Friday Fun: Strained Conversation

This graphic was far too funny (to me, anyway) to leave buried in the graphical abstracts...

Courtesy of this Angewandte Chemie paper, in which we learn that "anti-Bredt" olefins - those C=C bonds located at the bridge of a caged bicyclic ring system - don't have to be discarded as possible structures for new natural products. The authors recommend their computational model, which uses modern forcefields to estimate olefin strain (OS) and predict stability of these bridgehead double bonds.

Happy Friday, everyone!

See Arr Oh

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*I know this is a bit belated, but RIP P.v.R. Schleyer. You seemed like a really interesting guy.

Friday Fun: RCDEYM

Readers: Do you recognize that acronym?

Hint: It's a reaction related to RCM, with a taxane twist...

I've seen some strange nicknames in the organic literature, but this one takes the cake. How do you even pronounce it* in casual conversation? Is muttering "R-C-D-E-Y-M" actually more efficient than saying its real name?

Ye Gods.

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* "Racadaim?"

If you're truly stumped, click here or here for an answer. 

TaxLOL

A cute campaign came up on Twitter to make some Lolcats-style memes for science. Michelle and Ed Yong have weighed in already, and I thought I'd make a play for total synthesis:

Cheat sheet

Abstract Coloring Champion

I can find no words to adequately describe this picture. It's just so....fitting.

That's rainbow-colored Taxol in the background, for those unaware 
Image courtesy Rice University, Union-Tribune, San Diego

Art Antics

In case you hadn't heard, B.R.S.M. is running a pictorial carnival of sorts. His angle? To celebrate the upcoming 66th birthday of venerable chemist - and serial "chemical artist" - K.C. Nicolaou. In keeping with the spirit of the game, we were asked to limit our artistic efforts to the same five molecules. Shown below are my (admittedly ridiculous) entries. 

Vancomycin: Profiles, Pathways, and Space Monsters
(with apologies to Jeff Seeman)

Really, it's what I'd always expected to see published...
(The mustache substitutes for the bridging isopropylidene!)