That explains it! I can see you have dealt with plenty of hungry critters too.

The ones that baffle me are that it will take “leucine” and not “alanine”. And it will take “anion” and “ionic” but not “anionic”.

“Lantana” and “acacia” are fine, but not “aralia”, “vinca”, or “linden”.

Impressive! But I would need electrified concertina wire here to keep the voles, mice, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons, groundhogs, and deer from eating them down to the dirt. . .

Exactly! You “monitor” the patent literature, and you search for compounds and procedures in it. But no one on earth “reads” it.

That’s another Brockman-circle connection, too. By the time Smolin’s thanks were published, Epstein had already been arrested in Florida.

Yes, that's clear.

The same "looking from the outside in" that I get from popular science books re: physics and biology versus chemistry seems to be in play here, which is (I suppose) a very tarnished silver lining.

Oh, in these new disclosures, sure. But he seems to have had many interactions with physicists, biologists, etc. He apparently liked to think of himself as an intellectual, from reports.

I know Epstein also befriended John Brockman, who acted as literary agent and impresario for a lot of scientists. He (Epstein) apparently loved to hear these folks talk, but he seems to have come across as a shallow dilettante. (Albeit one surrounded by girls and piles of money)

I thought that was well known, TBH. The building opened 14 years ago (I well remember its construction, but then MIT has been building/renovating buildings without one day’s letup ever since I moved up here in 2007)

Some of my favorite reading material in the chemical literature!