It is lovely weather here in Boston, and we are all enjoying it very much. In fact, a friend of mine recently found a patch of wild blueberries, and so this past weekend I made some blueberry pie. Yum!

This little excursion also got me thinking about pi more generally. In my undergraduate days, my study partners and I really struggled in physical chemistry. We had homework assignments every night (unusual for a class at my university) and, even more strangely, we were given the numerical answers. We just had to figure out how to get them. After many weeks of trying all possible equations that we knew for every problem, one of us had an insight: as long as we used pi somewhere, somehow, we could always get to the right answer - sometimes you had to multiply by pi, sometimes dividing, etc., but always pi. We called this the pi factor. (Then the struggle was to figure out _why_ we needed pi in each case... is this the why factor??)

On a related note, I often see papers where an unexpected increase in binding affinity, or the critical requirement of a phenyl ring on a small molecule inhibitor, or similar, is simply explained by invoking pi-stacking. This is interesting to me: since it is often extremely difficult to provide quantitative (or even qualitative) data to confirm or refute the presence of pi-stacking (especially in large/complex systems), I wonder if some shout-outs to this interaction are just another way that people are using the pi factor? In this case, as something that makes intuitive sense, but will not likely need to be anything more than a vague reference?

Perhaps as we continue to learn about this fundamental intermolecular interaction, and methodologies continue to improve, it will not be so easy to call on pi in any ill-defined way. As long as it doesn't jeopardize my dessert...

Catherine (associate editor, Nature Chemical Biology)

Posted by Catherine Goodman at 01:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

It's been a while, I know, I'm sorry...

So, after counting out which day of our journal journey we're on, number 179 it turns out, here is another entry in the life of setting up a journal.

At the ACS meeting in New Orleans earlier this year (one I will have a hard time forgetting) we gave away Nature Chemistry labcoats - or at any rate we got people to sign up for a couple of e-alerts and then promised to send them a labcoat. Well, we've followed through on that promise and if you were one of those who signed up, either your labcoat should have arrived quite recently, or it will be doing so in the next few days. (I've had reports of them turning up in some cases - let us know if yours has arrived by commenting on this post..).

We've decided to do the same thing again in Philly at the next ACS meeting - sign up for a couple of e-alerts at the Nature Publishing Group stand at the expo (booth 1815/1817) and we'll give you a Nature Chemistry labcoat for free. Although it is not confirmed yet, we may even have some stock at the booth and so if you are quick, you might not have to wait to have yours mailed.

For a bit of fun we've decided to run a competition based on the labcoats... - and full details can be found on the Nature Chemistry Facebook group. We're asking you send us photos of you (or your friends) in your shiny new Nature Chemistry labcoat (and the logo should be visible so that we know you're not just using any old labcoat) - and the five most imaginative ones will win a year-long print subscription to the journal. Please keep the contents of the pictures SAFE (no standing next to explosions or flaming bottles of BuLi) and CLEAN (I'm not going to even explain that one...).

The competition will run through until Feb 2009, so you have plenty of time to snap some cool pics and send them to us - please go to the Nature Chemistry Facebook group for details of how to send us the photos - and that is also where we will post any photos (only the clean and safe ones though) that we receive. Feel free to send in as many photos of you (or your friends) in your Nature Chemistry labcoat as you wish (within reason) - and we'll be writing back to you in March next year if you've won!

So as not to discriminate against those who couldn't make it to New Orleans and won't be attending the ACS meeting in Philly, feel free to design your own custom Nature Chemistry labcoat and send us your pictures (again, clean and safe please...)

Good luck!

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 10:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

This week we have covered quite a range of topics in our Research Highlights...

First of all we have some nifty metal-ion sensors that are made by attaching different chromophores to 8-hydroxyquinoline - a group that serves as a receptor for various metal ions.

Then, we cover the latest twist on metal-organic frameworks in which simple benzene-based linkers have been replaced with much more funky carboranes - and see how that affects their gas adsorption properties.

Finally, some designer coordination polymers that not only act as hosts for water clusters and nitrate ions, but have an intricate interwoven topology based on the Borromean rings.

Tune in for more this time next week...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 08:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

Chemistry is both creative and incisive, so it gives us both medicines and biological mechanisms.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be - and why?

