Spinneret - Weaving the chemical web one molecule at a time...

I've got a bottle of absinthe, at the back of a shelf in our store-cupboard. Unopened this bottle of green uber-liquor languishes untested awaiting an appropriate occasion when a drink containing 70 percent alcohol (140 proof) is required. It'll probably be the day our cat dies... Anyway, while my bottle languishes, new research suggests that the ...

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Check out my interview with chemical blogger Egon Willighagen, one of the new breed of chemists who are using the information tools of our age—the blogs, wikis, and online social media—to further their chemistry and benefit the wider chemical community. By day, Willighagen is a postdoc at the Wageningen University & Research Center in the Netherlands. He participates in, amongst many ...

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Russian biathlete Tatiana Moiseeva tested positive for the banned drug dexamethasone (dex), according to a recent report from news agency Allsport. The news was followed up by CNN, which mentioned little of the drug's activity. Dexamethasone is a fluorinated corticosteroid (11b,16a)-9-fluoro-11,17,21-trihydroxy- 16-methylpregna-1,4-diene-3,20-dione, to be precise. It acts as an antiinflammatory and an immunosuppressant and ...

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