Each Friday, the Nature Chemistry website will be updated with three new research highlights about interesting work that has caught the attention of the editors, here is this week's line up:

Heterogeneous catalysis:
Scanning transmission electron tomography is used to create 3D images of active sites in nanoscale catalysts

Surface chemistry:
Subsurface carbon and hydrogen have an important role in selective palladium-catalysed alkyne hydrogenation

Alkaloid biogenesis:
Indole alkaloids extracted from closely related fungi lead to questions about how their biochemical pathways have evolved

The highlights are free to access, but you need to have a (free) nature.com account.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Apologies for not posting in Journal journeys as much as I would have hoped - the one overwhelming feature of setting up a new journal is that it leaves very little time to blog...

I did want to take 10 minutes, however, to let you know that Nature Chemistry now has an editorial team - although it's not complete just yet (we're also looking for someone to be based in the Tokyo office). Brief editor bios (and their stunning headshots) can be found here on the new Nature Chemistry website. Each editor will also write their own Reactions piece in the coming weeks, so that you'll get to know them a little better - and perhaps I'll even get around to writing one myself sometime soon.

As part of the new website, we'll also be publishing three new research highlights each Friday*, covering what we think are important papers appearing in the literature. These will be freely available on the Nature Chemistry website (although you may have to register for a nature.com account to access them).

*The first batch go live - with the new website - on a Thursday, not a Friday, because as I have learned, never push a new product live on a Friday... it doesn't give you too much room for error before the weekend hits...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 06:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

The new chemistry podcast from Nature is now live! - and can be found here.

In this episode of Chempod, we get caught up in catalysis, discover drawbacks to some Alzheimer's drug candidates, and bring you a round up of the best of the American Chemical Society meeting in New Orleans.

(...and I make my podcasting debut - please be gentle...)

Enjoy!

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 07:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Getting to New Orleans for this meeting has been tricky for some - including the student who drove all the way from Cincinnati, Ohio when the airline he was planning to travel with ceased operations. I think I can top that, however...

Myself and two colleagues from Nature Publishing Group flew with Virgin Atlantic from London on Saturday, arriving in Washington Dulles just after 3 pm. After eventually passing through immigration, we collected our luggage, cleared customs and then rechecked our bags for our onward flight to New Orleans - we had plenty of time, it was now just after 4 pm and our flight was due to leave at 5:30 pm. We were then given 'boarding passes' - and I use this term loosely - and told that seats would be assigned at the gate.

After our second trip on the very odd buses at Dulles - I think they resemble what I suspect people in the 1960s would imagine vehicles of the future to look like - we arrived at our gate, only to be told that we were on standby. Apparently in the dictionary that is used by United Airlines' employees, the word 'confirmed' means something completely different from what most of us would expect it to. Never mind the fact that we had just flown across an ocean, we weren't getting on the flight...

Apparently the plane was a smaller one that it should have been and we were the chosen ones sacrificed for the greater good - if only it had been explained to us so eloquently, perhaps it wouldn't have felt quite so bad. I take that back, it still would have sucked. At this point, we had run into Bruce Gibb - a chemist from the University of New Orleans - who just happened, coincidentally, to be flying back home from a trip to Portland. What was he doing in Washington, I hear you cry... well, he had been scheduled to travel via Denver, but United Airlines had kindly re-routed him through Dulles and then bumped him from the same flight that we were bumped from.

Looking on the bright side, however, our luggage made the flight... (although I thought that in the post 9-11 haze, bags could not fly without their owners - can someone comment on this?). At this point, after I accused them of kidnapping my bags, we were instructed to go to the 'customer service' desk (again, another description that has precious little to do with the reality of the thing) where we would have our flights rescheduled - perhaps for the 9:55 pm flight. Well, glaciers move faster than the line we were waiting in, and we eventually reached the front after roughly four hours... no 9:55 pm flight for us.

United told us that they could fly us to LaGuardia in New York (yes folks, that's the wrong direction!) on Sunday morning and then there was a connecting American Airlines flight to New Orleans that would get us in around 1 pm. Only problem was that they couldn't confirm we'd get seats on that American flight, and we suspected that they were just trying to dump their problem on to another carrier. The only direct flight on which we could get a confirmed seat was the 9:55 pm flight on the Sunday evening - getting us in at around midnight... much too late to set up our stand at the exposition.

