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Henry Rzepa's Blog

Henry Rzepa's Blog
Chemistry with a twist
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Science frequently works by people making connections between related (or even apparently unrelated) concepts or data. There are many ways of helping people make these connections – attending a conference or seminar, searching journals for published articles and nowadays also searching for data are just a few examples.

Published

Nature has produced most natural molecules as chiral objects, which means the molecule can come in two enantiomeric forms, each being the mirror image of the other. When a natural product is synthesised in a laboratory, a chiral synthesis means just one form is made, and then is compared with the natural product to see if it matches.

Published

The list of molecules of the year is out now at C&E News (but you have to have an account to view the list, unlike previous years). These three caught my eye: Electron in a cube: Synthesis and characterization of perfluorocubane as an electron acceptor ,[cite]10.1126/science.abq0516[/cite]. I have already written about this system and will not discuss it further, except to note this one topped the poll!

Published

The term bispericyclic reaction was famously coined by Caramella et a l in 2002[cite]10.1021/ja016622h[/cite] to describe the unusual features of the apparently innocuous dimerisation of cyclopentadiene. It shows features of two paths for different pericyclic reactions, comprising a 2+4 cycloaddition in the early stages, but evolving into a (degenerate) pair of [3,3] sigmatropic reactions in the latter stages.