Requires an acid catalyst for the reaction to actually proceed, but yeah, could definitely ruin your day - although a lungful of chlorine gas is nothing to sneeze at either.

According to the story I heard as to the origin of the “no liquids over X amount” rule, years ago there was a terrorist that tried to smuggle hydrogen peroxide and acetone - which can be used to rather easily synthesize triacetone triperoxide (TATP, a highly sensitive explosive) - onto a plane in plastic toiletry bottles. They got caught and foiled somehow, and then the TSA started restricting liquids on planes. This was in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, if I recall correctly.

And I happen to know, from a reliable source, of someone who accidentally made TATP in a rotary evaporator in an academic lab. So it seems plausible.

Not that the rule is actually effective prevention against similar attacks, nor that the TSA even knows what the reason is behind what they do at this point, haha. I just thought it was an interesting story.

Dumb. Acting like the good cop to Trump’s bad cop routine is turning tons of people off. “You’d better cooperate with me now or I’ll have to bring my associate in here, and he won’t be so nice!”

Supposedly Harris told a representative of the uncommitted voting bloc from the Dem primaries that she was down to meet to discuss an arms embargo on Israel, but I wouldn’t hold my breath. She needs to be more forthright about her stance, because the subtextual indications of being flexible on this and her hypothetical empathy for Palestinians I keep hearing about (but not really seeing in any meaningful way) are not cutting it anymore.

Good for her, well done! Not as pretty of a tattoo as a well-drawn organic molecule, IMO, but publishing is hard and worthy of celebration when you succeed.

Miserable Old Bigots?

Very interesting articles - both the phys.org one and journal submission it describes. I appreciate the research group’s use of solvent-free and one-pot reactions wherever possible, it really shows their commitment to finding the most sustainable overall process.

The aromatization steps using palladium (0) are of course standard processes used by the oil refining industry, but I wonder if there are other methods (maybe using sulfur?) that don’t involve the use of rare metals…probably wouldn’t have the same atom economy as using catalytic Pd though, I am just curious rather than criticizing their choice.