Epic Quest Bio The case files
Case No. 72 · have you seen this molecule?

Rebaudioside A

the sweet in stevia

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

Rebaudioside A, front view, against a height chart in nanometers
FRONT
Rebaudioside A, side view
SIDE · CID 6918840

The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, ruled every 0.1 nm. About 40,000 of them end to end would span the width of a human hair.

Rap sheet

Answers to
Reb A, to the trade.
Height
2.1 nm, sugars and all.
Weight
1.6 zeptograms
Build
A stiff four-ring core wearing four glucose molecules.
Taste
About 240 times sweeter than sugar.
Habits
Rings your sweet receptor, then two of your 25 bitter ones.
Origins
Stevia leaves, from Paraguay and Brazil.
Associates
Yerba mate, which the Guaraní have sweetened with it for centuries.
Last seen
A 5 mL tube marked STEVIA in the fridge at HQ.
670,000,000,000,000,000,000

of them in an ounce of dried stevia leaves, give or take.
Leaves vary. You’ve never seen one.

The poster on the street

The wanted poster for Rebaudioside A

This is the photocopied wanted poster for Rebaudioside A, No. 72. 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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