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Daniel Rabinovich outlines the history, properties and uses of aluminium — one of the most versatile, pervasive and inexpensive metals today, yet it was considered a rare and costly element only 150 years ago.
For historical reasons, plutonium brings to mind nuclear weapons. Jan Hartmann brings another side of element 94 to attention, which features an upcoming trip to its eponymous celestial body.
A collection of articles in this issue focuses on the ability to selectively perform a reaction at just one specific site in a complex molecule that contains many other similarly reactive sites.
