Chemistry International just featured an article on a free structure-based search engine for looking up any chemical! It’s called chemspider.
The wow-factor for non-chemists: Interactive 3D graphics! Try this: type in the common name of a compound. Maybe pick a complicated pharmaceutical like vancomycin. Under the structure listed in any of the search results, there is a link called “Jmol.” If you click on this link, you will get a java interface displaying a 3D structure (which was computed using a molecular mechanics computational chemistry program). You can rotate the 3D molecule via click-and-drag, and if you right click on it you get a huge menu full of all kinds of different display options. Okay, maybe the graphics aren’t very impressive to today’s youngster who’s on SecondLife and plays Final Fantasy MXXIV, but these are real molecules dude!!
It’s not that there’s anything special about doing this for a single molecule. The wicked awesome part is how extensive and fast their database is, and how versatile the search options are. And, the whole thing is open-access and community maintained.
