Epic Quest Bio The case files
Case No. 50 · have you seen this molecule?

Sulforaphane

the booby trap in broccoli sprouts

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

Sulforaphane, front view, against a height chart in nanometers
FRONT
Sulforaphane, side view
SIDE · CID 9577379

The suspect, from its real atomic coordinates. Drag to turn it. Height chart in nanometers, ruled every 0.05 nm. A broccoli seed is about two million times wider.

Rap sheet

Answers to
SFN. In full, 4-methylsulfinylbutyl isothiocyanate.
Height
1.0 nm, standing on end. Floppy.
Weight
0.29 zeptograms
Habits
Doesn’t exist until you chew. The sprout keeps its parts in separate rooms.
Known for
The payload of the plant’s “mustard oil bomb.”
Associates
Same family as the molecules that make mustard, wasabi and horseradish hot.
Taste
Next to none. Not bitter, whatever you’ve heard.
First seen
In a lab. Then in a roadside weed. Broccoli came decades later.
Last seen
A 5 mL tube marked BROCCOLI in the fridge at HQ.
29,000,000,000,000,000,000

of them waiting in an ounce of broccoli sprouts, give or take.
Sprouts vary. You’ve never seen one.

The poster on the street

The wanted poster for Sulforaphane

This is the photocopied wanted poster for Sulforaphane, No. 50. 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.