Volume 2 Issue 11, November 2018

Chiroptical molecular switches change chirality in response to light. Christian Petermayer and Henry Dube report a new type of hemiindigo photoswitches that feature axial chiral substituents and are characterized by an unusual decoupling of the absorption and the circular dichroism (CD) spectra.

Mechanical gating of a photochemical reaction has been realized by constructing a norbornene that, when subjected to tensile stress, undergoes fission into a UV-light-sensitive diarylethene.

The modification of DNA at cytosine and thymine, such as methylation, hydroxylation and formylation, might have epigenetic roles. In this Review, the authors discuss established and newer methods for the detection of these modifications in genomic DNA.

One promising technology for modern energy and chemical conversions is chemical looping, central to which are redox cycles of metal oxides. This Review describes chemical looping schemes and the mechanisms by which metal oxide particles enable these technologies.

Large increases in the amount of information produced year on year motivate the development of new storage media. This Review addresses the current status of data storage at the level of single polymer chains: in DNA, proteins and synthetic polymers.

This Perspective describes the physical molecular driving forces that stabilize native lignocellulosic plant biomass structures and govern thermochemical biomass pretreatments. Understanding these driving forces can help us to design efficient methods for deconstructing biomass into biofuels and other bioproducts.