Nature Chemistry | The Sceptical Chymist

Rhyming research

Great science is not easily recognized without good writing skills. In view of this, we have decided to introduce a new prerequisite for the consideration of manuscripts at Nature Chemistry: Authors are requested to include a short poem highlighting the novel conclusions of their work. (Special consideration will be given to those who prepare their entire manuscript in iambic pentameter.)

This new submission requirement will be in effect from the date of this blog post.

Steve

Stephen Davey (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Comments

  1. Report this comment

    Maxine said:

    An elementary requirement

    For work as great as mine

    I know you’ll like my paper

    About water into wine.

    So how about a highlight

    Right above the fold

    And a twenty page article

    For all my words of gold?

  2. Report this comment

    Neil said:

    Spotter’s badge to Stu for this one, but have you seen the J. Org. Chem. paper that’s written in verse (J. Org. Chem. 36, 184–186 (1971) DOI: 10.1021/jo00800a036)?!

    The (prosaic) title is “Comparative mobility of halogens in reactions of dihalobenzenes with potassium amide in ammonia”, but it begins

    Reactions of potassium amide

    With halobenzenes in ammonia

    Via benzyne intermediates occur[3,4].

    And of course published poet Roald Hoffmann (who also happens to be a Nobel Laureate in Chemistry) had the following table of contents abstract for a review in Angewandte Chemie (DOI: 10.1002/anie.200900373; contents here.):

    If, to ammonia one adds a metal,

    The solution grows real unsettled.

    A fine blue color is seen throughout

    First by Humphry Davy, no doubt.

    From lithium, electrons are released

    The density of the solution decreased!

    Soaked electrons are born, spins pair

    Until a real band forms, debonaire!

    Lowering the T of this ebullition

    Impels a liquid-liquid partition,

    Superconductivity? Why not?

    Molecular orbitals hit the spot.

    From blue to gold, the story unfolds.