Perhaps a biologist, or if not a scientist then a judge.

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

Help solve the energy problem, probably with practical photovoltaic devices and batteries.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

Thomas Jefferson, to convince him that Hamilton was right.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab - and what was it?

Perhaps 40 years ago, generating a cyclopentadienyl cation and getting its spectrum.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

The recent biography of George Washington, and Bach's Goldberg Variations by Glenn Gould.

Ron Breslow is in the Department of Chemistry at Columbia University, and works on biomimetic chemistry, physical organic chemistry and molecular electronics.

Posted by Neil Withers at 05:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Shalom from Jerusalem, where I'm attending the 38th International Conference on Coordination Chemistry (or ICCC38 as it is thankfully abbreviated to).

The conference has only been going for a day, but here's a thought to keep you going: ENERGY.

Quite a big and important thought, but fortunately for the world, some of the world's top chemists are thinking about it pretty deeply. In yesterday's opening plenary lecture, Harry Gray of Caltech talked about his search to find cheaper alternatives to ruthenium-based dye-senstized solar cells. Ending on positive note, he told us he had secured funding for a project involving about 20-30 institutions across America (and BP in the UK). Even more positively, he then told all the young chemists in the audience to go out and make sure that in the future we can make everything we need from nitrogen, carbon dioxide, oxygen and sea-water, using solar power.

And Richard Schrock of MIT (didn't he win a prize a few years ago...?) finished today by discussing his long-standing battle to make a catalyst that can convert nitrogen to ammonia. But what's that got to do with energy, I hear you ask. Well, the Haber-Bosch process, developed almost 100 years ago and still used to create a staggering 100 million tons of ammonia a year today, consumes a whopping 1.4% of the world's energy. He isn't quite there yet, because the reaction is barely stoichiometric let alone catalytic. But he's working on it and left the audience thinking on the problems he (or rather his ligands) needs to overcome. Oh, and that's before you get the necessary hydrogen from splitting water with sunlight...

Don't hold your breath, but we might get there in the end.

Neil

Neil Withers (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Neil Withers at 02:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Another week and another set of Research Highlights to tell you about...

First up is a report on the conversion of carbon-11 labelled methyl iodide into formaldehyde using a rapid and high-yielding approach, that offers new opportunities for radio-labelling.

Next, we feature a couple of papers in a single highlight, that look at protein synthesis and crystallization. The twist here is that both mirror image forms of a protein are synthesized chemically and then the racemate is crystallized in order to study their structural properties.

Finally, researchers in Japan take a closer look at nucleophilic aromatic substitution reactions and observe an elusive sigma-complex intermediate through which the reactions are thought to proceed.

More next week...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 08:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Hi all,

Important news first: Our new issue is out today - including a focus on cooperativity. And in the spirit of cooperativity (or lack of time??? You be the judge), I've decided that you all should help me write the rest of the information about the issue. So, please comment and let me know whether you found Jamie Williamson's Perspective on macromolecular assembly more thought-provoking than Adrian Whitty's suggestion that cooperativity is the most basic type of emergent property, or vice versa. Or, if reading about Scientists without Borders made you revisit your desire to join the Peace Corps... All kinds of things to think about.

Otherwise, I'm off to a meeting at an undisclosed location. Theoretically it'll be nice to get out of this Boston heat, but the weather report of my destination sounds just the same... yikes! Silly summer.

Catherine

Posted by Catherine Goodman at 02:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

It’s certainly not a career you just fall into to but there was certainly no point at school at which I thought “I want to be a chemist”. I enjoyed chemistry at school so I continued doing it at university. As the physical side of it got more complex I got more and more immersed in it and couldn’t get out!

The move to publishing came when I realized that I couldn’t see myself spending any more time in the lab. I enjoyed reading other people’s research more than I did doing my own. I also realized that I’d like to spend more time reading more diverse science than what I could when doing fairly specialist projects.

2. If you weren't a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be - and why?

I think I’d always have ended up in publishing but if I was to choose what I could write about it would be sports. I love football (soccer) and cricket and being able to watch it and get paid for it would be great!

