Lactic 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. Stood beside a DNA double helix (2 nm across), it would come about a quarter of the way up.
Rap sheet
- Answers to
- Lactic acid, after the Latin for milk. First found in sour milk.
- Height
- 0.49 nm. Twelve atoms, all told.
- Weight
- 0.15 zeptograms
- Taste
- Sour. The sour in sourdough.
- Marks
- Has a mirror twin. Sourdough makes both, but more of this one.
- Associates
- Lactic acid bacteria, including one named after San Francisco.
- Known for
- Strung into long chains, it becomes a plastic that isn’t made from oil.
- Last seen
- A 5 mL tube marked SOURDOUGH in the fridge at HQ.
of them in an ounce of sourdough starter, give or take.
Starters vary. You’ve never seen one.
The poster on the street
This is the photocopied wanted poster for Lactic acid, No. 68. 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.
Not a player yet? Join the Epic Quest: the real role-playing game of Molecular Reality, a nanopore lab, with the CEO as gamemaster.