Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
Bruce Gibb wonders whether our faith in chemistry — and what it can teach us about the Universe beyond our Earthly bounds — will have a role to play in the search for alien life.
They might not be fundamental constants of nature, but atomic weights are one of the foundations on which modern chemistry is built, explains Juris Meija.
Bruce Gibb looks back at some examples of irreproducible reactions in his own laboratory and suggests ways in which the reproducibility of chemical reactions can be maximized.
Michelle Francl suggests that students should be trained to write in a fashion similar to how they are taught the principles and practice of NMR spectroscopy — by providing them with a limited set of patterns and parameters.