Case No. 101 · the exotic forty · have you seen this molecule?

Mo368 blue lemon

an inorganic molecule the size of a protein

File sealed

The detectives are still writing this one up. The poster and the facts are below; the film and the interrogation room open soon.

Booking photographs

Mo368 blue lemon, front view, against a height chart in nanometers — FRONT

Mo368 blue lemon, side view — SIDE · COD 1535642

The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, ruled every 0.5 nm. A real lemon is about twelve million times wider.

Rap sheet

Answers to: Nano-hedgehog. Full name: [H_xMo₃₆₈O₁₀₃₂(H₂O)₂₄₀(SO₄)₄₈]⁴⁸⁻.
Height: 5.8 nm on end, 4.5 nm across. Hemoglobin-sized.
Weight: 101 zeptograms. Zero carbon.
Build: Hollow; holds 400 waters. All 48 sulfates face in.
Color: Deep blue, from 112 loose electrons shared among 368 molybdenums.
First seen: Its family’s blue, by Scheele, some 220 years before this mugshot.
Last seen: On flakes of carbon nitride, soaking up visible light, in a lab in India.

1,000,000,000,000,000,000

of them in one 135 mg batch of its deep-blue crystals, give or take.
You’ve never seen one.

CASE FILE: Müller, A. et al. (2002) Inorganic Chemistry Goes Protein Size: A Mo₃₆₈ Nano-Hedgehog Initiating Nanochemistry by Symmetry Breaking. Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 41, 1162–1167.

The poster on the street

This is the photocopied wanted poster for Mo368 blue lemon, No. 101 of the exotic forty. They were made for noticeboards around Boston, Cambridge and the rest of the east coast.

Found one? Scan its QR code with your phone. If you're a signed-in player, the sighting goes on your record with +1 XP.

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