What constitutes an “impossible molecule”? Well, here are two, the first being the topic of a recent article. The second is a favourite of organic chemistry tutors, to see if their students recognise it as an unusual (= impossible) form of a much better known molecule.

In an earlier post, I discussed a phenomenon known as the “anomeric effect” exhibited by tetrahedral carbon compounds with four C-O bonds. Each oxygen itself bears two bonds and has two lone pairs, and either of these can align with one of three other C-O bonds to generate an anomeric effect.

In the mid to late 1990s as the Web developed, it was becoming more obvious that one area it would revolutionise was of scholarly journal publishing. Since the days of the very first scientific journals in the 1650s, the medium had been firmly rooted in paper.

I have written a few times about the so-called “anomeric effect“, which relates to stereoelectronic interactions in molecules such as sugars bearing a tetrahedral carbon atom with at least two oxygen substituents.

The recent release of the DataCite Data Citation corpus, which has the stated aim of providing “a trusted central aggregate of all data citations to further our understanding of data usage and advance meaningful data metrics” made me want to investigate what the current state of citing data in the area of chemistry might be. […]

Following on from my template exploration of the Wilkinson hydrogenation catalyst, I now repeat this for the Grubbs variant of the Alkene metathesis reaction. As with the Wilkinson, here I focus on the stereochemistry of the mechanism as first suggested by Chauvin, an aspect lacking in eg the Wikipedia entry.

In the late 1980s, as I recollected here the equipment needed for real time molecular visualisation as it became known as was still expensive, requiring custom systems such as Evans and Sutherland PS390 workstations.

On 24th January 1984, the Macintosh computer was released, as all the media are informing us. Apparently, some are still working. I thought I would give my own personal recollections of that period.

Geoffrey Wilkinson first reported his famous work on the hydrogenation catalyst that now bears his name in 1965 and I met him at Imperial College around 1969 and again when I returned there in 1977.

First, a very brief history of scholarly publishing, starting in 1665 when scientific journals started to be published by learned societies.

Zosurabalbin,, is receiving a great deal of attention as a new class of antibiotic which can target infections for which current treatment options are inadequate.