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.
Many chemical elements behave quite differently depending on the compound they are found in, but Matt Rattley argues that bromine does so in a particularly striking manner.
Thomas Hager, author of popular science books that revisit some of the most significant developments in chemistry over the past century, talks to Nature Chemistry about the challenges of writing for a general audience, and how his dislike of chemistry was turned around by a fellow Oregonian of considerable repute.