WWWTP? Travel Edition

JLC hit the road a few weeks back, and collected a bit of chemical mayhem along the way!

First, a follow-on to a strange beauty products ad used by Kiehl's. First noticed by ChemBark and Stu Cantrill, I've now managed to find the full structure in (photonegative?) a completely different airport:

I'm willing to take bets on what readers think Kiehl's might be trying to draw; I don't have access to SciFinder until tomorrow morning. First blush? Looks like a strange, mangled version of digoxigenin, which I certainly wouldn't want in my face creams!

Second, a comparison of two toothpastes: one manufactured in the ol' US of A, and the other in Thailand. Same brand. Notice anything different?

Different fluoride sources! I hadn't realized that the FDA allows MFP, or even stannous fluoride, in place of sodium fluoride in toothpaste. Huh.

Friday Fun: Backhanded Compliment

From a recent correction in OPRD, an odd bit of recognition.

In a 2014 paper, Burgard and Turconi, two Sanofi process chemists, laid out their vision for a high-yielding, industrial-scale semisynthesis of artemisinin. Somewhere along the way, a reference to another semisynthesis (Tetrahedron, 2013) got missed. Here's how the overlooked authors find themselves incorporated (emphasis mine):

"Bearing major breakthroughs in synthetic methodology, we are confident that this hybrid approach is far superior to a total synthesis and none of the many total syntheses published [insert ref here] appears to even approach providing a basis for a commercially viable process."

 Ouch. Them's fightin' words.

Happy Friday,
SAO

*One wonders if the first word should be "barring," as in, the authors allow that synthesis might one day catch up. As written, it's much more of a boast.

Elemental Roll-Call

Inspired by posts from JessTheChemist and the esteemed Dr. Lowe, I've tallied mine below.
(N.B. I came up in an organometallic lab where we made many precursors from scratch...)

Hydrogen (obvious)
Helium (carrier gas)
Lithium (Li-Hal exchange)
Carbon (Darco)
Nitrogen
Oxygen (ozonolysis)
Sodium
Magnesium
Aluminum (form'n Friedel Crafts salts)
Sulfur (mercury spills)
Chlorine (oxidant)
Argon
Potassium (N-K form'n)
Manganese (reductant)
Iron (reductant)
Nickel (Ra nickel)
Copper (forming amalgams)
Zinc (organozincs, reductant)
Bromine (distilled, even...yuck!)
Palladium (hydrogenation, salts)
Silver (foil, to make salts)
Indium (reductant)
Iodine
Cerium (cross-coupling...failed)
Samarium (to make SmI2)
Platinum (hydrogenation, catalysts)
Gold (dissolve in aqua regia)
Mercury (old pressure eqpt)

So, I count 28. Pitiful against 118, but a varied lot nonetheless.

What's 50,000?

Sometimes, I really regret glancing at my FiercePharma mailers. Yesterday's top headline?

"Pfizer's post-megamerger job cutting record? 51,500 jobs in 7 years"

(P.S. They're talking about the Pfizer / Wyeth merger, tracking 2008-2014)

Whenever a Really Big Number comes into play, I feel I need some extra context. What's 51,500, relative to other companies or scientific organizations?

Two-and-a-half Harvards (21,000), or 0.8 Ohio States (64,000)

22 Vertex Pharmaceuticals (~2300)

114 U.S. Congresses (441 members)

About the number of sci-jobs "saved" by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (50,000)

Roughly the population of Cupertino, CA (58,000, Home of Apple, Inc.), and...

...12,500 "lean" biotech start-ups (Perlstein Labs, 4)

Many Happy Returns

From the ASAPs over at Angewandte Chemie comes this friendly bit of recognition, from mentor to former student:

That has to be the youngest Festschrift I've ever seen...readers?

Science Blackout Poetry, Round 2

Round 1

JACS 2006, 10596

(These are really fun to do!)

R.B. Woodward's thesis

Chem. Comm. 1976, 734

Science Blackout Poetry

Inspired by Austin Kleon and the New York Times, honoring National Poetry Month.

Update (April 27): A Reddit commenter (rightly) points out to also assign credit to Tom Phillips' Humument Project...good call!

JACS 2012, 11992

JACS 2014, 5257

JACS 1993, 9293