MS History Repeats Itself

Two separate research groups claimed to have made a 12-membered nitrogen-containing ring of a class of molecules called annulenes. Both groups claimed that the chunky compound had special properties that could prove useful as a surfactant. One of these groups made this claim and the other just recently. However, both have been found to have been beaten to the punch: a German chemist, Theodor Zincke, made this discovery more than a century ago.