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A "Science Centered" Stumper |
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In 1991 William Fenical, a chemist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, went to the Philippines to hunt for organisms that might provide medically useful compounds. He found a two pound mass of Diazona chinensis in a cave 100 feet below the ocean surface. Back in San Diego he isolated, from its tissue, a chemical that killed colon cancer cells in laboratory tests. The chemical, diazonomide A, appears to have a most unusual molecular structure. With 40 carbon atoms, 45 hydrogen, six nitrogen, six oxygen, and two chlorine, the molecule is unnaturally stiff when constructed as a model.
Is Diazona chinensis a plant or an animal? And, to what taxonomic group of organisms does it belong? [The answer can be found at this Reference] |
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Explorit Science Center
P.O. Box 1288, Davis, CA 95617, USA
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Page last updated: April 27, 2006
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