During our slow progress in the customer disservice line, we got chatting to Teresa, a senior from Cornell College in Iowa, who was due to receive a travel award (a little ironic don't you think?) at the ACS meeting. The catch was, however, that if she didn't arrive by approximately 5 pm on the Sunday, it would have been forfeited and given to someone else. So, the three of us from NPG, plus Bruce and Teresa decided to give up on United and hire a rental car - what's a 1000+ mile road trip between newly formed friends.

We left Dulles just before midnight on the Saturday and hit the road. Bruce took the first 200-mile, 3-hour driving shift . Teresa was charged with the important job of being a chatty passenger and keeping the driver awake while the others got some (rather uncomfortable) sleep in the back of the Ford Escape. She then repeated her entire life story a second time when I did the second 3-hour driving shift.

So, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, lots of junk food, enough Mountain Dew Code Red to sink a ship, and many games of 'I spy' later, we arrived at New Orleans airport, 17 hours and 1133 miles after leaving Dulles. And miracles do happen, our bags were waiting for us and hadn't been diverted to Timbuktu. And best of all, Teresa made it to the ceremony in time to get her travel award - and no one can say she didn't deserve it at that point!

As Bruce pointed out, it took him longer to get to this ACS meeting than any other - and this one was in his home town! I leave New Orleans on Thursday and as much as I loathe the idea that I must fly United (which I will never do again if I can avoid it), I'd rather not have to do another road trip...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

If you're here in New Orleans at the ACS meeting, time is running out to go to the Nature Publishing Group stand at the expo (booth #1247) to get your free Nature Chemistry lab coat.

In return for signing up for the Nature Chemistry and chemistry@nature.com e-alerts - which will keep you up-to-date with all chemistry content published at NPG - we'll send you a Nature Chemistry lab coat. Some samples of the lab coats are available on the stand, so go and check them out and sign up for yours! (There are limited numbers available, so get there while stocks last!).

There's also a chance to win a free iPod, and who doesn't like iPods, especially free ones...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

A quick note: as with most ACS meetings, I came armed with my camera, but this time I'm actually using it. For pictures of the NPG team at (and getting to) the conference, check out the Nature Chemistry group on Facebook... - Stuart

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 07:42 PM | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBacks (0)

If you are wondering why we've not blogged about the ACS meeting in New Orleans yet, there are a few reasons:

1) There are less editors here than usual
2) United Airlines are incompetent

Where do I begin..?

A group of us from NPG in the UK flew from London to Washington (Dulles) and arrived with plenty of time to spare to make our connection on United to New Orleans, we rechecked our bags, got handed boarding passes – sans seat assignments – and then headed to the gate to get our seats.

We didn't get seats.

I'll will write in more detail later in the week about what happened next, but if I do it now, it will be laced with enough expletives to have me fired from this job and never hired for another one, except perhaps to work in Gordon Ramsey's kitchen.

In the spirit of chemistry publishing, however, let me give you a preview using keywords: LaGuardia, Budget Car Rental, Bruce Gibb, Road Trip!, Travel Awards, Luggage... stay tuned.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 03:43 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sorry it's been a while since the last JJ post - recruitment, portal and website issues have conspired to stop me from blogging about Nature Chemistry for a little while... but there are a few things I would like to mention:

1. Nature Chemistry is looking for another associate editor, to be based in Tokyo - here is an excerpt from the job ad:

As part of NPG's expanding publishing programme in chemistry we are now seeking an additional Associate Editor, to be based in our Tokyo office, to work on Nature Chemistry and a number of publishing projects based in the Asia-Pacific region.

2. Nature Chemistry now has a Facebook page. I'm sure that half of the Sceptical Chymist readers have just groaned and the other half have let out some little whoop of joy (I'm just guessing at 50:50, for all I know it could be 99:1). Anyhow, consider it an experiment of some kind - let's see where it goes... why not join and come along for the ride?

3. I will start the obligatory - "Is anyone in blogo-land going to the ACS meeting in New Orleans?" thread. I am, and a few other NPG-types are, and there's always the possibility of a blogger get-together of some sort...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 12:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

We've decided to have a go at growing some potatoes at home, and so the other week a trip to a garden centre was required in order to get some compost. Two large weighty bags were duly wheeled back to the car, at which point I noticed that printed in the top-left hand corner of each bag was the following declaration:

100% CHEMICAL FREE

Although the bags haven't been opened yet, I'm pretty sure that neither of them contains a perfect vacuum... and that being the case, I think there may be one or two chemicals inside. I won't say which company made the compost, but if you're curious, you may want to look again at the title of this post.

Anyway, here was my chance to post what would surely be an amusing conversation between myself and the customer service hotline at said company. So, I gave them a quick call, left my details and waited for them to phone me back... which they did.

