Hi,
April's Molecule of the Month is Cantharidin, which is a beetle defense
chemical that's also an alleged aphrodisiac.
It has been written by Gerard Dupuis and Nicole berland, from the Lycee
Faidherbe in Lille, France.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm#apr2004
Regards,
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Dr Paul May, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK
tel: +44 (0)117 928-9927 fax: +44 (0)117 925-1295
<mailto:paul.may@bris.ac.uk> Mobile: 07811371539
Home URL: <http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/staff/pwm.htm>
Molecule of the Month: <http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm>
Bumper sticker: "Where are we going? And why are we in this hand-basket?"
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As part of a session on "Research Collaboratories, Virtual laboratories and Grid Computing" at the
forthcoming ACS meeting (http://oasys2.confex.com/acs/227nm/techprogram/ )
we are presenting on "Semantic Grid computing - the WorldWideMolecularMatrix"
Part of this will focus on the theme of RSS which I posted about last year. We
have now developed a chemical component to this, now christened CMLRSS, and it is
the purpose of this email to invite people if they wish, to join in to this "virtual laboratory",
and hence "participate" in the ACS session.
The procedure is as follows
a) For an introduction to the concept, see eg http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/cmlrss_distrib/
or http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/moin/CmlRss
b)We have prepared a distribution kit available either from http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/cmlrss_distrib/
or from http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/moin/RssClient We emphasize that whilst we believe this to
function correctly, it has not yet been comprehensively tested on all platforms, and some
components are still at the "late alpha", or "early beta" stage. Needless to say, we welcome
comments and reports of bugs!
c) You can view the existing CMLRSS grid by installing either Jmol (a 3D molecule viewer)
or JChempaint (a 2D editor) as provided, along with the CMLRSS plugin in the kit
(these are Java programs so you will have to have Java installed). By
running this, you will open around 8 existing RSS "Channels" and hence subscribe to chemical
feeds from these sites. You can if you wish aggregate these feeds into one, then filter them
down by (e.g. element). You will notice several themes in the existing channels,
including an aggregation of the long running "Molecules of the Month" sites, several
database sites (NMR, X-Ray, ChemStock) and the World-Wide Molecular Matrix.
d) You are also welcome to follow the instructions in the above distribution to
create your own CMLRSS channel (I might add that several of the sites mentioned above
were our beta testers for this kit; it took only one or two days to get up and running).
If you do so, please let us know so that we can add you to the list (one of the many
"todo" items is to organise the addition of further channels in a better way).
I should end with the observation that as far as we know, this is the furthest that the
RSS concept has been pushed into a science field, and another step towards the
"semantic web" espoused by Sir Tim Berners-Lee. We would of course love to hear
about your experiences with this system.
--
Henry Rzepa.
+44 (020) 7594 5774 (Voice); +44 (0870) 132 3747 (eFax)
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/ Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
(Voracious anti-spam filter in operation for received email.
If expected reply not received, please phone/fax).
VEGA On-line (VEGAWE, http://galaxy.farma.unimi.it/vegawe) is a server-based
service for all Internet users that want use the VEGA features without
install it on their computer. VEGAWE can convert several file formats, add
hydrogen atoms, assign atom types and atomic charges.
It has got some interesting features:
1)It can be used with some Web server. At this time it was tested with
Internet Information Service by Microsoft.
2)No script interpreter required. VEGA WE is a small application written in
C allowing fast Web server responses with a low resource consumption.
3) No files can be directly uploaded to the server in order to prevent DoS
attacks.
4)All user operations are logged and the logging level can be changed in
order to obtain more exhaustive information.
5)The interface can be customized in easy way with an initialization
scripts.
6)Support for PocketPC devices trough specific pages with low-detailed
graphic and automatic detection for handled/desktop PC.
7)VEGA WE/On-line can be obtained free of charges contacting directly the
Authors.
Best regards
Giulio Vistoli & Alessandro Pedretti
_________________________
Giulio Vistoli
Istituto di Chimica Farmaceutica e Tossicologica
Viale Abruzzi, 42
I-20131 Milano
Italia
Tel. +39-02-50317545
Fax +39-02-50317565
giulio.vistoli(a)unimi.it
http://www.ddl.unimi.it
A colleague has pointed out the following site to me
http://www.3dmoleculardesigns.com/
who do custom "3D" printing from molecular PDF format
coordinates. I have seen these, and they are done in full colour (oxygen=red, blue etc etc)
Certainly a fascinating novelty (if a bit fragile, and the size is only about
10 cm across).
--
Henry Rzepa.
+44 (020) 7594 5774 (Voice); +44 (0870) 132 3747 (eFax)
http://www.ch.ic.ac.uk/rzepa/ Dept. Chemistry, Imperial College London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
(Voracious anti-spam filter in operation for received email.
If expected reply not received, please phone/fax).
Hi,
March's MOTM is EDTA, which is a novel molecule for complexing metal ions
that can be found in a McDonald's Big Mac, and blue colored shampoos such
as Aloe Vera or Revlon Aquamarine.
The page has been written by Scott Sinex of Prince George's Community
College, Largo, MD, USA.
http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm#mar2004
Regards,
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Dr Paul May, School of Chemistry, University of Bristol, UK
tel: +44 (0)117 928-9927 fax: +44 (0)117 925-1295
<mailto:paul.may@bris.ac.uk> Mobile: 07811371539
Home URL: <http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/staff/pwm.htm>
Molecule of the Month: <http://www.bristol.ac.uk/Depts/Chemistry/MOTM/motm.htm>
Bumper sticker: "Where are we going? And why are we in this hand-basket?"
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