In Adventures in Chemistry, chemist Julie T. Millard tells an amusing story about her late father, Ben Millard, a captain in the British Army who was part of Churchill's SOE (Special Operations Executive). Working to disrupt German supply and communication lines, Millard's research team molded plastic explosives into lobsters. In the dark, they were taken across the English Channel and placed in French fishermen's traps.
The chemists were unaware that lobsters only turn red once the high temperatures of cooking unsheathe the beta-crustacyanin protein that otherwise masks the red pigment astaxanthin. So instead of dyeing the explosives blue-green, they colored them red.
When the traps surfaced, French fishermen were shocked, but they fooled the watchful eyes of German soldiers who, like the researchers, also believed that wild lobsters are red.
Sources:
Millard, Julie T. Adventures in Chemistry. Houghton Mifflin. 2008
Lobster Protein:
http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/P58989
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/science/03qna.html
The chemists were unaware that lobsters only turn red once the high temperatures of cooking unsheathe the beta-crustacyanin protein that otherwise masks the red pigment astaxanthin. So instead of dyeing the explosives blue-green, they colored them red.
When the traps surfaced, French fishermen were shocked, but they fooled the watchful eyes of German soldiers who, like the researchers, also believed that wild lobsters are red.
Sources:
Millard, Julie T. Adventures in Chemistry. Houghton Mifflin. 2008
Lobster Protein:
http://www.uniprot.org/uniprot/P58989
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/03/science/03qna.html
I hope you enjoyed a Glæd Geol and for 2012 I wish you a Gesælig Niw Gear.