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Molecule of the Month |
Each month a new molecule is added to the list held at the University of Bristol. The links take you to a page somewhere in the world, where useful (and hopefully entertaining!), information can be found about a particularly interesting molecule.
If you wish to contribute a Molecule of the Month page, then email Paul May (Bristol) the URL and he will add you to the list at the next opportunity...
For the month of September 1997, the author is Dr Robert
Lancashire, the host is the Department of Chemistry, University
of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica and the molecule is hexol.
You will need CHIME vs 2+ and be running Windows to view the IR
data files.
3D Image Formats: Some of these pages contain 'hyperactive' 3D images in formats such as pdb (protein database). To view these files you will need a 3D viewer program such as Rasmol which can be obtained by downloading it from (UMass) and then installing it on your system. You then have two options. You can click on the image, and download the pdb file to your hard disk and you can then use Rasmol to view it locally. Alternatively, if you set the Helper types in your Browser configuration to recognise the following MIME type: chemical/x-pdb and filename suffix .pdb, and associate this with Rasmol. If you have configured correctly, then clicking on the images in the display should activate your viewer with the molecule in its window.
For this months pages the recommended method is the
following..
Embedded Molecular Structures: This
is a system which works using a plug-in for Netscape
4.0+ called Chemscape CHIME. It allows
3D molecular structures to be represented on the page without the
user having to have an external helper program, such as
Rasmol. Many of the entries in the Molecule of the Month are
being presented in both CHIME and ordinary format so you
can still view them if you haven't got the plug-in.
CHIME can be obtained from the MDLI site in the States, or the mirror in
the UK.
Java and ChemSymphony: this is a system which allows rotating molecules to be displayed and manipulated using Java. It is available from Cherwell Scientific, and some of the later MOTMs may have this as an optional format. To view these MOTMs you will need a java-compatible browser.
VRML: Virtual Reality Markup Language allows the user to 'fly' around and through the object they are viewing, e.g. a building or a molecule. To view these files you'll need a VRML browser, or a plug-in for Netscape or Internet Explorer, such as Live3D (available from the Netscape site).
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