Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #nucleobases
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#HematologyTweetstory 10: how did the 5 major #nucleobases get their names? This is slightly tangential to hematology, admittedly, but is a cool story that I’ve been aching to tell since I went through an intense etymology phase many years ago (still have lots of dusty books)./1 
#Guanine is probably the most interesting of the 5. It was first isolated in 1846 from guano, i.e. bird crap, by German chemist Julius Bodo Unger (1819-1885), who studied with the famous Justus Liebeg in Gießen. Unger later owned a factory in #Hannover. Guano image from JSTOR./2
It is hard to imagine just how important seabird guano was economically, back before the beginning of the 20th century when Fritz Haber (who favored #PelgerHuet style eyeglasses😉) figured out how to fix nitrogen artificially & make ammonia. Guano was used for fuel, fertilizer./3