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

There are two things that I think are very important. The first one is for chemists to not only address the major problems that are facing civilization currently, such as energy and sustainability, but to continue to work on fundamental problems still not fully understood. The second thing is to teach and discuss science with enthusiasm. Interest from non-specialists and students is fostered through passionate teachers. So many chemists tell stories about great teachers inspiring them to work in science and this is a responsibility that shouldn’t be taken lightly.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with – and why?

I have a real answer and a “professional” answer. My real answer is Brian Clough. For those of you who were not big football (soccer) fans in the 70’s and 80’s he was a manager (coach) for several English teams. During his career he won everything (English and European competitions) basically through great man management. He trusted his team and they trusted him. He would ask them to do something and even though they might not have understood why (any grad students know that feeling?) they would do it anyway (any grad students know that one?).

My professional answer is Ed Lorenz. Sadly, he died very recently but his legacy will live forever. His discovery of deterministic chaos in weather systems sounds like it could be interesting to only a select group of meteorologists, but the intrinsic mathematics behind those systems are important to so many researchers, from biologists to economists, that it started a new way of looking at deterministic systems. He had one of those “eureka” moments and it would be great to hear him talk about it!

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab - and what was it?

I really can’t remember the last actual lab experiment I did. I left the lab to carry out some computational work half way through my PhD and I forgot to go back! So if simulations count then the last batch I ran were related to a kind of spiral pattern that I’d previously observed in the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction. In the experiments it behaved in a way that had never been reported before that we couldn’t obviously explain. We couldn’t reproduce its behaviour in the simulations no matter what we tried!

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book, and one CD would you take with you?

My book choice is High Fidelity by Nick Hornby. It introduced me to the concept of “Top 5s”, the greatest pub game ever (if it needs explanation it’s basically just listing your top 5 songs, films, papers in Nature this year, 1970 cop shows, etc.). As for music, it would be Definitely Maybe by Oasis; a classic.

Gavin Armstrong is an Associate Editor for Nature Chemistry.

Posted by Alison Stoddart at 05:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Cross-posted from here

There are two clear front runners in Russian state TV’s ‘greatest Russian’ contest. So far Josef Stalin and Tsar Nicholas II are way ahead in the poll, which is being decided by that arbiter of our age: online voting.

But what about Russia’s great scientists? How are they faring? It is quite impressive how many scientists have actually made the voting shortlist.

Cosmonaut and first man in space Yury Alekseyevich Gagarin is currently in tenth place with 96,000 votes. Although far behind the 280,000-odd of the two leaders this still puts him ahead of Boris Yeltsin.

Slightly further down in 14 with 81,000 is Mikhail Lomonosov, scientist and the man who gave his name to that troublesome ridge in the Arctic. Nuclear physicist Andrei Sakharov is in 18th place with 38,000 votes and aeronautics expert Konstantin Tsiolkovsky polls 13,000, putting him in 28th place.

Not so popular is the great chemist Dmitri Mendeleev, inventor of the periodic table. He’s stuck down in 33rd place with a shockingly paltry 8,000 votes. This is possibly because of the hugely unflattering photograph used, which makes him look like a slightly elderly Rasputin or Alan Moore on a bad day.

Come on chemists! Vote him up! With 4,000 votes we can get him above both Tolstoy and Bulgakov...

Daniel Cressey

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Nature had on its cover yesterday a great story about transmission electron microscopy (TEM). No, really.

Jannik Meyer, now at Ulm University, and Alex Zettl, at Berkeley, have developed a technique, kind of by accident, to allow them to see single atoms of teeny elements, even hydrogen, in a standard TEM. Check out the paper, related news and views and online news piece.

Posted by Katharine Sanderson at 06:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Greetings from Belgium, land of beer, chocolate, moules frites and organic chemistry. I’m at the 11th Belgian Organic Synthesis Symposium (BOSS) in Ghent, and it has a line-up to die for: Hartwig, Du Bois, Enders, Shibasaki, Fuerstner and Trost, to name but a few.

The event kicked off with Erick Carreira giving a full day of talks, covering the many aspects of his work, from total synthesis to hardcore catalyst design. He was initially almost thwarted by microphone feedback reminiscent of the sound effects from Close Encounters of the Third Kind (only louder). For some reason, even in the 21st century, conference organizers can’t get microphones to work properly. But once the sound problems were overcome, the talks were great. There are very few people that I’d happily listen to all day, but Carreira is one of them.

