Hello,

Thanks to Stephen.Spanton@... for that brilliant demonstration
of the possible inconveniences of pure automation ;-(.

Less automatized is phase identification by search/match, as was obvious
from the recent results of the Search/Match Round Robin (SMRR).

To the question "does sample 3 would reveal all its mysteries
by using the new PDF-4 organics 2003 ?", the answer is yes,
thanks to Julien Nusinovici (SOCABIM) providing the search
result obtained by applying the EVA software :
http://www.cristal.org/smrr/smrr3-pdf-4-orga.gif
The two thalidomide polymorphs appear in position 2 and 6 in the
search output list. The comments of the two entries are below :

CSD-formula: C13 H10 N2 O4. CSD-qualifier: Teratogenic agent, alpha form,
for enantiomer see DATHAL. Temperature Factor: Overall TF is 5.0000 Biso is
0.0001. Melting Point: 542. CSD-refcode: THALID10.

CSD-formula: C13 H10 N2 O4. CSD-qualifier: beta form, for enantiomer see
DATHAL. Temperature Factor: Overall TF is 5.0000 Biso is 0.0001. Melting
Point: 548.00. CSD-refcode: THALID03 PONSOA.

A new step in the development of Powder Diffraction is certainly
there. But things evolve slowly, and it will be hard and long to change the
habits of a lot of organic/organometallic chemists who never used
powder diffraction as a tool for phase identification (because of the
PDF previous versions inefficiency/incompleteness, among other reasons).

Best,

Armel