Volume 16

  • No. 3 March 2024

    Caught in a trap

    Sulfate-binding proteins — which capture sulfate from water using hydrogen bonds from charge-neutral motifs — serve as key inspiration in anion receptor chemistry, but synthetic systems showing similar selectivity have so far been elusive. Xin Wu, Evelyne Deplazes and colleagues have now made a neutral molecular cage that binds sulfate in water using 12 hydrogen atoms, as depicted artistically on the cover. The background shows an empty cage and an unbound sulfate.

    See Jing et al.

  • No. 2 February 2024

    Links in a chain

    The assembly of artificial cell-like structures into interconnected networks with collective functions can improve our understanding of artificial multicellularity and is a step towards the construction of artificial tissues. Now, Yiyang Lin, Stephen Mann, Yan Qiao and co-workers have shown that a population of coacervate micro-droplets can spontaneously assemble into chain-like networks self-sorted as alternating sequences (as shown in an artistic representation on the cover). These superstructures enable spatially localized catalysis, molecular translocation and biomolecular sorting.

    See Mu et al.

  • No. 1 January 2024

    Identifying an elusive intermediate

    Trans–cis photoisomerization plays an essential role in various biological settings such as vision, ion pumping, and light sensing. The prototypical trans–cis photoisomerization of stilbenes (an artistic impression of which is depicted on the cover) is thought to occur via an intermediate with a perpendicular conformation; however, its unambiguous identification has thus far proved difficult. Using ultrafast Raman spectroscopy and ab initio molecular dynamics simulations, Tahei Tahara and colleagues now characterize the common, perpendicular intermediate of stilbene photoisomerization, revealing its ultrafast birth and decay upon photoexcitation of the trans and cis forms.

    See Kuramochi et al.