Star Picks

Switchback Fair  (http://switchbackfair.co.uk/encyclopedia/chemistry.php) A new wikipedia-style chemistry site has emerged from the hallowed halls of Durham University. The site explains in depth the real nature of things and highlights the big names in science over the last few centuries from James Atom to Jean-Baptiste Molecule. If you've ever wondered what happened to the element umpteenium, you can read about that and more on this laugh-out-loud website from Tom Keal.

Worlwide Molecular Matrix  (http://wwmm.ch.cam.ac.uk/wwmm.html)     I touched on the development of the unique molecular identifier, the INChI, in a recent issue of RR (That Inchi Feeling, http://www.reactivereports.com/40/40_3.html), and I recently attended a meeting in Cambridge, England, at which several speakers were singing the praises of this system. Peter Murrary-Rust has now taken the notion of the INChI and extrapolated the concept to reveal that it will provide a unique way by which people can search for chemical information on the web. His WWMM site reveals all!

Musical NMR (http://www.stolaf.edu/people/hansonr/nmrtalk/, http://organik.uni-erlangen.de/research/NMR/music.html)     You will need your sound card switched on for this site. You never knew nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy could be so tuneful! Need I say more?