While talking about his work preparing an analogue of Amphotericin B, Carreira mentioned something that has become a theme of the conference - the continuing importance of total synthesis. There has been much touting of metabolic engineering - genetically modifying organisms to produce analogues of natural products - as an alternative to total synthesis. But as Carreira points out, it takes years to work out biosynthetic pathways in an organism, and then to modify that organism to knock out part of a pathway to produce just one analogue of a metabolite. Chemists can do the job in much the same time (or in less time, depending on the complexity of the molecules), and can also introduce chemical groups that simply don’t occur naturally - which is vital for drug discovery.

Carreira certainly wasn’t dismissing metabolic engineering out of hand - he acknowledged that the field is advancing all the time, and that it undoubtedly has a bright future for making complex organic molecules. But we’re also getting better and better at organic synthesis, so there will always be room for both chemical and biological strategies. Carreira’s 35-deoxy- analogue of Amphotericin B was invaluable in helping to unravel the biological mechanism of action of the parent compound - something that biologists have so far been unable to do alone. So here’s to a future of collaboration with our colleagues in the life sciences.

Andy

Andrew Mitchinson (Senior Editor, Nature)

Posted by amitchinson at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Retread

If you look back at your notes on thermodynamics, you are likely to find a blizzard of partial derivatives, state functions and total differentials. As an organic chemist, I had an intuitive understanding of the thermodynamics I needed at the molecular level (actually it's pretty simple), but the math and the big ideas were not friends. Should you be in the same boat and wish to get the big picture, have a look at "Four Laws that Drive the Universe" by Peter Atkins. It's 124 small pages, written extremely well and bounces back and forth between the macroscopic and the microscopic illuminating each by the other. If there is a derivative to be found, I missed it.

The book may produce in you physics envy (with apologies to Freud). On p. 45 you will find a discussion of Noether's theorem, which states that under all the conservation laws of physics lies a symmetry. The first law (conservation of energy) is really about the symmetry of time flow — e.g., "time flows steadily, it does not bunch up and run faster then spread out and run slowly." Chemistry just doesn't have statements of such majesty (or strangeness).

If you liked Atkins you'll love "Boltzmann's Atom" by David Lindley. It concerns Boltzmann's trials and tribulations as he developed statistical mechanics. As a neurologist I doubt that they drove him to suicide at 62 (he sounds pretty loosely wrapped throughout his life). Boltzmann's big opponent was Ernst Mach, who didn't see the need for atoms as an explanatory device. Mach's view was that physics should establish laws tying observable phenomena together — e.g., the ideal gas law etc, etc... Postulating something you couldn't see to explain something you could, was not considered science (by Mach and his followers). Pretty strange to our way of thinking today, but these were the events of just over 100 years ago.

However, vestiges of Mach’s thinking linger on in the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics. As junior chemistry majors in the 50s we had to read "The Logic of Modern Physics" written by P. W. Bridgeman in 1927. It was our introduction to quantum mechanics (as none of us had the math to tackle it). All you could hope to predict by a theory were 'numbers on a dial'. Going deeper, by hoping for a trajectory explaining things was a no no (the nodes in atomic and molecular orbitals pretty much rule out trajectories don't they?). The book drove us nuts at the time, as chemistry back then was firmly on the macroscopic side of the quantum mechanical divide.

Gibbs and Maxwell make their appearance in Lindley's book, as does the culture and politics of Austria-Hungary before WWI, so there is some breathing room for the reader. One of the founders of physical chemistry, Wilhelm Ostwald, also appears. He doesn't come off too well — he was enamored of something called energetics, which to Boltzmann (and to Lindley who is a physicist) meant that he really didn't understand physics very well.

Atoms were finally accepted after Einstein's work on Brownian motion in 1905 (also described). Parenthetically, there was a similar controversy ending about the same time, as to whether the brain was made of cells, and whether individual neurons existed, or whether the whole brain was a big gemish of nuclei and fibers.

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 05:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

OK OK, it's another periodic table - but we're CHEMISTS and we love 'em. This one really is quite different though.

