The first metal complexes of 3,3'-bi-1,2,4-oxadiazole: A curiously ignored ligand

The crystal structure of 3,3'-bi-1,2,4-oxadiazole (1) reveals a planar centrosymmetric structure for this molecule in the solid state. It forms a mononuclear complex (3) with palladium(II) chloride, which is shown by X-ray crystallography to contain the ligand chelated through the two N4 nitrogens. The X-ray structure of the complex (5) with silver(I) nitrate shows a one-dimensional coordination polymer in which the ligand acts in a bridging mode, again with coordination through the N4 nitrogen atoms

The first metal complexes of 3,3'-bi-1,2,4-oxadiazole: A curiously ignored ligand

The crystal structure of 3,3'-bi-1,2,4-oxadiazole (1) reveals a planar centrosymmetric structure for this molecule in the solid state. It forms a mononuclear complex (3) with palladium(II) chloride, which is shown by X-ray crystallography to contain the ligand chelated through the two N4 nitrogens. The X-ray structure of the complex (5) with silver(I) nitrate shows a one-dimensional coordination polymer in which the ligand acts in a bridging mode, again with coordination through the N4 nitrogen atoms

Syntheses of new binucleating heterocyclic ligands

The syntheses of five new mixed azine–azole binucleating ligands are described

X-ray crystal structures of discrete and polymeric chiral silver complexes of monoterpenoid alkenes

X-ray crystal structures are reported for five silver(I) complexes of four monoterpenoid alkenes. Discrete mononuclear complexes of the chiral alkenes (1S)-(-)-α-pinene and (1S)-(-)-ß-pinene with silver perchlorate and silver hexafluorophosphate are described. The achiral diene γ-terpinene forms a discrete mononuclear adduct with silver hexafluorophosphate and a two-dimensional polymeric network structure with silver triflate. The chiral diene (R)-(+)-limonene forms a one-dimensional chiral coordination polymer with silver hexafluorophosphate. In all structures the silver atom is η2-bonded to the carbon–carbon bond(s) of the monoterpene with slightly longer bond distances to the more substituted carbon of the alkene moiety

Discrete Metal Complexes of Two Multiply-Armed Ligands

The syntheses and metal complexes of 1,2,4,5-tetrakis(8-quinolyloxymethyl)benzene 1 and hexakis(8-quinolyloxymethyl)benzene 2 are described. X-Ray crystal structures are reported of the free ligand 1, a binuclear silver(i) and a tetranuclear copper(i) complex of 1, as well as a binuclear cobalt(ii) and trinuclear palladium(ii) and silver(i) complexes of 2. Within these discrete metal complexes the ligands are found to adopt a range of coordination modes, with considerable variation in the relative orientations of the ligand arms as a result of the flexibility imparted by the CH₂O linker units

Difficulties in Testing for Covarion-Like Properties of Sequences under the Confounding Influence of Changing Proportions of Variable Sites

The covarion (COV)-like properties of sequences are poorly described and their impact on phylogenetic analyses poorly understood. We demonstrate using simulations that, under an evolutionary model where the proportion of variable sites changes in nonadjacent lineages, log likelihood values for rates across site (RAS) and COV models become similar, making models difficult to distinguish. Further, although COV and RAS models provide a great improvement in likelihood scores over a homogeneous model with these simulated data, reconstruction accuracy of tree building is low, suggesting caution when it is suspected that proportions of variable sites differ in different evolutionary lineages. We study the performance of a recently developed contingency test that detects the presence of COV-type evolution modified for protein data. We report that if proportions of variable sites (pvar) change in a lineage-specific manner such that their distributions in different lineages become sufficiently nonoverlapping, then the contingency test can incorrectly suggest a homogeneous model. Also of concern is the possibility of different proportions of variable sites between the groups being studied. In a study of chloroplast proteins, interpretation of the test is found to be susceptible to different partitioning of taxon groups, making the test very subjective in its implementation. Extreme intergroup differences in the extent of divergence and difference in proportions of variable sites could be contributing to this effect

Thionation of N-Methyl- and N-Unsubstituted Thiazolidine Enaminones

The potential of the directional non-bonded 1,5-type S···O interactions to initiate an incipient stage of an in situ rearrangement of N-unsubstituted thiazolidine enaminones to the functionalized 1,2-dithioles has been demonstrated. Spectral characteristics, as well as an X-ray structural analysis of the selected rearranged product, indicate that a dynamic interconversion occurs in a solution between the 1,2-dithiole and 3,3aλ⁴,4-trithia-1-azapentalene bicylic form. The lack of the rearrangement in the case of the N-methyl substituted enaminone precursor is attributed to an unfavorable methyl migration in the last reaction step

Phylogeny of snakes (Serpentes): combining morphological and molecular data in likelihood Bayesian and parsimony analyses

Copyright © 2007 The Natural history MuseumThe phylogeny of living and fossil snakes is assessed using likelihood and parsimony approaches and a dataset combining 263 morphological characters with mitochondrial (2693 bp) and nuclear (1092 bp) gene sequences. The ‘no common mechanism’ (NCMr) and ‘Markovian’ (Mkv) models were employed for the morphological partition in likelihood analyses; likelihood scores in the NCMr model were more closely correlated with parsimony tree lengths. Both models accorded relatively less weight to the molecular data than did parsimony, with the effect being milder in the NCMr model. Partitioned branch and likelihood support values indicate that the mtDNA and nuclear gene partitions agree more closely with each other than with morphology. Despite differences between data partitions in phylogenetic signal, analytic models, and relative weighting, the parsimony and likelihood analyses all retrieved the following widely accepted groups: scolecophidians, alethinophidians, cylindrophiines, macrostomatans (sensu lato) and caenophidians. Anilius alone emerged as the most basal alethinophidian; the combined analyses resulted in a novel and stable position of uropeltines and cylindrophiines as the second-most basal clade of alethinophidians. The limbed marine pachyophiids, along with Dinilysia and Wonambi, were always basal to all living snakes. Other results stable in all combined analyses include: Xenopeltis and Loxocemus were sister taxa (fide morphology) but clustered with pythonines (fide molecules), and Ungaliophis clustered with a boine-erycine clade (fide molecules). Tropidophis remains enigmatic; it emerges as a basal alethinophidian in the parsimony analyses (fide molecules) but a derived form in the likelihood analyses (fide morphology), largely due to the different relative weighting accorded to data partitions.Michael S. Y. Lee, Andrew F. Hugall, Robin Lawson & John D. Scanlo