The very helpful and polite gentleman on the other end of the phone answered my first question of, 'So, what exactly are the ingredients in [brand name of compost]?' with a comprehensive list of very 'organicky' sounding things, such as bark, leaf mulch, horse manure, etc... I then asked if any of these ingredients contained any 'chemicals' and it was at this point that my childish hopes of being incredibly sarcastic to some poor unsuspecting soul were shattered.

"Oh, everything contains chemicals," came the response, "me, you, compost, everything. What it should say is 'no synthetic chemicals' - but our marketing department like it to say '100% chemical free', but that's their problem." (He may not have used these exact words, but they were similar).

I was a little disappointed at this point - no fun for me pointing out that even water is a chemical - but at least it did make me think that there is some hope for the human race... and besides, the chemically-aware gentleman went on to give me some great potato-growing advice!

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a quick plug for a new NPG 'Milestones' project headed up by Alison Wright and Andreas Trabesinger at Nature Physics.

In Alison's own words:

Nature Milestones in Spin tells the story of a physical concept that has had remarkable impact in chemistry, biology and medicine as well. The realization that elementary particles possess intrinsic angular momentum, or ‘spin’ has led to revelatory analysis techniques — NMR and MRI — and technological applications such as ‘spintronics’. The supplement is available free online for six months.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I'm sure that some of you may have noticed that the signature to my Friday post on 'Reactions' finally had a link in it to Nature Chemistry.

This is the first incarnation of the Nature Chemistry website and just covers the basics at this point. It will be fleshed out with a lot more details in a couple of months' time, but at least you can now see the colour...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (8) | TrackBacks (0)

As you will have noticed, today is Friday, and that brings with it a new Reactions piece to the Sceptical Chymist – but this one will be slightly different to the previous 52. That’s right, we’ve racked up a whole year’s worth, and so 'Reactions' is celebrating its first birthday!

Apart from finding out what people would want to be if not chemists, one of my favourite things is finding out who they would invite to dinner. A quick survey of the last year shows that the most popular dinner guest is Leonardo da Vinci (with 5 votes). Following on closely is Jesus (4 votes), then Feynman, Einstein, Darwin and Mozart were popular choices (each with 3 votes). Isaac Newton and Nelson Mandela were each picked twice and it’s worth noting that a few US presidents made the cut, John Adams and Abraham Lincoln – and although nobody thought to invite John F. Kennedy, his brother Robert was. Have a surf through the older entries – it’s quite interesting. I would suggest that the strangest choice was made by Mark Green...

So, at this point, I want to ask you – the readers – some questions. Please leave your responses as comments to this post, and I encourage all of you to join in.

Should the questions change?

'Reactions' will continue, but we wonder if some of the questions are wearing a bit thin at this point – our least favourite is probably number 3, ‘how can chemists best contribute to the world at large?’ because most people say the same sort of things... Of the other questions we currently use, are there some that you really like (or dislike) and if so, why? Do you have suggestions for other questions that you would like to see us asking?

Who would you like to see featured?

As has been commented on, it’s obvious that there are a lot more male than female chemists featured in the 'Reactions' series. I don’t know the total numbers of chemists that we’ve asked to participate, or the gender breakdown of those, but the only criterion we have in terms of who gets featured, is those that say ‘yes’. A very large number of 'Reactions' e-mails go unanswered, and a lot of people do say ‘no’. I would imagine we have asked more men than women, but not in the proportions ultimately featured on the blog.

If you have any suggestions of who you would like to see featured, either in terms of subject area, or specific chemists, we’ll see what we can do. Again, however, there is no guarantee someone will agree to be featured.

Normal service will be resumed next week, Ben List, who has just had a paper published in Nature, will be answering the current set of six questions.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 05:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

If a picture is worth a thousand words, what's a journal cover worth?

Well, in 2007, when I was on a paper that was lucky enough to be featured on the inside cover of Angewandte Chemie, it was 1000 Euros (that's almost $1500). If our artwork had been judged to have been worthy for the real cover, i.e., the one on the outside, it would have cost 1800 Euros - I don't know how the prices have changed since then. It's a similar story at Chem. Commun. - one of my papers made it to the inside cover back in 2005, and I think a 'contribution' was made to the production costs - I don't recall how much that was.

There has been some debate on journal cover art - some journals do have it and some don't. Some charge for it and some don't. Most authors in my experience are quite eager to have their work featured on a journal cover - it's a big glossy colourful advert for their work - and occasionally they make for nice posters too!

