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
Nature: Robot chemist sparks row with claim it created new materials
Researchers question whether an AI-controlled lab assistant actually made any novel substances.
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Nature: Google AI and robots join forces to build new materials
Google DeepMind tool predicts nearly 400,000 stable substances, and an autonomous system learns to make them in the lab.
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Nature: A new kind of solar cell is coming: is it the future of green energy?
Firms commercializing perovskite–silicon ‘tandem’ photovoltaics say that the panels will be more efficient and could lead to cheaper electricity.
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C&EN: Lithium-ion battery recycling goes large
As companies scramble to increase recycling capacity, they are navigating a tricky path through shifting battery chemistries and a raft of new regulations.
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C&EN 10 Start-ups to Watch: DePoly
Recycling complex plastic waste for a circular economy.
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C&EN: Antifungal analog offers reduced toxicity
Improved version of amphotericin B is now in clinical trial, but debate continues about its mechanism of action.
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C&EN: Skeletal edit swaps carbon for nitrogen
Single-atom edit offers medicinal chemists a direct route from quinolines to quinazolines.
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Short Cuts: Science
Navigate your way through fifty of the biggest ideas in science, with this handy guidebook.
C&EN: A shocking way to produce hydrogen from plastic waste
Flash Joule heating converts polymers into low-cost hydrogen and graphene.
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C&EN: Catalyst persuades alcohols to offer a helping hand for C-H activation
Tailored ligand on palladium catalyst uses hydrogen bonding to orchestrate reaction.
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