Going to conferences to share and learn about the latest science is a key part of being a researcher. Shira Joudan reflects on presenting their group’s research for the first time and guiding students through their first conference experiences.

Chirality in extended 2D structures exhibits fundamental differences from molecular-level chirality. This Perspective discusses how local molecular chirality is transmitted and amplified to form distinctive global chirality within ultrathin, single-crystalline 2D materials; it also explores the future challenges and potential of this field.

When one says the word alcohol to a non-chemist, it is typically in reference to ethanol, the first alcohol discovered. Chi Chen, Mahlet Garedew, and Stafford W. Sheehan toast ethanol’s past, present, and future.

The role of computers in the chemical sciences is changing. Previously the domain of the theoretical or computational chemist, advanced digital skills, including data analysis, automation and simulation, are becoming extremely relevant to all. Here, we discuss the importance of integrating digital skills into an undergraduate chemistry programme and highlight some work currently being carried out to achieve this.

Although molecular complexes can serve as well-defined model catalysts for CO₂ electroreduction, few compounds reduce CO₂ beyond two electrons. Now, hydrophobic molecular cobalt terpyridine complexes, containing perfluorinated alkyl side chains, have been shown to assemble at the gas–liquid–solid interface and to electrocatalytically reduce CO₂ to methane with high efficiencies.

Malononitriles are widely used precursors for the synthesis of diverse enantioenriched nitrogen-containing molecules, but controlling the stereochemistry of their asymmetric transformations is challenging. Now, the desymmetric reduction of disubstituted malononitriles to chiral amines has been achieved, enabled by a bidentate ligand with extended flanks that can differentiate between the precursor’s nitrile groups through tailored steric pairings.

Understanding how photoswitchable chiral dopants can control the helical pitch of host liquid crystals will aid the development of smart and adaptive soft materials. Now the molecular-level mechanisms that control the chirality transfer in chiral triptycene-containing bistable hydrazones have been elucidated. This enables the preparation of rewritable multi-coloured liquid crystal canvases.

Despite widespread use of azides across material science and various areas across chemistry, the underlying biosynthetic pathways for its formation have so far been unknown. Now, a promiscuous ATP-utilizing enzyme, Tri17, capable of synthesizing various azide molecules has been identified. Biochemical, structural and computational analyses support a potential molecular mechanism for azide formation by Tri17.

Aldolases have been a mainstay in synthesis, but their scope has been limited to activated electrophiles. Now carbon–carbon bond formation with ketone electrophiles is enabled by transaldolases, which form a strong nucleophile that is resistant to protonation. This chemistry enables convergent synthesis of non-canonical amino acids bearing tertiary alcohol side chains.

The synthesis of alkenes from carboxylic acids, alcohols and alkanes is a formidable challenge owing to their inherent differences in reactivity. Now the one-pot conversion of these building blocks into alkenes is reported through an integrated photochemical strategy using a phenyl vinyl ketone as the olefination reagent.

Adam Noble discusses the diverse uses of eosin Y over its 150-year history, from its origin as a dye and pigment used by post-impressionist masters to its versatile reactivity as a catalyst in visible light photochemistry.

Before the internet, chemists used references books to find necessary information. Michelle Francl takes us on a journey through the weird and wondrous world captured in the most famous reference book of them all, known to some as the ‘Rubber Bible’.

When one says the word alcohol to a non-chemist, it is typically in reference to ethanol, the first alcohol discovered. Chi Chen, Mahlet Garedew, and Stafford W. Sheehan toast ethanol’s past, present, and future.

Going to conferences to share and learn about the latest science is a key part of being a researcher. Shira Joudan reflects on presenting their group’s research for the first time and guiding students through their first conference experiences.

The role of computers in the chemical sciences is changing. Previously the domain of the theoretical or computational chemist, advanced digital skills, including data analysis, automation and simulation, are becoming extremely relevant to all. Here, we discuss the importance of integrating digital skills into an undergraduate chemistry programme and highlight some work currently being carried out to achieve this.