When establishing a new journal, especially here at NPG, it's another part of the process that needs some careful thought. A 'pre-launch' cover can be used on sample issues and in marketing campaigns to raise awareness of the journal in the community - in this case, the cover is not only an advert for the work it depicts, but the journal itself.

The reason I bring this up is that we've just finalized our 'pre-launch' cover for Nature Chemistry. Just like the other Nature research journals, on the cover of each issue we will have artwork that is related to the content inside - usually one of the research papers. Obviously we have no inside content yet - and so we had to think of an image that says 'chemistry' - and be inclusive of as many of the sub-fields as possible... not easy, and unless you just slap a stereotypical periodic table or a cheesy line-up of glassware containing pretty coloured liquids on it, there's a bit of thought involved. And you also want something that is visually striking.

I think we've checked a lot of the boxes and have a very good cover - you'll start seeing it on the web and at some conferences in the near future (and I'll fill you in on the details of exactly what the image is and where it came from when it goes public...).

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

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

Objective: To write an informative and perhaps somewhat humorous blog entry for the Sceptical Chymist about ‘Objective’ statements that appear at the top of CVs and resumes – without sounding like I’m ranting too much.

As I discussed last week, the habit of including on your CV the fact that you have a driving licence seems a little redundant for certain jobs – such as scientific editors. Sure, if you’re applying to become the next Lewis Hamilton, however, go right ahead, you may even want to put it near the top of your CV – and in bold.

Another observation I would now like to make is that, depending upon the circumstances of your job search, putting an objective statement at the top of your CV could be, for want of a better word, pointless.

First however, here are the situations in which an objective statement is a good and possibly useful feature: (1) you are posting your CV to an online careers site where it may be viewed by all manner of different potential employers, or (2) you are attending a career fair and handing out your CV to a number of different, but I assume related, companies. In these cases, having a generic objective statement that tells people what you are looking for is a good thing, i.e., something along the lines of, ‘...to obtain an R&D position in the pharmaceutical industry that...’.

Now, let’s consider the job applicant who is applying for a specific job – such as that of an associate editor at Nature Chemistry for example. I would assume that because the candidate is applying for that particular job, their objective would be, ‘to obtain a position as an associate editor of Nature Chemistry’. Now, if you ask me, putting that at the top of your CV is pointless, because I assume that if you didn’t want the job, you wouldn’t have applied. It could be argued that this enables the candidate to succinctly sum up their career aspirations – but I think the cover letter is the most appropriate place for that.

The other option is that an applicant sends in a standard CV that has an objective that is not even closely related to the job they’re applying for – such as mentioning something about R&D when applying for an editing job for example. This, to me at least, suggests a lack of attention to detail and hints that the application is somewhat speculative in nature.

So, the best you can hope for by including an objective statement on your CV when applying for a specific job, is that you’ve stated the obvious. The worst, is that the statement bears no relation to the job in question – which doesn’t look good.

In summary, I hope that my blog post meets with your approval and I will follow up with you in a couple of weeks to discuss it with you further.*

Yours sincerely

Stuart

*Every careers-related seminar I went to in the US told me to include a sentence like this at the end of my cover letter, but it just seems a little too earnest to me. If a company really wants to talk to you about your application, trust me, they’ll be in touch...

**I feel I should add a similar disclaimer to that I put in the driving licence post, in that no one will be denied — or indeed selected for — an interview for Nature Chemistry based on whether an objective statement was included on their CV or not.

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 06:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

The new chemistry podcast from Nature is now live! - and can be found here.

In this show, we find out how DNA is helping researches build crystals out of nanoparticles, discover a clever chemical trick for manipulating uranium, explore the controversial field of DNA conductivity and talk to chemist Bruce Gibb about re-building life and lab after hurricane Katrina.

Enjoy!

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Recruitment for the associate editor positions at Nature Chemistry continues, and although I obviously can’t comment on specifics here, there are some general observations I want to share with you.

No interviews have been scheduled yet, but I want you to imagine a hypothetical scene in which a candidate is sitting across a desk from me and one of my colleagues in the Nature offices in London. We’re about half-way through the interview and the questions continue...

----------

Me: So, if you wouldn’t mind, could you briefly summarize your thoughts on this manuscript for us.

Candidate: I beg your pardon.

----------

Let me just point out now, that exchanges of this kind will not feature in the interviews. No one will be asked about their driving skills or associated knowledge. And I can guarantee this in spite of the fact that most of the people in the UK (including some, but not all of the Nature Chemistry candidates), proudly include on their CVs that they have a driving licence.