Martyn Poliakoff and his colleagues at Nottingham University have got together with video journalist Brady Haran to create short videos about every single element. It's still a work in progress, but they're only missing 20. The Daily Telegraph describes the clips as 'lively' and containing 'explosive experiments that are now rarely carried out in British schools' - you have been warned!

You can even subscribe to the YouTube feed to be notified when they upload new ones.

For those hungry for more explosions, we can recommended searching for Group 1 or 2 metals on YouTube...

Neil

Neil Withers (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Neil Withers at 08:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Materials Girl

Summer break highlights the differences between the working world and academia — notably at the undergraduate level and below. While the 'lower' students generally have three months of relaxation, professors, grad students, and others in the workforce must keep working (or catching up on it). In previous years, I imagined that being a perpetual student or teacher would leave summers utterly free for my own time. Hah. Hah.

During the past school year, my experience researching in a materials lab revealed the world of graduate studies and taught that school never ends – especially for the motivated grad student. Now, interning with an industrial research lab is conditioning me to the clockwork of getting up at the crack of dawn, working a 9–5 (or longer), then having to eat, socialize with neighbors, and run errands early in the evening before going to bed. Needless to say, it is quite a difference from the undergrad life of taking classes — ideally at 10am, spending just some time in lab, and staying up to the crack of dawn studying...

I have yet to determine which I prefer. The corporate lifestyle is somewhat automated, but not necessarily with the harassed, stressful, all-night pace of exams, research, and the general insanity associated with academia. In the end, as long as there is something to interest and drive the intellectual mind, it should all work out – but that could be the hardest part. I’ve got a few more years still to decide ‘what I want to be when I grow up’.

Posted by Neil Withers at 06:19 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Morning everyone, it's Research Highlights time.

First up, Gav covers a paper from our sister journal, Nature Materials. It's by Michael Grätzel and colleagues, and they've developed stable ionic liquid mixtures to use in solar cells.

Although sniffer dogs aren't out of a job just yet, 'electronic noses' are getting better. Here's one that combines peptides with Si nanowires to sniff out molecules in the gas phase.

A lot of work on porous materials is focused on the size of the pores, but it looks like subtle changes in the materials building blocks can affect the reactivity of guest molecules.

And finally, we love this video of a chemical party that promotes the EU-funded Marie Curie Actions to support 'training and mobility activities for researchers'.

Neil

Neil Withers (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Neil Withers at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

I have always been curious about how things work and liked solving puzzles. In fact, when I was very young, I conducted experiments on plants, systematically exposing them to different conditions such as sunlight and drops of water in order to determine the optimal conditions for growth. So when I was in junior high and learned about chemistry, I realized that this was the field that interested me. At the age of twelve, I decided to be a chemistry professor.

2. If you weren't a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be - and why?

I would work in animal conservation. Protecting the diversity of the earth’s wildlife from loss of habitat and the effects of global warming is something I feel passionate about. Whether I would study genetics of endangered species at a place like the San Diego Wild Animal Park or would work in the field on an animal management team, I am not sure.

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

We already contribute greatly to the world: everything from making life-saving drugs to extra-absorbent diapers. I think chemists will continue to play a crucial role in society, making positive impacts in alternative energy, combating world disease, and purifying drinking water, to name a few.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with - and why?

Michelangelo. I once read a book about him that also discussed more generally the chemistry of frescos and paints. I would be really interested to talk with him about how frescoes are made and how he was able to carve the statue of David such that the proportions are correct to the distant viewer. I would like to know if he did indeed paint parts of the Sistine Chapel with both hands by memory rather than by drawings to save time. Besides, I suppose I would get to eat some good Italian food.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab - and what was it?

It was approximately two years ago — I made protein reactive initiators to polymerize styrene. Members of my group continued that work, synthesizing polystyrene that binds to free cysteines and aldehydes at one or both ends. We are currently preparing derivatives of these initiators to form protein-based nanocapsules for delivery of hydrophobic drugs.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

The book is easy — I would take Norton’s Anthology of Poetry. I would never tire of reading it. For the CD, I would take some Hawaiian music as that would be definitely appropriate for a desert island.

Heather Maynard is in the Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry at the University of California, Los Angeles, and works on protein conjugation to polymers and surfaces for biomedical applications and nanotechnology.

