Highlights
C&EN: Metal complexes rip open benzene
17 July 2025Scandium and chromium compounds team up to convert iconic molecule into linear product at room temperature.
C&EN: Crystals defy their symmetry to discern chiral light
24 June 2025Centrosymmetric crystals have always absorbed equal amounts of left- and right-handed circularly polarized light—until now.
C&EN: Magnetic stirrers linked to issues with reproducing chemistry results
17 June 2025From the lab that found impurities on your stir bar—your flask’s placement on a stirrer plate can mess with your reaction too.
C&EN: ‘Perplexanes’ achieve mind-bending molecular topology
10 June 2025Zirconium helps to weave entangled nanocarbon cages in high yields.
C&EN: Atom-thin iodine film makes its debut
29 May 2025Iodinene is the first halogen analog of graphene and is expected to be unusually metallic.
TESTIMONIALS
“As an editor and reporter, Mark Peplow is fast, accurate, and versatile. He covers science policy and pure research with equal passion, and his writing combines a scientist’s precision with a journalist’s verve.” Tim Appenzeller
Former Chief Magazine Editor at Nature, now News Editor at Science
"Mark guided me through some of the most challenging stories I've written. These are pieces I might not have attempted were it not for his steady editorial hand." Linda Nordling
Freelance Journalist, South Africa
“Working with Mark is never anything other than a pleasure. He is the kind of editor that writers hope for: able to identify what needs fixing and what doesn’t, bringing to bear a wealth of knowledge, always clear, prompt and easy to talk with. Much of that comes from being a splendid writer himself.”
Philip Ball
Freelance Science Writer
Author Archives: Mark Peplow
C&EN: Twisted fibers strengthen artificial muscles
Three groups report polymer yarns that respond to electrical, thermal, or chemical stimuli, which may find use in robots and medical devices.
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C&EN: Electrochemistry of single molecules under the microscope
AFM explores relationships between charge, bonding, and structure.
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Nature Biotechnology: Click chemistry targets antibody-drug conjugates for the clinic
Bioorthogonal chemistry, already a workhorse of drug discovery research, prepares for the leap into human testing.
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C&EN: Fishing uranium from the ocean with a spider-silk line
Artificial fiber extracts more uranium from seawater, and does it more quickly, than rival materials.
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C&EN: Solvent steers chiral synthesis
(R)-limonene gives polymer a right-handed twist so it can serve as a chiral scaffold for a metal catalyst.
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C&EN: Light gives enzyme a radical new role
Chemists redeploy reductase enzyme to form lactam rings.
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C&EN: Magnet doubles hydrogen yield from water splitting
Aligning the spin states of oxygen intermediates overcomes a bottleneck in electrolysis.
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C&EN: Prohibited CFC production pinpointed to northeast China
Region’s emissions of ozone-depleting trichlorofluoromethane rose sharply over past decade.
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C&EN: Electrified reactor could slash climate impact of industrial hydrogen production
Replacing gas combustion with renewable electricity to heat steam-methane reformers would cut global CO2 emissions.
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C&EN: Living cells don nanoparticle armor
Tough coatings protect cells and augment them with magnetism and fluorescence for possible biotech applications.
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