So, I was ambling along JACs when quite suddenly I was SMASHED TO PIECES by this mind blowing graphical abstract.

OMGamionacid.gif

This thing spoke to me, man. I’ve never seen a graphical abstract like it. I suddenly become amazingly drawn to collagen and funky-ass derivatives of proline like I’ve never been before. I clicked on it and I was enlightened… enlightened mostly to the fact that the high awesome quotient of the graphical abstract doesn’t lead to the most mind blowing discovery or figures in the paper. They gave way to the prosaic graphs and useful shit that one expects in JACs. Nothing quite so amazing… Here I was, assuming Jesus Christ Himself folded collagen with his enormous manly arms into a triple helix in the glow of heaven’s luminescence and behold: it’s stereoelectronic vs. steric effects of puckering. ::OH WELL:: I suppose I settled for the (pretty gosh darn good) science in the article.

Collagen, you see, is possibly the furthest thing from my actual research. In my adventure to the total synthesis of Suxmycockin B I have absolutely no reason to read anything regarding this biochemistry poop, but I’ve been discovering new thingies as a part of my switchin.GIFspiritual rebirth. In Ronald Raines’ JACs communication (2006, 128, 8112-8113) he details his discovery of the conformational stability induced by methylation of proline. It is already known that stereoelectronic effects from fluorine confer stabilization and this research is an extention of that. The typical collagen pyrrolidine ring apparently exists in two possible comformations equally (since typically R­1 and R­2 are hydrogens.) Methylation of the appropriate R group will confer structural rigidity for very obvious reasons, on the order of 1.4-1.7Kcal, which is a bit under half an M&M. The actual utility is the ability to increase the strength of collagen, giver of silk and the firm bare asses of the hotties walking around on campus. Its sad degradation gives us grandma’s familiar leathery appearance. (I LOVEcollagen.jpg YOU GRANDMA). The actual medical use of collagen has been declining, with the possible exception of skin grafts for burn victims. Which brings me to an interesting proposition: We all know that women naturally become ugly as they age right? I mean, if I learned anything from TV and media, it’s that women are inherently ugly and fat. Take the ugly ass woman to the left with all her facial deformities as pointed out by this online collagen farm. I mean, Jesus, if you can actually STAND TO LOOK AT HER DEFORMED FACE, you can see her obvious need for plastic surgery is tantamount to a burn victim who has had the whole of her face burned off. With super collagen, we make her face beautiful forever… think about it. An end to ugly fat women (of which all women are, so you should SERIOUSLY consider getting those mosquito bites filled in little lady, in fact, are they sagging? Oh, and your thighs are fat. Better start dieting NOW and never stopping.)