On one of Chris' tangents he told me ALL about fermentation and distillation and what constitues good alcohol. I learned the differences between gin, whiskey, wine, brandy, tequila, scotch, vodka, and beer to name just a few. Chris even makes his own beer, which he says is legal, although I'm skeptical. Because of the hydrogen bonding between ethanol and water it is impossible to completely seperate through distillation; this is called and azeotrope. When distilling vodka you end up with 95% ethanol and 5% water. I'm sorry to report that Hood River Vodka will still taste just as badly even if you put it through a Brita filter.

Today Chris started out the day by testing me on my science skills. He asked me to calculate the molarity for 1 M of NaOH in 100mL of water. I of course remembered from sophomore year that the equation for molarity is Moles/Liter. We found the molarity in order to calculate how many grams I needed to put into the water so that we could use it to burn all the remaining tissue in the canulas that I cleaned yesterday. We then mixed some drugs. Specifically, we made ganaxolone which is an allosteric GABAa modulator. It is an analog (similar) to allopregnanolone. Because it is a steroid it is not water soluble, however it will dissolve in water when inside a sugar ring. We want to make Ganaxolone/2 hydroxypropyl-beta-cyclodextrin (GAN/2HPBCD). Ganaxolone will fully dissolve in EtOH as does 2HPBCD, which is our first step. Our second step will take place tomorrow when we will evaporate off the EtOH leaving the crystalized ganaxolone, which is now complexed into the 2HPBCD. As we did yesterday, today we also recorded how much the mice have drank from the water and EtOH bottles.

Nichole asked if, say, Thai coconut green curry would have the same effect as coconut water. Unfortunately Thai coconut green curry uses coconut milk (which you get from the flesh of the coconut). Coconut water is the liquid you get if you cracked open a coconut and drank from it. Coconut milk is lipophilic whereas coconut water is hydrophilic. Coconut milk just doesn't have the electrolytes of coconut water.

Off to the zoo tomorrow but back to the blog on Thursday!