@ProPublica Just watched “DarkWaters” about West Va and how DuPont poisoned waters. But it didn’t end! Coal waste, fracking etc. caused locals to shut down wells and use bottled water. But many still use their wells, animals drink from polluted streams and WV residents still die from high rates of cancer and heart disease. I witnessed my long time friend die of lung cancer. He loved WV and refused to leave. A beautiful place destroyed by man!
Welcome back to another round of organic chemistry with MDMRN.
Once again, I've taken my molecular model kit to craft a new molecule. This one, frankly, I was able to craft using the pieces of the previous ones I presented before. While I didn't say it last time, the green represents a halogen, in this case specifically chlorine.
A hint is that the production of these types of compounds has been banned in numerous countries, including the United States. It was, historically, found in electrical transformers.
Can you guess what type of compound this is? Let me know in the comments!
English chemist Dorothy Hodgkin was born #OTD in 1910.
Among her most influential discoveries are the confirmation of the structure of penicillin as previously surmised by Edward Abraham and Ernst Boris Chain; and mapping the structure of vitamin B12, for which in 1964 she became the third woman to win the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Hodgkin also elucidated the structure of insulin in 1969 after 35 years of work.
This is part of the 2nd paragraph and keeps escalating each new paragraph
“I mean, this was definitely not planned. It was just supposed to be the removal of these shelves full of strange-sounding names, and so I’m sorry for whatever damage they’ve had and sorry they had to be evacuated,” https://ksltv.com/639989/holladay-homeowner-apologizes-to-neighbors-for-home-explosion/ #chemistry
@McAwmcmillan OMG what a nightmare. this is such a tragedy. Alzheimer's robs us so much. thank goodness nobody was killed in the explosion but still. she lost everything after losing her husband. i cannot imagine the shock.
So, we're going back to organic chemistry everyone!
After my first post with my molecular model kit showing an environmental contaminant, I decided to post up another.
This one is a semi-volatile organic environmental contaminant that is commonly found in coal tar, mothballs, and mixed into creosote for rail ties. That distinct "mothball odor" is this compound! Fun fact - a human nose can detect the mothball odor before most standard electronic detectors of organic odors / vapors.
Can you guess the compound? Let me know in the comments!
French chemist Antoine Lavoisier died #OTD in 1794.
He is best known for his development of the law of conservation of mass, which states that mass is neither created nor destroyed in chemical reactions. This principle helped to debunk the phlogiston theory, which was a prevailing theory at the time that suggested substances released a material called "phlogiston" when they burned. He also made significant contributions in understanding respiration as a form of combustion.
"We must trust to nothing but facts: These are presented to us by Nature, and cannot deceive. We ought, in every instance, to submit our reasoning to the test of experiment, and never to search for truth but by the natural road of experiment and observation."
Elements of Chemistry (1790), pp. xviii.