervised and taught how to use equipment and various chemicals/biological specimens. I personally would take on people at the end of first year, if they were interested and showed commitment (as with you though, I can't as I am only in my PhD). Some people won't, and it is within their right to if they don't feel that a student will be able to operate safely within their lab - especially if that lab works with dangerous chemicals or biological specimens.

Ok, so it might be worth while firstly having a look at what H bonds are. They are a weak electrostatic bond between a hydrogen on one molecule that is attached to an electronegative atom (N, O, etc) and an electronegative atom on another molecule (it can also be in the same molecule if it is physically possible). In glucose there are a lot of places to H bond and it depends really on what the binding residues in the protein are. I haven't looked it up for amylase, but it could be histidine (which has a N in it and and H bond to the OH groups in the carbohydrate) or something like serine (which has an OH and can H bond with the glycosidic O). You should be able to find papers that tell you the binding site of amylase. I would recommend you look those up. Hope that helps Edit: If you look up Amylase alpha on PDB or pubmed, you should find something. Otherwise, try google scholar or if you go to uni/college, you should be able to access journals that way

As I have said and as Mr. Skeptic has said already, no. Unless the body was preserved, there will be no DNA in the remains of a buried body.

This may or may not have been better placed in the references thread, but seeing as I'm talking mostly about organic chemistry references, I thought I might place it here. Just a collection of useful and cool websites I have encountered: Organic Chemistry Portal http://www.organic-chemistry.org/ This site is brilliant. Kind of like organowiki, except a bit messier and has various search methods. You can, for instance, search up reactions based on functional groups. It provides examples from the literature for each reaction as well, with links to the original papers. Organowiki http://organicreacti...the_OrganoWiki! Organowiki is a very new site that I was put onto via a blog site I periodically read. It's a nice, simple and comprehensive list of various name reactions with wiki links. NMR predictor http://www.nmrdb.org/predictor I used this site alot in undergrad if I got stuck (I still sometimes use it if I can't find could papers with references). It's only useful for 1H NMR predictions, but it does a particularly good job at it. You can use the tools in the java applet to integrate and pick peak as well. Scifinder http://scifinder.cas.org If you don't already know what scifinder is and you're doing chemistry, you should make yourself familiar with it. It's my own personal go-to when I need to look up reactions. I mean, it lets you search papers by molecule or by what products/reagents etc you have in your reaction (it has a java applet for drawing them in) - that's just fantastic. There's a similar site called reaxys, which is different in that it's German and you can look up NMR. I don't have the link for it though. Carbon Based Curiosities http://www.coronene.com/blog/ Not really a reference site, just a favourite blog of mine. My favourite entry is the one on 'click' chemistry - http://www.coronene.com/blog/?p=345 Anyway, these are my personal favourites. Enjoy!

In science, you spend your undergraduate training and developing the skills you need to be able adapt and apply them. There are basic and fundamental laws and theory that you need to have a firm grasp on before you can extend them or even challenge them. Designing an experiment or testing your theories without these skills has an obvious safety issue, since most science courses you do also incorporate laboratory contact hours. Yes, they are prescriptive and yes, they can be boring, but they are absolutely necessary. I tutor first years myself and I can promise you that I wouldn't want 99% of them anywhere near the lab I work in - they simply don't have the technical skills. Even some second and third years scare me with how unfamiliar they are with basic practical expertise. Asides from that, I think you are wrong to assume that undergraduate students do not get given opportunities to discover things and exercise their ingenuity. When I was in undergrad I was accepted into an advanced study program. In second and third year this program allowed me to take on projects within proper scientific laboratories, where I was given a project by whoever my supervisor was and asked to work towards certain goals. In my last year of undergrad I was allowed to develop my own synthetic protocol and act it out under the supervision of PhD and post doctoral students in the lab. Excluding that program, there are also countless subjects whose laboratory contact hours require that students use their skill sets to design their own ways towards a common goal (under supervision, of course). Usually these are found in 3rd year courses, but there are also 1st and 2nd year courses that do a similar job. Thirdly, comparing science degrees to a BA is like comparing apples to oranges. Creative insights aren't something that falls under the category of a fundamental theory - it's not something you teach or need to be taught to be able to do. As well, there is no safety issue to speak of in developing and investigating your own theories in the arts.

I read the actual paper that this was presented in some time ago. They were of the belief that they would only ever incorporate As if P was in very low abundance, which makes sense. It's more of an evolutionary adaptation to survive in certain extremes. It has obvious implications in terms of metabolism, and from memory when the As was incorporated the colonies didn't proliferate so well, they just maintained themselves. If you look up "A Bacterium That Can Grow by Using Arsenic Instead of Phosphorus" you should find the paper published in Science.

1. Yes, I am sure. It is a bone like any other (so far as I can tell). As far as I could tell in my research, all the talks of the luz bone not decaying are part of Jewish myth and do not represent scientific fact. I do not do anatomy though, so perhaps I am mistaken. 2. Unless I am mistaken, you were asking about the decomposition of DNA in each instance, not any other part of the chemical make up. I said originally that the whole chemical composition of each would be different, which I still say is true.

If I remember correctly, it's not. I could be wrong on that though. It's been a little while since I've played with Grignard reactions.

In reference to your first question, no. It is not true that bone does not decay. I myself and Mr. Skeptic mentioned, when buried bones may be decayed via soil acidity or my calcium sequestering microbes. "Decay" is simply another term for decompose. As for your second question. I suppose given enough time and the right conditions, both would reach a point where they had decayed to a similar level. My understanding is that cremation merely fast tracks the process.

I like Horza's idea of using a Grignard, actually. But yes, as mississippi pointed out, nitrations are kind of nasty. Grignards can be a touch difficult sometimes as well. Horza, I think we can assume that it is. There's no reason you would actually need to go to the trouble of making something like this, unless it was maybe part of a larger molecule - in which case, the synthetic route would need changing.

By that stage, the DNA would be well decomposed. And I would think that DNA subjected to that sort of temperature and physical stress would be in the same basket.