To be fair, I used to put this invaluable nugget of information on my CV as well, until one day I suddenly realized that it really wasn’t all that important for the jobs I was applying for... i.e., if you can analyze the ins-and-outs of an asymmetric synthesis paper, I don’t really care if you can do a three-point-turn or not.

I think it’s just a hangover from what we were all told at school – I think that’s where I picked up the habit. Sure, it does no harm (and no one will be denied — or indeed selected for — an interview for Nature Chemistry based on whether this was included on their CV or not), but unless it is directly relevant to the job, I don’t see the point.

Please note, however, that I am not a recruitment specialist or hiring manager (or whatever you call those people) and perhaps I am missing something important – so I’m not offering professional advice here, leave this piece of information off your CV at your own peril. (Perhaps that was why the Royal Society of Chemistry turned me down?).

I don’t remember seeing driving qualifications on any of the non-UK CVs, but that’s not to say they don’t have their own problems. If I get a minute away from websites, podcasts, hiring and Nature Nanotechnology manuscripts, I’ll be back to tell you about them...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (7) | TrackBacks (1)

This will be brief, but it's Day 1, and I couldn't let it pass without a quick post...

The deadline for applications for the associate editor positions has now passed - and there's an awful lot of paper strewn around my desk... and the floor around it... now, time to shortlist and get the right mix of expertise in the right locations.

Here's a challenge for you - imagine you're setting up a general chemistry journal and you have a total editorial team of four - how do you break down the areas of expertise? Along traditional lines, or something different? Anyway - now I have a data set to work with, I'll be trying to put the pieces of the puzzle together...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Chief Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a quick round-up to point you towards a couple of interesting pieces about the periodic table...

Thanks to Daniel for letting me know about a cool periodic table project where science and art collide - see his post at The Great Beyond for details.

This also reminded me of a post I saw not so long ago by David Bradley over at Sciencebase that gives us a tour of online periodic tables.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 03:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Consider this a post for pedants, perhaps.

Here we are with a new journal on the horizon, Nature Chemistry, so one question we must ask ourselves is this - what do we abbreviate it to? Simple, huh? Surely it should be 'Nat. Chem.'? But wait, what about 'Nature Chem.'?

Well, let's start by looking at other NPG titles. Some of those based in London, such as Nature Materials (Nature Mater.), Nature Physics (Nature Phys.) and Nature Nanotechnology (Nature Nanotech.), all use the full 'Nature' bit, but Nature Protocols (Nat. Protoc.) does not! Let's cross the Atlantic to journals based in the States, such as Nature Chemical Biology (Nat. Chem. Biol.) and Nature Biotechnology (Nat. Biotechnol.) and you'll see that they use the 'Nat' form as well... Is your head spinning yet?

Also, notice the difference in abbreviation between Nature Nanotech. and Nat. Biotechnol. - whereas 'Nanotechnology' is shortened to 'Nanotech.', 'Biotechnology' is trimmed - albeit only slightly! - to 'Biotechnol.'... The copy-editing powers-that-be tell me that the word 'Technology' should be abbreviated as 'Technol.', because the word 'Technical' would be indicated by the shortened form 'Tech.' - still with me?

So, 'Nature Nanotech.' breaks all the rules... and it means we often see ourselves cited as 'Nat. Nanotechnol.', or 'Nat. Nanotech.' or 'Nature Nanotechnol.' - all of which are, technically, wrong.

Now, let's get started on other journals. Here at NPG, we abbreviate Angewandte Chemie to Angew. Chem. Int. Edn (assuming we're not talking about papers published before 1998, which still include the 'Engl.' bit...). This generally causes our more chemistry-oriented authors to correct their proofs by scoring through the 'n' of 'Edn' and telling us that it should be 'Ed.' not 'Edn'. I agree with the authors, but I am told that we shorten 'Edition' to 'Edn' because 'Ed.' means 'Editor'... anybody out there still reading?

My response to this argument is that we're citing the name of a journal, not just a random collection of words, so we should use 'Ed.', but we don't. At least we're not alone in getting it wrong, ACS journals insist on putting a comma after the 'Angew. Chem.' bit..! Note in all of this, that there is no full-stop at the end of 'Edn' - that's because 'n' is the last letter of 'Edition' and so we don't need one. This, of course, creates confusion as well, because most people out there cite things like PNAS as 'Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA' with a full-stop after 'Natl'. Of course, we don't... we go with 'Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA' because 'l' is the last letter of... OK, you get it. No matter, authors still correct that one on their proofs too... (PNAS itself doesn't even use full-stops...).

