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)

Readers in the UK will probably be aware of the TV quiz show ‘University Challenge’. It’s a general knowledge quiz in which teams representing universities and colleges from the UK compete (there’s no monetary reward, only the honour of winning). The questions asked are all pretty challenging, and it’s clear from watching the show that the question master — Jeremy Paxman — is extremely knowledgeable about…some of them. This is a fact that Neil has mentioned here before.

In my experience, chemistry rarely gets a good representation in the questions – the ‘chemistry’ questions have been known to include things like: ‘Name three of the four elements whose names spelt in British English end in ‘um’ but not ‘ium’. With a good 5–10 minutes to mentally work my way through the periodic table I could have done this (although there would never be enough time to do this on the show) but more importantly it doesn’t strike me as being about chemistry.

And hence to the point of this post: Paxman sometimes accepts answers slightly different than those on the question card – if he feels that the contestants have demonstrated that they have the right idea. Last night there were quite a few chemistry questions. Of particular note was a question asking for the type of compounds formed by the Fischer–Tropsch process. The answer on the card was hydrocarbons. The contestants were stumped. They nearly had it, but I would argue that their answer of ‘hydrogen and carbon’ wasn’t quite close enough. These two elements are not hydrocarbons. Paxman, however, awarded the points.

If we as chemists want people to understand what we do and why our jobs are important, then the subject needs to be represented more accurately in the mainstream media. Most chemists don’t learn to recite the periodic table, and don’t really care about how many elements end in ‘um’ and not ‘ium’— it has, after all, little to do with similarities in the respective elements reactivity.

I’m also not arguing that Jeremy Paxman should have known that the answer to the Fischer–Tropsch question was wrong. And I for one would love to see more questions like this included, but there needs to be guidance about what is a suitable alternative answer and what isn’t. Would he have been willing to award the points had the contestants offered a few real hydrocarbons such as propane and butane? I think this would be a far more valid answer, but I’d wager that it wouldn’t have done the contestants any good.

So here is a challenge for all of you. Can we come up with some questions that are really about chemistry, and that are:

1) Difficult (but not so tough that you wouldn’t have a chance of understanding them without a PhD in the topic area).

2) About things that you’d like a reasonably rounded individual — not necessarily a scientist — to have some idea of.

If you want you could even provide possible alternative answers that you think really are ‘close enough’.

I think the Fischer–Tropsch question would be about the right level – I’d be hard pressed to name a reaction you could consider more industrially important (there are of course a few that are equal)…

Steve

Stephen Davey (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

There’s a huge amount of literature out there, and come April, we hope to be bringing some of the best of it directly to you in one neat little package called Nature Chemistry. Until the journal launches, we have to satisfy our cravings by bringing you a weekly dose of Research Highlights. Every week the Nature Chemistry team gets together to discuss our selections. We like to be as current as possible in terms of the work we select and to achieve this we are big fans of the RSS feed – it seems unlikely that anyone reading a blog would be unaware of this technology but for the uninitiated.

I don’t want this post to turn into a rant, so first let me say how much I like the new JACS homepage, especially the interactive pdfs. While the citation links have been available in HTML format for some time, I think I can safely say that a lot of people just like to read the pdf. However, at the same time, the RSS feeds for the ACS journals no longer include the table of contents images. In an ideal world, a title would tell you everything you need to know, but I do like a nice picture to whet the appetite.

Of course the ACS are not the only ones at fault, and I’d like to see the graphical contents in all journal RSS feeds – Angewandte Chemie also do not include images from their RSS feed and neither does Nature (although they don’t have a graphical TOC), but I guess you don’t miss what you never had!

Recently, we at Nature Chemistry were silently grateful to the creator of a pimped Angewandte RSS feed, so why not join me in my campaign – a plea to the ACS to reinstate the images in their RSS feed, or to our friend at the Organic Chemistry blog to work the magic again – either way it will make my week (it’s also possible that this is a relaunch bug…but just in case).

Update – it does appear to be just a bug*

Steve

Stephen Davey (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)

Reading my newspaper on the way to work this morning, I was surprised to discover that Jonny Wilkinson – England rugby hero for those that don’t know – likes a bit of quantum physics. Apparently, he was always full of self-doubt until he discovered Schrödinger’s cat!

I subscribe to the theory that if you claim to fully understand quantum physics then you’ve missed the point, so quite what he means by this you’ll have to find out in his new book, but it set me to thinking: does anyone take solace in chemistry? Personally, I like a good total synthesis, but it’s more likely to make me wonder if I could ever have come up with that particularly clever rearrangement or new methodology, than to solve any thoughts of inadequacy.

Do you have a favourite piece of chemistry to think about when you need a bit of reassurance? How about some chemical reaction dynamics (Gav?), or perhaps you enjoy a good crystallography table (Neil?). We’d love to hear from you.

Steve

Stephen Davey (Associate Editor, Nature Chemistry)