The shortest route to strychnine

Editor’s note: following on from their previous groundbreaking publication on this blog – in which they provided a comprehensive overview of chemical-free consumer products – Drs Goldberg and Chemjobber submitted another manuscript to Nature Chemistry. Despite being summarily rejected by the editor, many (many) months later – and in the wake of some poetic exchanges on Twitter – the manuscript (and cover letter) are now both posted here on the blog with the permission of the authors. In the spirit of the Christmas papers published by the BMJ, consider this (tongue-in-cheek?) comment on synthetic chemistry by Alex and CJ a holiday-season gift to our readers!  Read more

Nature Chemistry’s Altmetric top 10 for 2016

Nature Chemistry’s Altmetric top 10 for 2016

Altmetric recently posted its usual top-100 list and, as usual, there was very little chemistry to be found on it (maybe the reasons behind that should be the subject of a long soul-searching post or editorial, but that’s for another day year). After I had a little moan on Twitter, @nunobimbo asked if we’d post Nature Chemistry‘s top 10 as we did back in 2013. So, here goes… (note: I only considered Articles that appeared in 2016 print issues and these numbers are correct as of Dec 14th, 2016).  Read more

Another four bricks in the wall (part III)

Another four bricks in the wall (part III)

Editor’s note: this post written by Brett Thornton and Shawn Burdette is a follow-up piece to the blog post ‘New kids on the p-block‘, the Commentary article ‘Another four bricks in the wall‘ published in the April 2016 issue of Nature Chemistry, and the blog post ‘Another four bricks in the wall (part II)‘.  Read more

Nature Chemistry’s 2014 impact factor citation distribution

Nature Chemistry's 2014 impact factor citation distribution

As pointed out yesterday in a blog post by Stephen Curry (and indeed in at least one previous blog post), some journals publish their citation distributions (this has also been blogged about by Steve Royle too – and probably by many others that I’m not aware of, I’m sure). I’ve been interested in doing this for Nature Chemistry for a while now, but have never quite found the time – but after a brief exchange on Twitter this afternoon, I figured I should run the numbers… (what better way to spend a Friday evening?!).  Read more

Materials Girl: Growing up

The Materials Girl column was ‘born’ in August 2007 while I was 19 and halfway through undergrad. Back then, it was puzzling that other guest writers never seemed to have time to post. Undergrad was as busy as life got, and it didn’t take THAT long to write, right? Ah, youthful innocence – and whining! Considering my earlier posts, it’s a wonder that Stu and Neil patiently let me gripe instead of slapping me upside the head and pointing out that being an undergrad is relatively easy (#firstworldproblems). Then again, perhaps that clueless-but-learning perspective is part of the reason why they not only chose an undergrad blogger, but also let her keep writing on the Sceptical Chymist through grad school and beyond. For that, I am incredibly grateful – and rather abashed.  Read more