Clara Haber,nee Immerwahr (1870–1915): Life,Work and Legacy

We examine the life, work, and legacy of Clara Haber, nee Immerwahr, who became the first woman to earn a doctorate from the University of Breslau, in 1900. In 1901 she married the chemist Fritz Haber. With no employment available for female scientists, Clara freelanced as an instructor in the continued education of women, mainly housewives, while struggling not to become a housewife herself. Her duties as a designated head of a posh household hardly brought fulfillment to her life. The outbreak of WWI further exacerbated the situation, as Fritz Haber applied himself in extraordinary ways to aid the German war effort. The night that he celebrated the “success” of the first chlorine cloud attack, Clara committed suicide. We found little evidence to support claims that Clara was an outspoken pacifist who took her life because of her disapproval of Fritz Haber's involvement in chemical warfare. We conclude by examining “the myth of Clara Immerwahr” that took root in the 1990s from the perspective offered by the available scholarly sources, including some untapped ones.     

Statistical interpretation of the Amerithrax “morph” assay results

In the Amerithrax investigation PCR‐based “morph assays” were used to link the anthrax letters with the RMR‐1029 flask at USAMRIID. Quantitative data reported for several of these assays are not consistent with Poisson sampling statistics, but instead exhibit “Taylor's Law” behavior where the variance greatly exceeds the mean. A plausible statistical model for this behavior can explain the large number of observed negative and “inconclusive” findings, and implies a high likelihood that a repository sample could contain a “morph” mutant at concentrations well above the nominal detection limit but nonetheless give a negative or inconclusive test result. A Bayesian framework relates the assay results to the probability that a sample actually contains all four morph mutants, even though it tested negative for at least one. The analysis implies that the observed false negative rate actually does not significantly weaken the conclusion that the morph assays correctly excluded all but the stocks derived from RMR‐1029 as possible sources of the letter powders, at least when the test results were unambiguous. These findings expand upon and resolve some of the issues cited in recent reviews, and indicate the importance of developing a rigorous statistical framework for interpreting “morph” assay data.     

R. B. Woodward's Letters: Revealing,Elegant and Commanding

A collection of excerpts from letters written by R. B. Woodward to his friends, colleagues, young students and others is presented. These excerpts are representative of Woodward 's lengthy correspondence and illustrate many aspects of his personality and philosophies of life.     

Sprachverwirrung bei Gefahrgütern. Gefahrgut‐Informations‐ und ‐kommunikationssysteme

In the dangerous goods regulations there is no clear rule for the naming of dangerous goods which are not directly registered in the dangerous goods list. The use of different names for the same substances makes communication about these goods difficult. On the other hand, many chemical names include special characters (e.g. Greek letters, umlauts etc.) which are not easily transferable electronically. This results in a potential for substantial error in the case of an incident with dangerous goods. To solve this problem a database is recommended with uniform names which are easily transferable electronically.     

Die schönste falsche Theorie der Biochemie. Aus 4 mach' 20, oder 21, oder 22, oder ....

The race to decipher the genetic code, which translates an endless four‐letter text into one with 20 letters, finally culminated in the development of the brilliant comma‐free code by Crick, Griffith, and Orgel. For some people it was and still is very disappointing to learn from experiments that nature follows a different, less appearing chemical route. Only recently we have learned that nature's code is much more error‐tolerant than other alternative genetic codes. Obviously nature is not looking for elegance, efficiency, or superficial beauty but for reliability and room for change and improvement by learning.     

Chemical Research in Chinese Universities Notice to Authors

"Chemical Research in Chinese Universities", sponsored by Jilin University mandated by the Education Ministry of P. R. China and published by Higher Education Press in China, is a comprehensive academic journal in the field of chemistry.The journal contains original papers, research notes, letters and reviews written by faculty members, scientific researchers,postgraduates and graduate students of universities and colleges, and scientific institutes all over China and the world, and reports the latest and most creative results of important fundamental research in all aspects of chemistry and of developments with significant consequences across subdisciplines.     

Chemical Research in Chinese Universities Notice to Authors

"Chemical Research in Chinese Universities", sponsored by Jilin University mandated by the Ministry of Education of P. R. China and published by Higher Education Press in China, is a comprehensive academic journal in the field of chemistry. The journal contains original papers, research notes, letters and reviews written by faculty members, scientific researchers, postgraduates and graduate students of universities and colleges, and scientific institutes all over China and the world, and reports the latest and most creative results of important fundamental research in all aspects of chemistry and of developments with significant consequences across subdisciplines.     