If you've made it this far - congratulations. I think we're going with 'Nature Chem.' - but it won't really matter as I'm guessing that ISI will index it as 'Nat.' Chem.' anyway... they abbreviate Nature Nanotechnology to 'Nat. Nanotechnol.'...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 06:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Just a quick note to point out a couple of articles (subscription required) that Nature Nanotechnology has recently published on what is currently the trendiest of all carbon nanostructures - graphene.

Published online in advance of print, is a paper from Gordon Wallace and co-workers in Australia and the US, that shows how a simple chemical method can be used to produce stable dispersions of well-separated graphene sheets. This approach relies on maximizing the repulsive electrostatic interactions between the tiny one-atom-thick flakes of carbon - and, therefore, does away with the need for additional chemical stabilizers that can be a problem in applications where pristine samples work best. If you don't have access to Nature Nanotechnology, you can still read the press release.

Also, back in our January 2008 issue, we had a News & Views article written by Rod Ruoff from UT Austin called, "Calling all chemists". Although graphene has been a hot topic in the physics and materials communities, chemists are now beginning to start experimenting with the latest carbon nano-wonder themselves - and Ruoff chronicles the early stages of what he refers to as the 'chemistry part' of the graphene story.

As an aside, have you noticed how the interest in carbon nanomaterials has peaked in order of their dimensionality? First it was 0-D, when Kroto, Curl and Smalley presented us with buckyballs. Then came 1-D structures in the form of carbon nanotubes. Recently, there has been a shift into 2-D, with a focus on graphene. Watch this space, however, it won't be long before 3-D is next... diamondoids are already receiving some attention.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Back in my undergraduate days at the University of Birmingham (the one in England), I had a particularly entertaining set of lectures on aromatic chemistry from Jim Burdon. I don't know how he got on to the subject, but during one of the lectures he told us that neutrons were purple, and then went on to discuss the colour of electrons. Now, that's obviously incredibly silly... we all know that neutrons are a funny green-brown colour (and that electrons are blue).

As we start to put the nuts and bolts of Nature Chemistry in place, we need to make important decisions about colour... what do I mean by that? Well, go and have a look at the Nature Materials homepage - see the red in the banner at the top of the page and in the section headers - that is known in these parts as 'Materials red'. If you pick up a copy of the print issue, you will see the same red used throughout the journal, particularly as the font colour for titles, headlines and figure captions.

In the same vein, you will see that Nature Geoscience is green (British racing green in fact). Nature Photonics is blue, Nature Physics is blue/purple. Nature Chemical Biology is yet another different shade of blue... Now go to Nature Nanotechnology - that's a gold-ish colour. In print, however, we use a red (not 'Materials red', but, you've guessed it, 'Nano red') because gold doesn't really work well for text.

So, along comes Nature Chemistry and it needs its own colour - preferably a consistent one that works for both print and online content. We're already experimenting with shades of a particular colour here - but I'm not going to tell you which one yet... I want to know what colour you think chemistry is?

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 05:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (9) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, what's that title all about then..?

As you may have seen from Josh's post not so long ago, I have accepted the position of chief editor of Nature Chemistry. Other than a name, however, there's little else to the journal at the moment, but things are moving - fast. You may notice that there is no link yet for 'Nature Chemistry' in this sentence or the previous one. That won't be the case for long - the first incarnation of a website should be up and running soon.

So, what is 'Journal journeys' then? Think of it as a diary of how 'Nature Chemistry' is taking shape. It won't necessarily be a day-by-day account of what's going on - that may well be a little dull... and there will almost certainly not always be time each and every day to tell you what's happening. And obviously there will be some things I can't tell you, but I will share with you as much as I can of what I think might be interesting.

So, why 'Day -11'? Well, I officially begin on February 1st, and so there are 11 days to go... in the meantime, rather than sunning myself on a beach, I'm still dealing with my Nature Nanotechnology responsibilities - and will continue to handle manuscripts for the next few months. Watch out for the Feb issue by the way, it will have a lot of chemistry content.

And finally, 'Deadline day' - how about that? Well, the deadline for applications for associate editor positions on Nature Chemistry closes on January 31st - see here. I want to offer a few words of advice (rather than an exhaustive list) to any of you out there who plan to apply - these should be fairly obvious - but they're important.

1. If applying for any job, but especially as an editor of some description, make sure there are no spelling mistakes in your application - get someone to read through your cover letter, CV, and any other materials you are requested to submit (see 2!).

