Glutamic acid
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
The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, ruled every 0.05 nm. A wheel of Parmesan is about six hundred million times wider.
Rap sheet
- Answers to
- Glutamate, Glu, or E. (D was taken.)
- Height
- 0.68 nm. Flexible.
- Weight
- 0.24 zeptograms
- Build
- Five carbons in a row, an acid at each end.
- Known for
- Umami. A chemist found it in boiled-down kelp broth.
- Habits
- Only tastes of anything when loose. Locked in protein, it keeps quiet.
- Origins
- First pulled out of wheat gluten, and named after it.
- Suspected
- Of the crunchy crystals in old Parmesan. Cleared: those are tyrosine.
- Last seen
- A 5 mL tube marked PARM in the fridge at HQ.
of them, loose, in 1 oz of Parmesan, on average.
Older wheels have more. You’ve never seen one.
The poster on the street
This is the photocopied wanted poster for Glutamic acid, No. 63. 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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