Highlights
Nature: Fresh claim of making elusive ‘hexagonal’ diamond is the strongest yet
04 March 2026After decades of debate, researchers say that they have found the clearest evidence yet for this rare form of carbon.
C&EN: Copper finally joins the metallocene club
17 February 2026More than 70 years after ferrocene’s discovery, cuprocene fills a long-standing gap in the sandwich menu.
C&EN: Lighting a better path for biobased furans
16 January 2026Photocatalytic hydrolysis offers a shortcut for renewable chemicals.
C&EN: Gas looping boosts efficiency of carbon nanotube production
22 December 2025Methane pyrolysis reactor recycles process gases to improve output of nanotubes and hydrogen.
C&EN: Enhanced rock weathering shows little climate benefit in large trial
18 December 20253-year Swiss study underscores the importance of site selection to maximize CO2 sequestration.
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: Living cells don nanoparticle armor
Tough coatings protect cells and augment them with magnetism and fluorescence for possible biotech applications.
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C&EN: MOFBOTS could carry drugs to specific targets in the body
Swimming corkscrew robots fitted with cargo-carrying crystals.
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Nature Reviews Chemistry: Women’s work
Academic chemistry is haemorrhaging talented female researchers. However, a barrage of new initiatives aims to stem the flood.
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C&EN: Perovskite device mimics light receptors in human eye
Photodetector matches sensitivity and color perception of rod and cone cells in the retina.
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C&EN: Molecular data-storage system encodes information with peptides
Text and images translated into molecule-based archives can be read with mass spectrometry.
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C&EN: Ocean survey tracks rising plastic pollution
Historical records reveal that plastic debris in the North Atlantic has soared since the 1990s.
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C&EN: Glass beads help robots deliver minuscule amounts of reagents
ChemBeads offer microgram dosing of solid reagents for high-throughput reaction screening.
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C&EN: Stir bar contamination may inadvertently catalyze reactions
Traces of metal nanoparticles embedded in used magnetic stirrers can interfere with chemical reactions.
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C&EN: Methane caged inside C60
Trapping strategy enables quantum studies on single molecules.
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C&EN: Molecular motors join forces in a metal-organic framework
Crystalline scaffold helps to organize tiny machines.
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