chemistry is cool...

citric acid certificate of analysis: PRODUCT IS DERIVED FROM FERMENTATION OF CORN STARCH & BEET MOLASSES

cool! i can picture gigantic tanks of corn starch and molasses churning at the sigma-aldrich headquarters. sometimes i look at all the stuff around me and wonder about the sources they came from. i mean, how much work does it really take to make a pen? or a hole puncher? all that plastic and metal has to initially come from some part of the earth that at some point was dug up and sent off to a factory to be "processed". who does the job of digging up raw materials that go into making all the crap that clutters my desk? hmm.

well, right now i need the muse of science to swoop down and give me some inspiration. experiments aren't giving me the results i want. searching the literature doesn't help b/c it's hard to research something that hasn't been done before. so it's time for new ideas and new methods. deadline is end of Q1. where is my muse?!

(check out ladytron's "destroy everything you touch")