Pages

▼

Monday, February 14, 2011

Perfect Valentine's gift: theobromine

Will you be offering a heart-shaped box of theobromines to your Valentine on Monday? Frightfully scientific though this sounds, you may well do so, for theobromine is the active ingredient in chocolate. When the Swedish botanist Carolus Linnaeus was classifying the plant system in the 1700s, he had to think up a name for the genus of the cacao tree. Being a chocolate lover, he called it Theobroma, from the Greek theo (god) and broma (food): the food of the gods.
at

1 comment:

  1. E.T.February 14, 2011 at 4:58 AM

    Hi,

    I wonder why the 3rd chemical element of the 7th principal group of the Periodic Table would have a name similar to "broma". And how that same word would mean "joke" in Spanish.

    Thanks.

    ReplyDelete