The first aldol reaction that uses esters instead of aldehydes as one coupling partner has been developed by scientists in the UK. It will give chemists ‘an entirely new retrosynthetic disconnection,’ says the study’s leader Stephen Thomas from the University of Edinburgh. The aldol reaction is a carbon–carbon bond-forming process between two carbonyl compounds – […]

Researchers have created a fluid, that can climb walls, has turbulent interfaces and shows strange phase separation dynamics. The fluid is a mixture of two immiscible liquids – polyethylene glycol (PEG) and dextran – microtubules and kinesin, a molecular motor protein that can walk along the microtubules. The microtubules sit in the dextran phase, where […]

As with much in European thought, it was Aristotle, who first made a strong distinction between, what was considered, the two different realms of thought, theoretical thought epistêmê, most often translated as knowledge, and technê, translated as either art or craft. As already explained in an earlier post in this series, during the Middle Ages the two areas were […]

High-pressure phases of materials can be preserved at ambient pressure by allowing the gaseous material to diffuse into glassy carbon before crushing the carbon into diamond. The process makes some of the most important analytical techniques in modern materials science such as transmission electron microscopy feasible for high-pressure samples, and could even lead to applications […]

The author of a popular organic chemistry textbook is making it freely available to students after learning about a loophole in his copyright agreement with the publisher. John McMurry’s Organic Chemistry has been one of the best selling chemistry textbooks since it was first printed in 1984. Under his agreement with Cengage Learning, the book’s publisher, […]

Chemically beheading per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) with inexpensive solvents and reagents destroys these persistent compounds. Although the method isn’t ready for field applications yet, experts say it is a promising start to address the problem of these bioaccumulative pollutants. PFAS are ‘forever chemicals’ that do not degrade in the environment or human body. They […]

A year since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, the country’s academic and scientific research community remains in disarray – either in hiding or spread out across the world. ‘It was a dismal situation a year ago, and it still is a dismal situation for Afghanistan,’ says Ian Bickford, president of the American University of Afghanistan […]

A group of US-based chemists have transformed scientific charts and images into tactile materials that are accessible to blind and visually impaired researchers. This could help to reduce barriers faced by people with low vision who wish to study and work in science. The team led by Baylor University biochemist Bryan Shaw used 3D printing […]

Directed evolution has created an enzyme that catalyses a challenging carbon–carbon bond formation reaction for synthesising structurally complex antibiotics. Identified around 20 years ago, arylomycins demonstrate broad-spectrum antibacterial activity but because they are so tricky to make, they are not yet used in the clinic. Composed of a lipid tail and a macrocyclic core, they […]

Researchers in Japan have made perfluorocubane for the first time. When reduced, the molecule can hold a single electron inside its box-like structure – an unusual, real-life example of the quantum mechanical ‘particle in a box’ principle. Although regular cubane (C8H8) has been known since 1964, nobody had managed to make perfluorocubane (C8F8) despite predictions […]