Crystal clear data

A change in one of our publication policies had been brewing for a while at the journal — and I’m happy to say that it has now been implemented: we have updated our requirements regarding the crystallographic characterization of small molecules. This is reflected in our guide to authors.  Read more

More on gadolinium

More on gadolinium

Note: Posted on behalf of Pekka Pyykkö, who wrote about gadolinium in our August issue‘s In Your Element article. This post comes in complement to the IYE essay – and is best read after the article. Coincidentally, there is a bit of a connection between Pekka Pyykkö and the discoverer of the rare earths: Pekka’s former position, as Professor of Chemistry, was split off as ‘the parallel chair of chemistry’ in 1908 from Gadolin’s chair of chemistry, which had been established in 1761 at the Royal Academy of Turku (Kungliga Åbo Akademi) in Finland and had been moved to Helsinki in 1828. – Anne.  Read more

In your element catch up

In your element catch up

Some of you may have noticed that I haven’t posted about our ‘In your element’ pieces for a couple of months — this is partly because things have been very busy over at the journal [I know I always say that… but it’s because it’s always true!] and also partly because these articles are now freely available online.  Read more

A letter about ‘Neon behind the signs’

Editor’s note: Earlier this year our ‘In your element’ section featured an article about neon written by Felice Grandinetti from the University of Tuscia (you can also find a write-up here by yours truly). We recently received a letter from Roald Hoffmann from Cornell University, which we are publishing here on the blog, with a reply from Felice Grandinetti. Feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments section below.  Read more

Lead between the lines

Lead between the lines

Apologies for posting this a little late (again)… In the ‘in your element’ piece from our October issue, Somobrata Acharya from the Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science, Kolkata, recounts the role of lead throughout history. Element 82 has been known for thousands of years, and widely used owing to the fact that it is abundant, easy to extract, malleable and therefore easy to manipulate.  Read more