Week One: Chemistry and Italy go together like white on rice.

To describe our trip so far, can I just simply say, “Wow?” This is my third trip to Italy, the first two travelling with my family, but I was still immediately blown away by everything Italian. We have been here ten days, and it feels like we have just arrived, but at the same time, it feels as if we have been here for weeks. It sort of feels like home. (I guess it helps when you can unpack into shelves and a closet and when you know that you have to same bed to come home to every night.) The hardest thing so far to get used to is my Italian laptop keyboard- can anyone tell me how to type the @ symbol? I still have to copy and paste it into my email address.... sigh, I can't complain- I am living in Italy for the summer instead of HOTlanta, and am enjoying gelato and fabulous house wines daily. I'm on the lookout for some really good home made pesto within the next couple of days.

Though all of my experiences so far have been memorable, a few stand out among the rest. First, the trip from Florence back to Siena two days ago. Sanet and I took the bus via the superstrada instead of the rapida bus, so we got to see a few of the towns surrounding us. And the views! I wish we could have pulled over for some pictures of the endless vineyards and olive tree groves at sunset, but the locals surely are all used to the fact that they see this beautiful scenery constantly, if not even from their own backyards. Second, I love how relaxed Italy seems to be. Besides, of course, the tourists scrambling around with their maps and dictionaries, wielding fanny packs and mini tri-pods for their cameras while trying to save their melting gelato from falling off its cone. Yesterday we decided to de-stress and relax, and even though we might have acted more like tourists than residents, we bought a bottle of wine, a baguette, olives, and some cheese sat in the middle of the campo, basking in the glory of the beautiful day. And third, I think that everyone needs to get lost at least once on our trip. Try getting lost on purpose. Put away the map, and enjoy the fact that you are in Italy, the majority of everything around you is older than our own country, and when you want to go home, an Italian will take pity on you and point you in the right direction. Getting lost in Rome was absolutely fabulous. Rome is a completely different city at night than during the day. Tourists have been put to bed and the famous monuments become even more majestic when they are lit up under the stars. Walking across the river on the Bridge of Angels and looking at St. Peter's basilica from afar was like living in a movie.

In order to discuss the actual Chemistry aspect of our trip, I need to start with a story. I am a huge fan of olive oil. My family has done multiple taste tests of various olive oils. I use olive oil probably every day when I am home in various meals. In my apartment's pantry, we don't only have one bottle of olive oil, but three different ones. I discovered my slight addiction about 5 years ago, but I have been unsuccessful in my search for Olive Oil Lovers Anonymous.

This past Wednesday, our group travelled to one of the University of Siena's campuses at San Miniato for a poster session of the different chemistry research projects the Unisi PhD students are performing. As Chi and Rajiv have already said in their posts, Daniela Valensin, one of our wonderful trip organizers, is researching "Olive Oil as seen by Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy." Since NMR is not the usual test for olive oil authentication (the conventional methods are high-performance liquid chromatography, high-resolution gas chromatography, and titration and UV analyses), I asked why NMR is becoming a more popular type of analysis for olive oil. Simply, it is because with NMR, one experiment can produce good-enough quality results. When analysing a compound using NMR, the results are shown as in the example image below, with each peak representing a different part or molecular component to the compound.

Part of Daniela's research involved getting NMR data of several different types of oil, including extra virgin OO, non-EVOO olive, sunflower, hazelnut, corn, and soy bean oils. Her data showed that each type of oil has significantly different peaks that can be easily distinguished. I was intrigued by the similarities and differences in the NMR spectra, and how simple it would be to make sure that a bottle of EVOO is 100% EVOO and not an imposter oil like hazelnut or soy bean oil. The reason for my interest is that a few months ago, I read about some olive oil scandals for one of my other classes at Emory. Apparently it is very easy to counterfeit olive oil because these other oils that Daniela is comparing can look, taste, and smell like my beloved favorite extra virgin olive oil. And this type of counterfeit production isn't just recent news, but has been happening for years. So perhaps during the next bout of supposed counterfeiting, NMR might be a more efficient way to detect these imposter oils.

Here are a few articles about olive oil counterfeiting if you want to read more:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/apr/23/italy.fooddrinks

http://www.portfolio.com/views/blogs/market-movers/2007/08/10/counterfeiting-statistic-of-the-week

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mueller