Posted by Neil Withers at 05:08 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Posted on behalf of Materials Girl

It feels as though many months have passed since I last posted – every closing term of the school year loves to drag on forever. My third year as an undergraduate is over!

After a mad scramble with finals, moving out of a dorm room, repacking for an apartment, and driving many miles, I am now settled in Silicon Valley for the summer. Housing is provided through a joint program between a local university and research center, and I have rather gleefully been absorbing the new surroundings. The next few months will be spent getting up at 6:30 am, commuting to work, basking in chemicals, researching nanorods, attending meetings/seminars, and avoiding the status of ‘sleepy, zombified intern’...

More to come.

Posted by Neil Withers at 06:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We have just the thing to pick you up from your post-weekend back-to-work blues: another selection of research highlights.

Our first highlight reports work on a clever self-healing coating, made-up of several nanolayers, that can heal itself after being scratched.

In the second selection, Ros highlights the synthesis of dendritic scaffolds that could have potential as bacterial infection inhibitors.

Single-molecule magnets are the focus of the third highlight, more specifically the modification of their properties by encapsulating them with polyoxometalate ligands.

And finally, following on from our previous post on periodic tables: Daniel over on “The Great Beyond” told us of a new and strange chemistry creature — a chemical element elephant.

Gav

Gavin Armstrong (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Gavin Armstrong at 04:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

1. What made you want to be a chemist?

The serious but predictable answer is a couple of really good science teachers, so thanks should go to the inspirational Andrew Munro and Jeremy Bushrod. The fun answer is John Nettles. I guess I should qualify that answer. It was my enthusiasm for a variety of TV cop shows – I use the term broadly to encompass a whole variety of mystery drama that initially made me consider forensic science as a career. Thankfully one or both of the above teachers encouraged me to keep my options open and study something broader – like chemistry. It’s a relief that at university I became more interested in organic chemistry, since I’ve saved myself from needing to be an expert in pathology, ballistics, analytical chemistry and all the other multi-talents exhibited by the average main character in these shows. Don’t get me wrong, I still watch these things, but the truth about the science gets heavily bent by the writer’s artistic licence.

2. If you weren’t a chemist and could do any other job, what would it be - and why?

I’m now too old to dream about becoming a professional sportsman of any sort, but whilst at the University of Sheffield, I took up playing snooker. I’m not good enough to do that professionally either, but I think I could make a decent stab at being a referee. I’d get to travel the world while doing something I love, and everyday would be different. The similarities to being a journal editor are quite frankly astonishing.

3. How can chemists best contribute to the world at large?

Aside from the obvious – solutions to disease, food shortage, energy, etc. – I think it would be great if we could dispel some of the myths about science. I’m forever disappointed that science is presented in schools as a long list of undeniable facts – the result of which is that many people who potentially could be great scientists are turned off at an early age and never return.

4. Which historical figure would you most like to have dinner with - and why?

Francis Bacon, one of the fathers of modern science philosophy. In many ways this relates to my answer to question 3. I’d also like to be able to check and dispel the myth that he was Shakespeare.

5. When was the last time you did an experiment in the lab - and what was it?

In the midst of the sink of entropy that was my fume cupboard – ask any who have shared a lab with me – it was probably a diazo-thioketone coupling reaction that is the cornerstone of making some of the light driven molecular motors of the Feringa group. I was rather pleased as I achieved a >90% yield in a reaction that was often problematic, although I think the particular combination of reactants I was using was the telling factor.

6. If exiled on a desert island, what one book and one CD would you take with you?

Queens’s greatest hits – I’m not sure how this works, but I know from experience that with time all music kept in a car becomes a Queen CD. I thought perhaps taking this with me would mean I would have access to a whole selection of music. As for the book – March’s Organic chemistry! No, seriously I’d have to take a fairly hefty tome though, I rarely read a book twice and I’d need something to keep me going for a long while once I realised that the Queen CD was a bad idea. Perhaps a survival guide might be a good idea as well – particularly if it included instructions on how to build a raft out of coconut shells.

Stephen Davey is an Associate Editor for Nature Chemistry.

Posted by Alison Stoddart at 05:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)