Mass Spectrometry or Poetry? Why not Both?

An article in the Arizona Republic (signin required) has a report on Glendale Community College organic chemistry students writing poetry to help them deal with complex topics such as mass spectrometry and photochemical oxidation. How about haiku? It’s short and perhaps easier to write than a sonnet or epic poem about mass spectrometry. For example, …

LCMS of King Tut’s Wine

Researchers at the University of Barcelona used LC/MS/MS to analyze dry residue of wine from King Tut’s tomb: see First evidence of white wine in ancient Egypt from Tutankhamun’s tomb in Journal of Archaeological Science (via) and the related article: The origin of the ancient Egyptian drink Shedeh revealed using LC/MS/MS Journal of Archaeological Science …

Identification of Proteins in Renaissance Paintings by Proteomics

Analytical Chemistry (subscription required) has a unique article on the proteomic analysis of Renaissance paintings. The authors worked with microgram quantities of paint from Benedetto Bonfigli’s triptych, The Virgin and Child, St. John the Baptist, St. Sebastian (XVth century), and from Niccolo di Pietro Gerini’s, The Virgin and Child (XIVth century) and found proteins from …

Historical Mass Spectrometry Books and Articles

Sir J. J. Thomson’s 1913 Rays Of Positive Electricity and 1921 Rays Of Positive Electricity Second Edition are online at the Internet Archive Million Book Project. ChemTeam’s Classic Papers has J. J. Thomson On the Masses of the Ions in Gases at Low Pressures, Philosophical Magazine, 1899, 48, 547-567 and F. W. Aston Isotopes and …

Wikipedia vs. Britannica on Science

Nature compares Wikipedia and Britannica coverage of science (via). The mass spectrometry community should be paying attention since the Wikipedia entry for mass spectrometry is one of the top hits for “mass spectrometry” on an increasing number of search engine pages (e.g. the #4 hit on Yahoo today). The entry has been edited more than …