2. Read the job advert carefully - and make sure you do everything it asks you to. I copy in the requirements for the Nature Chemistry positions below:

Applicants should send a CV (including their class of degree and a brief account of their research and other relevant experience), a News & View style piece (no more than 500 words) on a recent paper from the chemical literature, and a brief cover letter explaining their interest in the post, salary expectations, and indicating whether they wish to be considered for a position in London, Boston or Tokyo.

So, I look forward to our personnel department forwarding a flood of (complete, spelling mistake-free) applications to me once the deadline passes...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

As regular readers may know, I occasionally come across chemistry-related newspaper articles on my commute to and from work - and this morning I found another one that I wanted to share.

Flipping through yesterday's edition of The Times on the way in today, I found an interesting little story about how one section of the population is perhaps not doing all they can in the war on climate change (if we can have a war on terror, surely we can have one on climate change?). Anyway, it turns out that the deceased could be doing more to reduce their carbon footprint...

In the article, 'Dearly departed encouraged to do their bit on global warming', a local council in Greater Manchester has suggested that the heat generated when those who have recently shuffled off this mortal coil are cremated, should be used to power the boilers and lights of crematoria. The council officials are treading carefully, however, with one of them admitting that, "If you look at it in black and white, some people might sit there thinking 'my relative is being cremated to heat the chapel'."

Much consultation is planned, however, and one local vicar has already given the plan his blessing, "As a final act of generosity, it's a lovely way for the dead to provide comfort for the living at a difficult time. I think it's a great idea," said Reverend Vernon Marshall.

Perhaps the most interesting fact I discovered as I read the article with a certain amount of morbid fascination, however, is that by the year 2020, it is expected that the biggest source of mercury emissions in Britain will be from crematoria. Mercury in tooth fillings vaporises during the process and is released into the atmosphere. Possible solutions include installing filters in crematorium chimneys... or perhaps a little post mortem dentistry, removing the dearly-departed's teeth before cremation (see this article from the LA Times).

One of my colleagues this morning asked if burial was any better - does the mercury eventually leech back into the soil and water, it may not be returned to the environment as quickly, but does anyone know if that is a potential problem?

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 05:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Just every now and then, my train ride home in the evening is brightened up by some story I find in the (generally inane) free newspaper that I pick up from King's Cross.

Today it was a brief note about a story printed earlier in the day by another newspaper (one you actually have to pay for - in fact, most things in the free papers can be considered to be recycled news, however, I digress) - something along the lines of 'negative ions improve the performance of footballers'...!

So, I duly follow up when I get home and check out the original story, that can be found here.

It basically goes like this: negatively charged ions in the football shirts kick off a sequence of events in the body that ultimately leads to increased blood flow and speedier removal of lactic acid and an overall 2.7% increase in 'mean power'... and that means you could score more goals, perhaps.

On this matter I'm somewhat of a skeptical chemist - what about you?

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 02:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

Time to put your fancy new iPod/iPhone through its paces and download the new chemistry podcast from Nature, which can be found here.

In this show, find out about an exciting new approach to mass spectrometry, how tiny graphite particles replace biological membranes to couple redox enzymes and we speak to Nobel prize winner Richard Schrock about metathesis.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Best house-warming gift.

Ever.

Period.

Well, periodic, really...

Along with the fantastic wine, flowers and chocolates, we now have a fabulous periodic table shower curtain (Thanks Tom)! OK, we've all seen periodic table mugs and T-shirts, but a shower curtain of the elements - I didn't know such things existed...

What other periodic table paraphernalia have you come across - and can anybody beat a shower curtain!?

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 09:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)

As you may have noticed (and some of you have commented on), The Sceptical Chymist has recruited a range of guest bloggers. Although NPG editors will continue to contribute, we wanted to add some new voices that can offer different perspectives on chemistry and describe their experiences from within (or beyond) the chemistry community. The team is as follows:

Materials Girl: In her own words, 'a wide-eyed undergraduate student who rambles on about anything university and [ultimately] chemistry-related that strikes her fancy'.

Sugar Daddy: A fourth year graduate student working in a chemical biology lab doing research that involves a 'little bit of synthesis, little bit of biology'.

Prospective Professor: A postdoc on the hunt for an academic position.

Rookie Rocky: Hubert is a brand new assistant professor facing up to the challenges of the job, including what it means to sit in the front row at seminars!

10 Miles from Academia: Jeff Johannes - a medicinal chemist at a major pharmaceutical company in the Boston area - offers us a different perspective on breakthroughs in chemistry.

