X-ray crystallomancy is one of the most powerful techniques for structural determination available to the modern scientist. This illiterature review provides a brief history of the field and a stepwise guide to the process of growing crystals, collecting X-ray data and processing it to a publishable standard.

Transubstantiation is the process by which the bread and wine of the eucharist is said to become the body and blood of Christ. The mechanism of this transformation is, shall we say, vexed, and has been for some time. The theology of this miraculous reaction is beyond the scope of this paper and the understanding of its authors. This study seeks instead to examine the chemistry behind it.

There follows a frivolous frolic through some very serious issues. The authors clearly lack an understanding of the topic, or a sense of decency and taste more generally. I find this unsuitable for publication in Nature, and suggest J. Immat. Sci. - Reviewer 2

This week saw the conclusion of the World Chemistry Federation’s transfer window for post-docs. Herein, the highlights of the trading season are summerised.

This tool allows computational chemists to easily find the right basis set to give them the results that they want.

On April 1st 2022, the well-known fine chemical company Sigma Aldrich published the structure of a novel natural product: Rashnovinol A. We report the first total synthesis of Rashnovinol A, and a comparison of its spectroscopic data to the structure proposed by S. Aldrich et al

Palladium on carbon (Pd/C) is a widely used heterogeneous catalyst. It consists of a thin coating of palladium supported on activated charcoal, and is predominantly used in hydrogenation and hydrogenolysis reactions. Entirely by accident, we have discovered a new way to prepare this venerable catalyst.

The protein “putin” normally acts to regulate the flow of methane through the digestive system. However, a nonsense mutation of the corresponding KGB gene results in an antimorphic protein, “RASputin” which is linked to a highly invasive cancer known as russocarcinoma.

A cautionary tale about the dangers of magnetic piercings.

A song about everyone’s favourite molecule, to the tune of “Sound of Silence” by Simon and Garfunkle.

A rip-roaring yarn! This paper has everything: a diabolical foe, a plucky protagonist, romantic interest and molecular sieves. This long-awaited sequel to “Impracticatechol 1: A Partial Total Synthesis” is the second instalment of Burnie’s epic saga: The Carbo Cycle.

There follows an exaggerated, ill-informed diatribe. Poorly thought out and peppered with grammatical errors, this work is of little merit and no significance. It is therefore accepted for publication in J. Immat. Sci. 

A song about finding love in the lab, to the tune of The Wombat’s “Greek Tregedy”.

We have observed the trend of combining analytical instruments in series, and extrapolated it to the max.

We report experimental conditions for the one-carbon homologation of terminal alcohols, to allow existing natural products to be made even bigger. This was accomplished by recovering an arsine-based war gas from WW1 artillery shells, and functionalising molecules with it. 

Sometime research doesn’t have to have an application. Sometimes it’s enough to make something that just looks cool. For example, consider the series of colossal chemical wagon wheels prepared in 2020.1 Another example is infinitene: a fuzzed polycycle in the shape of the eponymous symbol.2 Our work gets laughed out of Nature even when it has applications, so we thought we’d try something visually pleasing instead.

Chemists are constantly pushing the boundaries of synthetic methodology. More specifically, they are finding new ways of doing the same reactions they were doing 20 years ago, with a twist. We’ve developed our own iteration of this copy-catalysis by exposing chemical reactions to sounds. Unfortunately, sonochemistry already exists, so we’re using music instead and calling it “echochemistry”.

It was a cold and miserable evening at the University of Redacted. Inside the chemistry building, a lonesome chemist makes his way to a glovebox, with a flask of DMSO in hand…

Have you ever attempted to reproduce a literature procedure, compared your shitty bar-code style spectra to their exhibition grade masterpiece and exclaimed “how the fuck did they do that?” Then perhaps you too have encountered BS-NMR.

Urban dictionary defines procrastibaking as “the practice of baking something in order to put off doing something else”. We were putting off writing this week’s paper, and two pointless activities merged into one…