Funny Comics

Now we need to figure out how and why

You're missing the part where you try over and over again to replicate the result and it keep failing. Looks like the first time was the only time, too bad. Then, as you clean out the freezer six months later, you find a leftover vial from the experiment in the back that randomly formed perfect single crystals that you excitedly diffract only to be disappointed because despite everything it's somehow triphenylphosphine oxide because it's always triphenylphosphine oxide. Even though there was supposedly no phosphorus of any kind in the original experiment. Turns out, the undergrad intern has been double-dipping pipettes in your special personal cache of NaK-dried THF and cross-contaminated it, and that contaminant TPP stabilized your experiment---phosphine stabilization is well known, after all, which is why you were trying something new and different without phosphine to begin with. Oh well, sucks to be you, the undergrad graduated already and is gone.