No time for real blogging for today, but I couldn't let this one go by: Reader Steve C. passes on what has to be one of the worst examples from the old days of tasting new compounds. Back in 1886, Victor Meyer was the first to achieve a reasonable synthesis of bis(2-chloroethyl)sulfide. So, as people did back then, he put some of the damned stuff on his tongue.

A good part of my readership has already grimaced in pain, but the rest of you are about to join them. That compound is better known as mustard gas. Meyer's gourmet experience must have resulted in an excruciating round of terrible blisters - which, depending on the amount he sampled, could have gone on for quite some time. I wonder how many things he taste-tested after that episode?

A blog housekeeping note - my blogroll was shattered in the conversion to Movable Type. It had a number of inactive sites on it, anyway, and there are plenty more I should have added as well. A rebuild is in the works.

Next week we'll talk about method of treatment patents (and won't that be fun, eh?) and about an outfit with the unusual name of Essential Inventions, Inc. The phrase "March-In Rights" will feature prominently, which I hope is not a phrase I'll be using very often.