Articles in 2010

Biological rotary motors can alter their mechanical function by changing the direction of rotary motion. Now, researchers have designed a synthetic light-driven rotary motor in which the direction of rotation can be reversed on command by changing the chirality of the molecular motor through base-induced epimerization.

Single molecules have been imaged using the heat they release on absorption of light.

The complex pore structures of mesoporous crystals can be elucidated by assessing the curvature of their boundary surface.

An optical molecular imaging dye is described that is based on an interlocked squaraine rotaxane peroxide. These fluorescent and chemiluminescent dye molecules can be stored indefinitely at low temperature, but on warming to body temperature they undergo a unimolecular reaction, emitting near-infrared light that can pass through a living mouse.

The formation of an aromatic cation has been used to promote the Beckmann rearrangement, but mechanistic investigations suggest that a non-catalytic mechanism might operate under some conditions.

Differences in nanoparticle surface energies account for varying phase stabilities on the nanoscale compared with bulk.

Experimental data is the foundation on which science is built. Providing easier ways to find and search it is one way in which new online technologies can help to advance research.

Computational studies have been used to accurately model the properties of a metal–organic framework. The material, subsequently synthesized, lived up to the predicted high surface area and sorption ability.

Hydration is known to affect molecular-recognition processes, such as those between proteins and ligands. Now, theoretical simulations provide thermodynamic insight into cavity–ligand binding, revealing how it is predominantly driven by the behaviour of the few surrounding water molecules.

The dynamics of a complex chemical reaction that occurs through a well-defined intermediate have been followed at the single-molecule level using a 'nanoreactor' set-up, revealing a primary hydrogen isotope effect that is invisible to ensemble experiments.

Chemists have now prepared the longest known stable subunit of the elusive all-carbon polymer — carbyne. Their results suggest that carbyne itself would have a polyyne-like rather than a cumulene structure.

Compression of the active sites of enzymes has been linked to the bulk of amino acid side chains, but now experiments highlight that the harder we look, the more curious the relationship between protein structure and function becomes.

Jim Ibers talks about neptunium, an element that has remained largely unnoticed despite the flurry of activity devoted to its neighbours in the periodic table, uranium and plutonium.

When it comes to porosity, the materials that spring to mind are typically one-, two- or three-dimensional extended networks. In this Perspective, discrete organic molecules are discussed that form porous solids — either owing to hollow molecular structures or simply through inefficient packing — with different properties from those of extended networks.

An oscillatory reaction has been used to drive the rhythmical assembly and disassembly of gold nanoparticles.

Energetic phase transitions that cause whole crystals to move have been studied at the molecular level.