Chemical
Abstracts Online Exercises
1)
These
questions are about the chemical compound CAPSAICIN
a)
What is
the registry number? (HINT: Use the /CN qualifier to limit to chemical or
complete name) ____________________________________________________
b)
What is
the CA Index Name? If there is more than
one, choose the first one listed.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
c)
Can you
find any abstracts summarizing articles on the “mass spectrometry of capsaicin
in peppers”? Write down the first author
and title for one of the articles.
first author: ___________________________________________________________
title: _________________________________________________________________
2)
According
to the Chemical Abstracts Service web site <http://www.cas.org>,
"the 20-millionth CAS Registry Number was assigned on
1)
Can you
find an article written by Professor Joshua Smith on the topic of MOLECULAR
RODS in the time period 2002-2005? <HINT:
Use Field Tags to search by author and publication year range>
If you find more than one article, select the one of most interest to
you.
a)
What is
the title of the article?
_____________________________________________________________________
b)
In what
journal does the article appear?
_____________________________________________________________________
c)
Is this
journal available at HSU? _________________________________________
d) If the article is
available online, take a look at the article.
And now for some fun – turn the page…
2)
You are
reading a mystery titled Appointment with
Death written by Agatha Christie in
1938. A character in the story, Mrs.
Boynton, dies and it is discovered that she was injected with a lethal amount
of digitoxin. Hercule Poirot, the famed Belgian
detective, talks with Dr. Gerard, a well-known French psychiatrist. The conversation goes as follows:
“Digitoxin,” said Poirot,
“is a heart poison, is it not?”
“Yes. It is obtained from
digitalis purpurea -- the common foxglove. There are four active principles - digitalin - digitonin - digitalein - and digitoxin. Of these, digitoxin is considered the most
active poisonous constituent of digitalis leaves. According to Kopp's experiments, it is from
six to ten times stronger than digitalin or digitalein. It is officinal in
“And a large dose of digitoxin thrown
suddenly on the circulation by intravenous injection would cause sudden death
by quick palsy of the heart. It has been
estimated that four milligrams might prove fatal to an adult man.”
Later on, Dr. Gerard adds:
“Moreover, as regards post-mortem appearance, the active principles
of the digitalis may destroy life and leave no appreciative sign.”
[Christie, Agatha. Appointment with Death. NY: Bantam, 1987 (c1938), pg. 93]
This piques your
interest in toxicology and you decide to see if Christie gave an accurate description of poisoning by digitoxin. Use CAS
Online to answer the following:
a)
What is
the registry number for digitoxin?
__________________________________________________________________
b)
How
many hydrogen atoms are in the digitoxin molecule?
________________
c)
Can you
find any articles on digitoxin, especially ones that
also talk about the Chinese medicine, Chan Su?
What is the
first author and title for one article that you found?
____________________________________________________________________
What journal or book does the article appear in?
___________________________________________________________________
How would you determine if the HSU Library has this article?
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
What would you do if the HSU Library doesn't have the article and you
really wanted to get a copy of it?___________________________________________
SSC 2/06