Claire Murray ponders on the attraction benzene — a small, seemingly simple molecule — has long exerted on scientists, some of the insights gained through its exploration, and the varied applications found for this hexagonal ring and its derivatives.

Bruce C. Gibb offers some suggestions to chemists for how they can help save the world, one nudge at a time.

A substantial proportion of the data generated in chemistry research is captured non-digitally and reported in ways that non-accessible to both humans and computers. A variety of tools do exist to capture, analyse and publish data in an open, reusable, machine-actionable manner — they should be connected to create an open-science platform for chemistry.

In 2017 Professor Frances S. Ligler was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her inventions in portable optical biosensors. Professor Ligler now talks to Nature Chemistry about the challenge of developing new sensor designs into reliable products, and some of the pitfalls to avoid in the development process.

Phytochromes regulate plant growth by sensing far-red light through the photoisomerization of their protein-bound chromophores. In the phytochrome Agp2, it has now been demonstrated that ultrafast proton-transfer occurs from the chromophore to a protein–water network before photoisomerization, inducing protein changes on the ultrafast timescale. These protein changes develop further on longer timescales, resulting in an activated protein conformation.

Many bioactive compounds are trisubstituted macrocyclic alkenes, but use of current methods often results in poor yields and low stereoselectivity. Now, a ring-closing metathesis strategy has been developed that enables these compounds to be prepared efficiently and in either stereoisomeric form: an approach that may prove useful in the late stages of total syntheses, for skeletal editing and in drug discovery.

Preorganized electric fields may be essential for the extraordinary catalytic power of enzymes. Now, it has been demonstrated how electric field strengths can be monitored along two directions using a vibrational Stark probe, enabling the observation of distinct electric field orientations in an enzyme active site compared with those in simple solvents.

HCN and its isomer HNC are both observed in the interstellar medium and inelastic collisions with helium and other species strongly influence their derived abundances. Now it has been shown experimentally and theoretically that HNC is much more strongly excited than HCN in collisions with helium at the low temperatures of interstellar space.

The collision dynamics between a pair of aligned molecules in the presence of a scattering resonance provide the most sensitive probe of the long-range anisotropic forces important to chemistry. By simultaneously controlling the collision temperature and geometry between a pair of aligned D₂ molecules, we unravel the anisotropic dynamics of a cold scattering process.

The molecular driving forces underlying the liquid–liquid phase separation (LLPS) of RNA are not well understood. Now simulations show that low-complexity RNA sequences undergo LLPS at high RNA concentrations, driven by the formation of Watson–Crick base pairs between distinct RNA polymers. LLPS occurs by merger of small droplets into larger ones and RNA chains in the large droplets exhibit reptation dynamics.

In 2017 Professor Frances S. Ligler was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame for her inventions in portable optical biosensors. Professor Ligler now talks to Nature Chemistry about the challenge of developing new sensor designs into reliable products, and some of the pitfalls to avoid in the development process.

Bruce C. Gibb offers some suggestions to chemists for how they can help save the world, one nudge at a time.

Claire Murray ponders on the attraction benzene — a small, seemingly simple molecule — has long exerted on scientists, some of the insights gained through its exploration, and the varied applications found for this hexagonal ring and its derivatives.

Christine M. Le takes a look at 2-[18F]fluoro-2-deoxyglucose and explains how this radioactive sugar could help to save your life.

Jennifer Rudd reflects on how, in recent history, carbon dioxide has been largely vilified for its role in global warming. Yet responsibility for the current climate crisis lies squarely with humans, not a molecule that is crucial for life on Earth.

Athina Anastasaki from ETH Zürich talks to Nature Chemistry about her career, her research in polymer chemistry and the challenges she dealt with in her academic pathway.