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  • Confining reactants inside a porous coordination polymer allows unstable intermediates along a reaction path to be studied by a method usually reserved for stable crystalline compounds.

    • Stephen Davey
    Research Highlights
  • The therapeutic delivery of NO molecules can be delayed by 'hiding' them within a block copolymer micelle.

    • Gavin Armstrong
    Research Highlights
  • A simple molecule with a carbon–sulfur triple bond has been prepared photochemically.

    • Neil Withers
    Research Highlights
  • Obtaining financial support for scientific research is generally more difficult for work that is fundamental in nature rather than applied. Bruce C. Gibb contemplates how topics such as complexity might get their share — and why it is vital that they do.

    • Bruce C. Gibb
    Thesis
  • Improvements to the efficiency and lifetime of polymer electrolyte membrane fuel cells can be realized by finding more active and stable electrocatalytic cathode materials. A computational search has found two such alloys and confirmed their enhanced properties experimentally.

    • Karl J. J. Mayrhofer
    • Matthias Arenz
    News & Views
  • By studying non-covalent assemblies in the gas phase, it is possible to examine the mobility of the components within a single complex — rather than between different complexes — using hydrogen/deuterium exchange reactions.

    • Jennifer S. Brodbelt
    News & Views
  • Dinitrogen ligands — key for understanding how atmospheric nitrogen can be reduced — almost exclusively have even-numbered oxidation states. Now, however, lanthanide complexes with [N2]3− ligands have been synthesized and investigated.

    • Paul J. Chirik
    News & Views
  • Catalysis using gold has fast become a major research field with great potential, and many new discoveries are being made. Graham Hutchings reflects on how this has come about.

    • Graham Hutchings
    In Your Element
  • The concept of the chemical bond has been around for quite some time and there are many models that try to explain what is going on in that hazy world of electron density that glues atoms together. But molecules that challenge our notion of just what a chemical bond is continue to be reported, often presenting us with more questions than answers.

    • Henry S. Rzepa
    Commentary
  • The highly selective oxidation of just one carbon–hydrogen bond out of almost 50 in a late-stage precursor can be used to construct the macrocyclic core on which the erythromycin antibiotics are based, and demonstrates the potential of such C–H activation approaches for natural product synthesis.

    • Huw M. L. Davies
    News & Views
  • An amphiphilic molecule that contains a protein-specific ligand and an NMR-active tag forms the basis of a protein sensor. A measurable NMR signal results only in the presence of active protein that causes disassembly of clusters of the amphiphile.

    • Malar A. Azagarsamy
    • S. Thayumanavan
    News & Views
  • Exponential signal amplification is achieved when a single molecule of analyte initiates a chain reaction in which a dendrimer releases a coloured 'reporter' molecule, and ultimately four further molecules of the analyte.

    • Magdalena A. Swiderska
    • Jean-Louis Reymond
    News & Views
  • In a Dutch city famous for the treaty that led to the creation of the European Union, delegates gathered at a conference to discuss recent advances in the chemistry of macrocyclic and supramolecular systems.

    • Oren A. Scherman
    News & Views
  • The 2009 Nobel Prize in Chemistry will soon be awarded amid the usual speculation, angst, disagreement and elation — but is it really worth all the fuss?

    Editorial
  • The unfolding of a mechanically weaker protein domain can be inhibited by inserting it into a stronger domain, creating the possibility of forming multifunctional elastomeric proteins.

    • Gavin Armstrong
    Research Highlights
  • Following tin and silicon, the germanium analogues of carboranes add to the line up of group 14 boron compounds.

    • Neil Withers
    Research Highlights
  • A two-dimensional polymer with regularly spaced atomic-scale pores is prepared by a silver-surface-promoted polymerization of a macrocycle.

    • Stephen Davey
    Research Highlights