The Compound Syria Supposedly Used as Chemical Warfare

There are a number of different gasses that have been used in chemical warfare, but the most likely culprit in the case of the recent Syrian civil war conflict is Sarin. Sarin is a potent nerve agent (a phosphorus containing molecule that inhibits nerves from communicating to organs), and is fairly easy to synthesize as it only requires two reactants, one of which is isopropyl alcohol, and the other methylphosphonyl difluoride.  These reactants are combined when the nerve gas is released since this molecule is unstable in the P-F bond. The toxicity of this compound reaches about 500 times that of cyanide. The molecule was originally synthesized in 1938 by a German company in sight to produce an insecticide, but proved to be more useful in chemical warfare after the German army began testing in 1939.

What makes the use of chemical warfare, subject to such serious allegations? They are weapons of mass destruction that are cheaper, less destructive on the environment, and selective on anyone without a gas mask. So a regime, such as the Syrian army, can use it to eliminate it's citizens, while their army wears protective gas masks. And, as a nuclear blast would demolish a city, a chemical bomb leaves the buildings intact, but with a high death toll. These weapons aren't used to fight a war, but to exterminate an entire population within the desired vicinity. This is why chemical warfare has been banned.

Red Hippopotamus Sweat

Hippos have developed a very interesting form of sweat that possesses additional functionality than cooling down the body temperature. Before studied, the sweat was thought to be blood due to the red colour, but it was found to just be two pigmented molecules which have two functions for the hippo, being a sunscreen, and an antibiotic. It has been found that the main components aren't secreted as most sweat components are, but secreted in subdermal glands, making the classification of the sweat false as sweat is secreted from sweat glands, located in the epidermis.

The two molecules that are secreted are Hipposudoric acid and Norhipposudoric acid (seen below)

Hipposudoric acid

Norhipposudoric acid

These molecules are conjugated systems, meaning in layman's terms that the bonds alternate single to double, but this also means that light is absorbed into this system ranging from the 200nm - 600nm wavelength.  This property is what gives the sweat the sunscreen-like properties and the red colour where the Hipposudoric acid is red and the Norhipposudoric acid is orange.  As for the antibiotic properties, this is the job of Hipposudoric acid, which inhibits two species of pathogenic bacteria Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

In finding this, there is an obvious potential for this to be used in consumer sunscreens as there is such a demand for natural sources in cosmetics. Now it's not like there would be a farm somewhere collecting hippo sweat, as there is a method for synthesizing Hipposudoric acid, published in 2006 in Tetrahedron Letters.

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Minimalist Periodic Table

On my daily roundabouts of the internet I came across this beautifully constructed periodic table of elements created by Alison Haigh. Now this will not be able to get you anywhere as there is no other information on here other than the number of electrons, and you can only obtain that number if you wish to count a bunch of dots. Aside from the practicality point, this is one beautiful work of art that captured my chemist heart.  Head to her website to check out the rest of the pictures, or to purchase a print of her work.

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