Confessions of a former chemist: Even further away from academia, Mushy is a PhD-chemist who left it all behind to go and work in IT in the City of London, but still has a soft spot for all things chemistry.

So, there you go, an undergrad, a grad, a postdoc, an assistant prof, an industrial chemist and an ex-chemist - we hope you enjoy reading.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Senior Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 07:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Lost amongst the hoopla of the Nobel Prize announcements last week, were the Feynman prizes for nanotechnology - awarded by the Foresight Nanotech Institute.

The experimental prize went to Sir Fraser Stoddart and, in an academic father-son type of thing, the theory prize went to David Leigh from the University of Edinburgh, who got his PhD in Stoddart's group back in the Sheffield days in the 80s. Communication and student prizes were also awarded - details can be found here.

Another nano-related prize has also been recently announced:

The International Society for Nanoscale Science, Computation, and Engineering (ISNSCE) is soliciting nominations for its annual Nanoscience Prize. The Nanoscience prize is given every year to recognize and encourage outstanding research in all areas of nanoscience. Go to www.isnsce.org and click on News for more information.

Not quite as financially rewarding as the new Kavli nanoscience prize, but yet more recognition for good nano-related research can't be a bag thing.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Mentions of nanotechnology in the popular press always interest me, but I wasn't expecting this one: what do the England football team and nanotechnology have in common?

Well, the answer (which, to be fair, is quite contrived) can be found on page 94 of the Times today, in a story written by Martin Samuel.

The story opens with a simple statement:

There are many things that can be done with a spare 201 minutes.

Then follows a list of suggestions, some of them quite appealing (to me at least), such as watching Peter Jackson's 'The Return of the King', and some of them not so, such as travelling from Plymouth station to Birmingham New Street - presumably by train, but that is left for the reader to assume.

My favourite however, is this suggestion:

The more scientifically minded may wish to attend a seminar entitled Computational Nanotechnology: Multiscale Modeling of Nanomaterials, by Kyeongjae Cho, of Stanford University, lasting 3hr 21min precisely.

So, what does this have to do with the England football team? Well, 201 minutes is, for all you Americans out there who love these sports statistics, the average length of time between goals scored by Michael Owen for England, when partnered with Wayne Rooney. Who knew!?

Contrived, yes, but where else will you find a story about Owen and Rooney that uses that kind of analogy - priceless!

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 07:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As they do every year, Thomson ISI have made their predictions about who will win this year's Nobel Prizes - chemistry included.

They seem to think that the Chemistry Prize will have an organic flavour this year... Do you think they're on to something? Will Trost, Danishefsky or Seebach be walking off with the big one any time soon - or indeed ever?

Another point of note is that Sumio Iijima is listed amongst the potential winners of the Physics Prize for his discovery of carbon nanotubes - this comes hot on the heels of being awarded the 2007 Balzan Prize for his nanoscience research.

Also, the one-million-dollar Kavli Prizes have recently been announced as well, the first batch of which will be given out in 2008. There are three of these, covering the fields of astrophysics, neuroscience and, last but not least, nanoscience - it could be quite a 12 months for Iijima.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 11:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Just came across this quiz on nanotechnology...

I'll admit to scoring 16/20, which isn't too bad - not telling you which ones I got wrong, however.

[UPDATE: it was actually 17/20 (honestly, it was), even if you put the correct answer in for the grey goo question, you don't get the point...]

Have a go - some of the answers may surprise you!

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

Although it could be argued that the most controversial summer signing is that of a certain Argentine footballer - who moved north from a smallish team in east London to the greatest football club on the planet – it may not be the most significant.

Northwestern University, recently dubbed ‘Nano U’, has also been dabbling in the transfer market this summer (not for footballers, however) and has recruited Fraser Stoddart, currently a professor of chemistry at UCLA and the director of the California NanoSystems Institute.

Obviously, Chicago is his kind of town...

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 04:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (0)

It's now official.

As Josh mentioned a couple of days ago, Nature Chemistry is coming...

The press release can be found here.

Stuart

Stuart Cantrill (Associate Editor, Nature Nanotechnology)

Posted by Stuart Cantrill at 10:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

One thing that really irritates me is badly drawn ChemDraw structures (maybe I should get out more...).

Anyway, there is no excuse for a benzene ring not being a perfect hexagon - unless of course you’re showing perspective or drawing a fullerene or nanotube. Double and triple bonds should be well separated so that they don’t just look like thick bonds. And as for angles... unless there’s a really good reason for it not to be 120 or 180 degrees (depending on the hybridisation flavour of your [carbon] atoms), then there is likely s