News & Comment

A thiourea-derived catalyst provides the key to the scaleable Strecker synthesis of α-amino acids with quaternary alkyl and aryl substituents.

A computational method to screen metal–organic frameworks for hydrothermal stability has been developed.

Comparing microwave-heated reactions in glass and silicon carbide vials suggests that heating effects alone are responsible for the benefits of performing chemistry in a microwave.

Colloidal inorganic nanoparticles can self-assemble into ordered, aperiodic superlattices.

The diiminopyridine ligand stabilizes chalcogen dications.

Catalytic platinum atoms bind to unsaturated aluminium atoms on the surface of the aluminium oxide catalyst support.

A copper phosphide that is structurally similar to the iron pnictides also superconducts.

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Ada Yonath for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome.

Confining reactants inside a porous coordination polymer allows unstable intermediates along a reaction path to be studied by a method usually reserved for stable crystalline compounds.

The therapeutic delivery of NO molecules can be delayed by 'hiding' them within a block copolymer micelle.

A simple molecule with a carbon–sulfur triple bond has been prepared photochemically.

Obtaining financial support for scientific research is generally more difficult for work that is fundamental in nature rather than applied. Bruce C. Gibb contemplates how topics such as complexity might get their share — and why it is vital that they do.

Catalysis using gold has fast become a major research field with great potential, and many new discoveries are being made. Graham Hutchings reflects on how this has come about.

The concept of the chemical bond has been around for quite some time and there are many models that try to explain what is going on in that hazy world of electron density that glues atoms together. But molecules that challenge our notion of just what a chemical bond is continue to be reported, often presenting us with more questions than answers.

The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will soon be awarded amid the usual speculation, angst, disagreement and elation — but is it really worth all the fuss?

The unfolding of a mechanically weaker protein domain can be inhibited by inserting it into a stronger domain, creating the possibility of forming multifunctional elastomeric proteins.

Following tin and silicon, the germanium analogues of carboranes add to the line up of group 14 boron compounds.

A two-dimensional polymer with regularly spaced atomic-scale pores is prepared by a silver-surface-promoted polymerization of a macrocycle.