Periodycal #8: IWD, and why is snot yellow?

More women from chemistry history, snotty enzymes, and more

Welcome to another edition of Periodycal! In this issue, we focus on women in chemistry for International Women’s Day. There’s also a look at the biochemistry behind snot, spit and tears in the latest edition of Periodic Graphics. There’s also the usual look ahead to upcoming events and relevant past graphics, as well as selected chemistry news and features.

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International Women’s Day

Click to view and download this graphic on the Ci site

Today is International Women’s Day, and it’s become a yearly thing for me to put together an additional graphic in the Women in Chemistry History series. This year’s features women who’ve made important contributions to rare earth element separation, vaccine development, and more.

It also includes Irma Goldberg, who has the distinction of being one of the few women who has an organic reaction unambiguously named after her. There’s an interesting paper here which looks at the history of women associated with named reactions, which also includes Elizabeth Hardy, featured in the graphic. It’s clear that named reactions seem to embed the historical biases against women and other historically underrepresented groups in organic chemistry. Should chemistry be looking to move away from these named reactions in the interests of inclusivity?

If you missed the previous editions of this series, they’re all available at the links below: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

There’s also the series of cards I did on contemporary women in chemistry which are available here.

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Snot, spit and tears

Click to view and download the full graphic on the C&EN site

Spit, snot and tears — might sound a bit gross, but they’re one of the first-line defences of our bodies’ immune systems. The latest edition of Periodic Graphics in C&EN looks at how they protect us from infection.

This one was a tricky one to put together, particularly when it came to identifying the particular components that make snot yellow, which was the discussion which launched this graphic in the first place. I eventually homed in on myeloperoxidase as a key component, a green enzyme that’s present in some of the white blood cells that fight infection. Its common description as being green rather than yellow still leaves me feeling that there are additional, unidentified components at play, though. If anyone reading this has additional knowledge, please let me know!

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Upcoming chemistry tie-ins

Here’s a quick run-down of upcoming events or days and links to some relevant chemistry graphics from the archives:

• 9 March: National No Smoking Day — Chemicals in cigarette smoke

• 13 March: National Jewel Day — What causes the colour of gemstones?

• 17 March: St Patrick’s Day — The chemistry of Guinness

• 18 March: Global Recycling Day — How is plastic recycled?

• 20 March: National Proposal Day — Wedding ring metal properties

• 20 March: National Frog Day — The chemistry of poisonous frogs

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Chemistry news and features

Here’s the regular round-up of chemistry news and features I’ve found interesting over the past couple of weeks:

• Complex organic compounds found in interstellar space — Researchers found complex organic compounds, similar to those seen in coal and oil, in dust formed by exploding stars.

• Chemistry course corrections tackle bias — An interesting account of how the University of York set about decolonising its chemistry curriculum.

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As always, let me know if you’ve any suggestions for the newsletter, or for future graphics.

Thanks for reading,

Andy