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Better Living Through Chiral Chemistry
Atario writes "A long time ago, I remember reading in some science magazine that someone had the bright idea of using enantiomers (the two forms of asymmetrical molecules, like left- and right-handed versions of the same one) to make zero-calorie sugar -- turns out, in general, that sugars are all asymmetrical, and everything generates and uses only one of the two chiralities (handednesses) for each one. If we consume a mirrored version of, say, sucrose, we might get all of the sweet but none of the calories. Sweet-tooths rejoice! But nothing ever came of it. Now, however, Wired has an interesting article that explains what the holdup has been and indicates the logjam may break soon, but, as it turns out, in a non-synthetic, albeit nonzero-calorie, way."
you Gnu hippies
For Levin, it was a third tour at Hopkins; he received a bachelor's in 1947 and a master's in sanitary engineering a year later.
And I always thought that a janitor was an entry level position.
I Browse at +4 Flamebait
Open Source Sysadmin
Two years of Newtrition investment and research had produced CHOW(TM). CHOW(TM) contained spun, plaited, and woven protein molecules, capped and coded, carefully designed to be ignored by even the most ravenous digestive tract enzymes; no-cal sweeteners; mineral oils replacing vegetable oils; fibrous materials, colorings, and flavorings. The end result was a foodstuff almost indistinguishable from any other except for two things. Firstly, the price, which was slightly hgher, and secondly the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman. It didn't matter how much you ate, you lost weight.*
* And hair. And skin tone. And, if you ate enought of it long enough, vital signs.
From Good Omens, by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman. (pg 110 in my copy)
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
You can't patent sugar! that's just fucked up!
I am one of many. My idea is not unique, nor do I expect my voice alone to sway you. I speak in a chorus of opinion.
> Seems like every time they come out with a new 0-cal sweetener, that is safer then the last, it turns out to have some unforseen side effect that makes it worse then the last.
Fortunately, this one merely makes the water in your toilet spiral down the wrong way when you flush it.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
In 1879, chemists Ira Remsen and Constantine Fahlberg synthesized a derivative of coal tar called orthobenzoyl sulfimide. One day, Fahlberg spilled the substance on his hand, which later that evening he touched to his mouth. It tasted sweet. He filed for a patent and called the substance saccharin. In 1937, a University of Illinois grad student discovered another sweetener when he set his cigarette on a lab bench during an experiment - testing a would-be antifever drug - and then took a drag off the cyclamate-coated end. In 1965, a chemist named Jim Schlatter was working on a compound to treat gastric ulcers. He licked his finger to grab a sheet of paper and tasted aspartame for the first time. Then there was the 1976 discovery of sucralose by a King's College student working with chemically altered sugars. The student - not a native English speaker - mistook his professor's instruction to "test" the material and tasted a mouthful.
Thus conclusively proving that Murphy's law defeats Darwin's law.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Kraft have patents of their own
Patent sprinkling Viagra on cheese as a drug delivery system.
BEHOLD, THE POWER OF CHEESE!
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
>Galactose is less sweet than glucose
I for one welcome our new sugar epimer overlords.
"It's tough to be bilingual when you get hit in the head."