Friday's entry on safrole inspired a number of comments on what sort of animal it looked like. One person mentioned a chestnut from a few years back: NanoPutians!
NanoPutians are molecules that look kind of like people. James M. Tour at Rice has a grant to use the little nanopeople in chemical education programs, which I think is actually a really neat idea. The jokes, however, are too easy to pass up.
The above is "NanoKid," which, perversely, is the lone progenitor of a whole army of NanoPutians. The others are generated by microwaving NanoKid with decapitated NanoPutian heads.
I have omitted the images of the dismembered nanoputian bodies for readers of delicate sensibilities, but you can find the article in JOC (2003) 68:8750.
In all fairness, it's really a pretty cute idea, and the authors did some other stuff, like mixing the little guys with inkjet ink and explaining to the kids that their paper had all the people they saw printed on it dissolved in the ink.
I thought it was cute, anyway.
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I remember this one. I thought it was funny, too.
I am so pleased my comment sparked the idea for the next entry! Though, I think the Nanoputians are kinda silly. Think of all the chemical expertise and man-hours it took to make these. Couldn't they have just drawn the structures?
PS: My blog (which was inspired by yours) looks at toxic compounds. It's written for non-sciencey types, and hopefully gives a lesson about pharmacology at the same time. Sorry for the shameles self-promotion! =P
Before you start huffing and puffing over federal funding for the Nanoputians, think about the dodecahedron that Gilbert Stork made (I think it was him), it was a over 20 step synthesis that he got funding for. His excuse? Flu medication, but he did it just for the fun of it.
Nanoputians are a good tool to get kids interested in chemistry.
NanoKids don't hurt the productive and don't help the reproductive. Thumbs up!
Dodecahedrane by pieces is Eaton, successful by Pacquette. The pagodane route, different from both, proved to be more fruitful (especially for heteroatom derivatives). One might envision two cyclopentane rings all cis-joined by five acetylenes. Reduce to olefins and it zips up to dodecahedrane! Tough intermediate re boom boom. Diacetylene spacers would not be much better. However...
Consider two chair cyclohexanes joined axial (all cis)-1,'1,3,3',5,5'-trisdiacetylene. Reduce to olefins and it zips to two center decks of axial (all cis)-1,3,5,2,4,6-chair cyclohexanes. You've got four levels of 1-dimensional hexagonal diamond, Lonsdaleite. Nice. If one didn't have a Committee to call it daft... Axial (all cis)-1,2,3,4,5,6-hexaacetylenecyclohexane, oxidatively couple to the trisdiacetylene on either side, then to 1-D hexagonal diamond. Axial vs. equatorial equilibrium is negotiable.
The slightly awful Glaser oxidative coupling of terminal acetylenes has been improved with palladium (Najera catalysts),
Adv. Synth. Catal. 345 1146 (2003)
Of course it was Pacquette,and I eat my words with a big slice of humble pie.
The NanoMonarchs were subjected to diol and microwave irradiation treatment during the NanoFrenchRevolution, rather than the traditional guillotine. Apparently those eensy blades are a pain in the NanoButt to sharpen.
Also: Why did they call the NanoAthlete that? It looks more like a NanoJester than the actual NanoJester, which I would have called something like NanoDudeYouveGotAPentagonOnYourHeadWTF?. Perhaps I am in over my head (which, incidentally, does not have a pentagon on it) in these matters.
I agree with you, Adam. I'm thinking, what kind of hat do athletes wear? Um....I guess jockies wear something, and water polo players, and, uh, mountain climbers have helmets. Or maybe it's like a pony tail? That could be it.