Becoming an assistant professor brings with it numerous challenges, one of which is teaching undergraduate courses for the first time. Shira Joudan reflects on the ups and downs of setting up and delivering her first course.

Fluoroalkyl fragments are ubiquitous motifs in pharmaceuticals and agrochemicals, but their introduction to a given molecule typically involves expensive or difficult-to-handle reagents. Now, the photocatalysed hydrofluoroalkylation of alkenes has been achieved using simple and readily available fluoroalkyl carboxylic acids.

Stereoselective decarboxylative protonation can produce diverse chiral molecules from widely available carboxylic acids. However, general and practical strategies are lacking. Now, a chiral spirocyclic phosphoric acid-catalysed decarboxylation of aminomalonic acids has enabled the modular synthesis of α-amino acids.

Fires are relatively common yet underreported occurrences in chemical laboratories, but their consequences can be devastating. Here we describe our first-hand experience of a savage laboratory fire, highlighting the detrimental effects that it had on the research group and the lessons learned.

Current electrochemical-based protein labelling methods suffer from limited site-selectivity and off-target reactivity owing to required radical/electrophilic reagents. Now an electrochemical strategy enables chemoselective labelling of proteins at a site-specifically incorporated 5-hydroxytryptophan residue using aromatic amines as coupling partners. This approach works on various proteins, including a full-length antibody, and is compatible with established click reactions.

Robust protocols for the synthesis of chiral α-tertiary amino acids remain scarce due to the challenge of constructing congested tetrasubstituted stereocentres. Now a cobalt-catalysed enantioselective aza-Barbier reaction of ketimines with various unactivated alkyl halides has been developed, forming diverse chiral α-tertiary amino esters with high enantioselectivity and excellent functional group tolerance.

The umpolung functionalization of imines bears vast synthetic potential, but polarity inversion is less efficient compared with the carbonyl counterparts. Now, an alternative strategy exploiting chiral phosphoric acid catalytic aromatization has been developed, affording structures possessing a central chirality or a stereogenic C–N axis with high efficiency and enantiocontrol.

Methods for transition-metal-catalysed enantioselective C(sp³)–S bond construction are underdeveloped. Now, by taking advantage of the biomimetic radical homolytic substitution manifold, the copper-catalysed enantioconvergent C(sp³)–S cross-coupling of racemic secondary and tertiary alkyl halides with highly transformable sulfur nucleophiles has been realized. This reaction provides access to an array of α-chiral alkyl organosulfur compounds.

Borenium ions have traditionally served as main group (pre-)catalysts, and their use in materials-related applications have been limited by their instability. Now, a series of fully π-conjugated azaboraacenium ions derived from carbodicarbene have been developed that exhibit high air and moisture stability with full colour-tunable luminescence. Furthermore, these azaboraacene cations mimic the electronic structures of higher-order carbonaceous acenes while featuring enhanced resistance to photo-oxidation.

Light-induced azobenzene cis/trans isomerization has been extensively investigated, but the mechanical strength of its cis/trans structure is not well understood. Now it has been shown that cis azobenzene is mechanically less stable than the trans isomer due to its regiochemical structure, as revealed by single-molecule force spectroscopy.

Becoming an assistant professor brings with it numerous challenges, one of which is teaching undergraduate courses for the first time. Shira Joudan reflects on the ups and downs of setting up and delivering her first course.

Daniel Rabinovich outlines the story of insulin, the essential drug for the treatment of diabetes during the past century.

Didier Astruc surveys the numerous applications of ferrocene, from catalysis to materials and redox-related devices including biosensors and nanomedicine.

In the third of a trilogy of essays on types of intelligence, Bruce Gibb mines the thoughts of some of his peers on what personal qualities help chemists achieve success in the lab.

Few explosives are better-known to non-chemists than trinitrotoluene (TNT). Thomas M. Klapötke reflects on the enduring appeal of TNT and whether its starring role as an explosive is nearing its end.

Teaching the history of science along with the science itself can give students greater context about the topic they are learning and a wider perspective on how it has developed. Michelle Francl, who has wrestled with how much time to spend on teaching history in the chemistry classroom for years, considers how unconventional histories can shift the curriculum.