Last night I had a dream in which I very nearly died; All round me raged a gruesome hoard of mad nucleotides. The sugars and the bases put the phosphates into flight, And SN2 reactions were occurring left and right. Then BF4 came sweeping in with hydride ions grim. From then on, all carbonyl groups had chances very slim. The poor hydroxys all around me begged, alas, in vain, As all their sigma bonds with carbon friends were cut in twain. When lithium di-isopropyl amide entered in, It brutally removed all of the alpha hydrogens And left the alpha carbons…
in which, with respect to our name, we are as confused as you are
By chrislong
William Christopher Long was born in Maryland, grew up in Botswana, and graduate from high school in Kenya. He received a BS in biology from Wheaton College (IL) in 2000. Currently he spends most of his time playing in the mud, hoping that if he gets wet and dirty enough, the College of William and Mary will give him a PhD in Marine Biology. He is married to a beautiful woman with multiple degrees in English (who can magically correct sentences containing equations she doesn’t understand), and is the proud father of a voracious daughter (cheeses of the world beware) and a gestating fetus.