Fritz Haber und Clara Immerwahr. Lernen aus der Geschichte

This contribution about Fritz Haber (1868–1934) and his wife Clara Immerwahr (1870–1915) shows us not only the changeful life of these two personalities which began their life full of hope and finished it then in tragedy. Their time is embedded into the history about the break‐up and then come‐down by the First World War of the first period of the German Empire, and also points out exemplarily science and industry of this time.     

Aromatic CC Bonds as Dipolarophiles: Facile Reactions of Uncomplexed Electron‐Deficient Benzene Derivatives and Other Aromatic Rings with a Non‐Stabilized Azomethine Ylide

Non‐stabilized azomethine ylide 4 a reacts smoothly at room temperature with a variety of uncomplexed aromatic heterocycles and carbocycles on the condition that the ring contains at least one or two electron‐withdrawing substituents, respectively. Aromatic substrates, including pyridine and benzene derivatives, participate as 2 π components in [3+2] cycloaddition reactions and interact with one, two, or three equivalent(s) of the ylide, depending on their structure and substitution pattern. Thus, this process affords highly functionalized polycyclic structures that contain between one and three pyrrolidinyl ring(s) in useful yields. These results indicate that the site selectivity of the cycloaddition reactions strongly depends on both the nature and the positions of the substituents. In most cases, the second 1,3‐dipolar reaction occurs on the opposite face to the one that contains the first pyrrolidinyl ring. DFT calculations on model compounds indicate that a concerted mechanism features a low activation barrier.     

Pyrrolidine-5,5-trans-lactams. 1. Synthesis and incorporation into inhibitors of hepatitis C virus NS3/4A protease

[reaction: see text] In this, the first of two letters, we outline the use of the pyrrolidine-5,5-trans-lactam template to design small, neutral, mechanism-based inhibitors of hepatitis C NS3/4A protease. The hitherto unreported reaction of the acyl iminium ion precursor 4 with dialkyl-substituted silyl ketene acetals (e.g., 8b) is described. Compound 12b, with a spirocyclobutyl P1 substituent and a cyclopropylacyl substituent on the lactam nitrogen, has a k(obs)/I of 400 M(-)(1) s(-)(1) and demonstrates activity in a replicon cell-based surrogate HCV assay.     

The Letters of John Dastin

Abstract

John Dastin, a noted alchemist who lived ca.1300, followed the lead of many of his contemporaries and predecessors in using letters to propagate his views on alchemy. This article identifies a number of letters that Dastin wrote, and includes one text addressed to a cardinal of the city of Naples. This letter is virtually a copy of a work by Arnold of Villanova. I believe that other works ascribed to Dastin will also show a great dependence on Arnold's works.     

Acid‐Induced Shift of Intramolecular Hydrogen Bonding Responsible for Excited‐State Intramolecular Proton Transfer

The significant progress recently achieved in designing smart acid‐responsive materials based on intramolecular charge transfer inspired us to utilize excited‐state intramolecular proton transfer (ESIPT) for developing a turn‐on acid‐responsive fluorescent system with an exceedingly large Stokes shift. Two ESIPT‐active fluorophores, 2‐(2‐hydroxyphenyl)pyridine (HPP) and 2‐(2‐hydroxyphenyl)benzothiazole (HBT), were fused into a novel dye (HBT‐HPP) fluorescent only in the protonated state. Moreover, we also synthesized three structurally relevant control compounds to compare their steady‐state fluorescence spectra and optimized geometric structures in neutral and acidic media. The results suggest that the fluorescence turn‐on was caused by the acid‐induced shift of the ESIPT‐responsible intramolecular hydrogen bond from the HPP to HBT moiety. This work presents a systematic comparison of the emission efficiencies and basicity of HBT and HPP for the first time, thereby utilizing their differences to construct an acid‐responsive smart organic fluorescent material. As a practical application, red fluorescent letters can be written using the acid as an ink on polymer film.     

“The Fitness of Their Union”: Travel and Health in the Letters of Humphry and Jane Davy

The letters of Humphry Davy and his circle, to be published shortly, shed new light on his marriage to Jane Apreece. This paper examines the journeys undertaken by the couple, together and separately, with particular attention to the therapeutic benefits they sought from travel. I argue that their increasingly divergent itineraries reflected a growing understanding that Humphry and Jane had different humoral temperaments or constitutions, leading them to seek different climatic conditions to cure their ailments. While Jane’s temperament was classified as melancholic, requiring her to travel to warmer and sunnier climes during the English winter, Humphry’s was believed to be sanguine, meaning he had to avoid excessive heat along with stimulating food and drink. He relied on classical ideas about individuals’ different humoral constitutions, and the therapies appropriate to them, while measuring atmospheric variables to determine the best places to restore his health. The Davys’ letters reveal the beliefs about bodily differences and atmospheric conditions that shaped their therapeutic travels.     

