Finding Molecules With Chmoogle

Find that molecule! Chmoogle, at http://www.chmoogle.com/, searches the Internet for chemistry-related information -- more specifically, information about molecules. Searching for this one is different -- not simple keyword -- so settle in.

One search option is for drawing. You can use a popup Java applet to draw a molecule or molecule substructure. (It contains drawing tools and symbols, like a flowchart-making utility.) Once you've drawn the molecule, Chmoogle "translates" your drawing to a search engine query. I used the drawing tool to put together part of a molecule, which Chmoogle translated as C1CC2CNCC2C1 and then searched its database for. There were about 8,400 results, which included URLs, supplier names, and drawings of the molecules.

If you want to do text-based searching, take a few minutes and read the basic help at http://www.chmoogle.com/doc/basic_search.htm. This help file will introduce you to SMILES, which allow you to represent molecules by text. There's an overview of it at http://www.daylight.com/smiles/smiles-intro.html. One quick hint; you can search for element symbols by enclosing them in brackets. Therefore [Au] searches for gold. (The case has to be consistent with the element's appearance in the periodic table -- AU will not find any results, and neither will au.)

A search for [Au] found six results. Results included a picture of the molecule (what do I call the symbolic images of molecules? Pictures? Drawings? Maps?), catalogue, catalogue number, and URL. There's also a "Commercial Only" toggle on the results page that'll restrict your results to only those which are commerically available. (When I tried that with the [Au] search, it reduced the number of available results to 1.)

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