News & Comment

Silver ions and organic ligands can self-assemble directly into tri- or tetra-nuclear molecular knots in a one-pot reaction

Room-temperature ionic liquids organize into alternate cationic and ionic layers near a charged surface

Disulfur dinitride reacts with the residues of fingerprints and of inkjet printing to potentially provide a valuable forensic technique

A series of 'double metallocenes' show fascinating bonding trends, as well as interesting magnetic and electronic properties

A platinum compound with an atomic oxygen ligand has been made — examples of which are extremely rare without stabilizing ligands

A fluorescent species thought to be a short-lived intermediate of chlorophyll breakdown has been identified in the peels and leaves of ripe bananas, making them blue under UV light

Bimetallic nanoparticles can undergo structural and chemical changes in response to reactive environments

The unexpected observation of two tautomers of a P,N-ligand leads to the observation of three completely different modes of reactivity

Chirality is directly transmitted from a monomer to a two-dimensional, ordered, mesoporous organosilicate material during its synthesis

The supramolecular assembly and phase separation in diblock copolymers have been exploited to generate nanoscale square patterns for photolithography

'Tagging' metal–organic frameworks enables their modification after synthesis, making it possible to fine-tune their properties or convert them into novel materials

The predicted stability of in-adamantane provides a new synthetic challenge, and the possibility to apply such structures to form stable carbocations

The 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry has been awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien for the discovery and development of the so-called green fluorescent protein

Researchers have synthesized stable alkyl oxonium ions that could lead to new and interesting aromatic compounds

A system that biases directed enzyme evolution in favour of desired reactivity and enantioselectivity offers an alternative approach to high-throughput screening

Solid acids are shown to be effective catalysts for breaking down cellulose, a potentially renewable chemical feedstock

Calculations on the possible reaction pathways of dinitrogen cleavage by a supported tantalum catalyst suggest that side-on binding of the substrate is critical

Electrodes made from graphene could be the crucial ingredient for making high-performance capacitors suitable for energy storage

The enantioselective total synthesis of clavirolide C provides the opportunity to test developed methodology and directs future method development

The asymmetric alkylation of aldehydes is made possible by a combination of an organocatalyst and a photoredox catalyst