Poly(aryl ether)s containing o‐terphenyl subunits. III. Random copoly(ether imide)s

The synthesis of a new diamine monomer, N‐n‐butyl 3,12‐diamino‐5,6,9,10‐tetrahydro[5]helicene‐7,8‐dicarboxylic imide (4), that contains a helically locked, U‐shaped 4′,4″‐o‐terphenyl moiety is described. The monomer was polymerized with 3,3′,4,4′‐oxydiphthalic dianhydride and 2,2‐bis[4‐(4‐aminophenoxy)phenyl]propane to form a series of copoly(ether imide)s (5a–e). The incorporation of 4 into the poly(ether imide)s varied the glass‐transition temperature of the copolymers of which it was a part. There was a tendency to form macrocyclic materials at higher molar percentages of 4 during polymerization. The fluorescence of all the copoly(ether imide)s gradually decreased as the content derived from monomer 4 increased in the polymer. © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. J Polym Sci A: Polym Chem 38: 758–763, 2000     

Simple and high-yield purification of urine protein 1 using immunoaffinity chromatography: evidence for the identity of urine protein 1 and human Clara cell 10-kilodalton protein.

A simple and high-yield purification procedure for urine protein 1 (UP1) using anti-UP1 immunoaffinity chromatography is described. Pure UP1 was obtained in a final yield of 60.2%, and observed as a single electrophoretic band and as a single peak on reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography. The N-terminal amino acid residue of UP1 was found to be glutamic acid, contrary to what was reported previously. Furthermore, the N-terminal sequence of UP1 up to 53 amino acids was confirmed to be identical with that of mature human Clara cell 10-kilodalton protein, which inhibits phospholipase A2 activity.     

Alchemical Patronage and the Making of an Adept: Letters of Michael Sendivogius to Emperor Rudolf II and His Chamberlain Hans Popp

Based on four extant letters the famous Polish alchemist Michael Sendivogius wrote to Emperor Rudolf II and his first chamberlain Hans Popp between 1597 and 1602, this paper adds to a growing body of revisionist scholarship on alchemy in Rudolfine Prague. Unlike most of his many rivals – including luminaries such as John Dee and Michael Maier – who hoped for the Emperor's patronage in vain, Sendivogius officially became a courtier at the imperial court in 1594. As such he was in the privileged position of having access to the Emperor and his close advisors. The surviving correspondence shows how the Pole successfully balanced his alchemical promises against Rudolf's expectations for a number of years. The fact that even Sendivogius found it difficult to translate imperial patronage into ready money suggests that Emperor Rudolf II was considerably more circumspect and less gullible than the widespread cliché suggests. Fully contextualised by all available sources on Sendivogius' early career, the four letters emerge as important documents regarding the Polish adept and alchemical patronage in Rudolfine Prague. They also shed new light on the circumstances which led to the writing and publication of Sendivogius' famous treatise De lapide philosophorum (Novum lumen chymicum).     

Inhaltsstoffe des Verbenaöls. 2. Mitteilung. Caryophyllan-2,6-β-oxid,eine neue Sesquiterpenverbindung aus dem Öl von Lippia citriodora KUNTH

Caryophyllane-2,6-β-oxide, a New Sesquiterpenoid Compound from the Oil of Lippia citriodora KUNTH . (Constituents of Verbena Oil, 2nd communication). Caryophyllane-2,6-β-oxide ( 2 ), a new sesquiterpenoid ether, was identified in Verbena oil. Configuration as well as synthesis from known Kobusone ( 10 ) are discussed together with the preparation of the corresponding caryophyllane-2,6-α-oxide ( 8 ) not occurring in the cited essential oil. Verbena oil contains also caryophyllene, isocaryophyllene, their epoxides and trace amounts of Kobusone ( 10 ).     

Erratum to: “Syntheses and characterisation of chloro(<Emphasis Type="Italic">η</Emphasis>3-allyl) dicarbonylmolybdenum(II) complexes of chiral and achiral ditertiaryphosphines”

The original version of the article was published in Cent. Eur. J. Chem. 10(1) (2012), pp 165–171. Unfortunately, the original version of this article contains mistakes in the affiliation section. Dr Devendra D. Pathak’s affiliation is Department of Applied Chemistry, Indian School of Mines, Dhanbad 826 004, India. Dr Pramesh N. Kapoor’s affiliation is Department of Chemistry, University of Delhi, Delhi 110 007, India.