Ci Newsletter #13: Chemical valentines & Olympic doping
Welcome to the latest Ci newsletter! A slightly shorter one this fortnight, but packed with belated Valentine's Day chemistry, a topical explainer on doping in sports, and a guide to the chemistry behind red cabbage indicators.
A chemical valentine's day
Yes, Valentine's may have been yesterday, but I spent painstaking time updating the above graphic to include the structure of oxytocin, so you'd better believe I'm going to mention it anyway.
More pertinently, there's this edition of Periodic Graphics from a few years back in C&EN which explains how to keep your Valentine's Day flowers blooming for longer.
Doping at the Olympics
In what's becoming an increasingly regular occurrence, the Olympics are taking place and we're talking about Russian doping again. For starters, here's a guide I put together on doping in sports the last time we were having this conversation:
For a specific discussion of the current case, and the flaws in the latest defence of it, here's an excellent thread that gives an idea of why trimetazidine is used and why the current defence for its presence is shaky at best:
National cabbage day
It's National Cabbage Day this Thursday (17 Feb) which seems like as good an excuse as any to make red cabbage indicator. If you've never tried making it, the graphic below includes a handy guide as well as a brief explanation of the chemistry involved.
Chemistry news & features
The carbon footprint of asthma inhalers — www.bbc.co.uk
The hydrofluorocarbon propellants used in some asthma inhalers make a significant contribution to the NHS's carbon footprint. This article looks at some of the alternatives.
A century of curly arrows — www.chemistryworld.com
An interesting discussion of the evolution of the use of arrows to represent chemical behaviours.
Fake snow – the science of how it's made and how it affects performance — theconversation.com
This year's winter Olympics is taking place using entirely fake snow. Here's a look at how bacterial proteins help make it.
How Paxlovid was developed — cen.acs.org
This is a fascinating look at how the structure of an existing intravenous antiviral candidate was chemically tweaked to produce an orally available antiviral for COVID-19.
I've got a few more new graphics in the works at the moment, so next fortnight's newsletter should be a bumper edition to compensate for this slightly shorter one. As always, please share the newsletter if you enjoy it, and feel free to reach out to me with any comments or suggestions.
Thanks for reading,
Andy