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
Category Archives: Highlights
Misconduct: on the blog and in the open
When formal investigations of research misconduct are opaque and sluggish, it is inevitable that chemists will take to the blogs to debate suspicious papers, says Mark Peplow.
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Easy route to stable silver nanoparticles
Cheap synthesis offers edge over gold particles for biomedicine and solar cells.
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Iron catalyst offers nitrogenase clues
Complex can reduce dinitrogen to ammonia in solution, and may help to explain how bacteria fix the gas.
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Bursting with life
Synthetic biology is shifting into high gear. To truly thrive, it needs chemists, says Mark Peplow.
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Chemistry’s grand challenges
What are the big problems for the next generation of chemists to work on? Mark Peplow takes up the gauntlet. (subscription required)
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Self-assembling yarn shows its strength
Chinese chemists have pulled a thread as strong as polypropylene from a simple mix of monomers.
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Neolithic chefs spiced their food
Mineral grains from garlic-mustard seeds found in 6,000-year-old cooking pots.
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Technetium: Nuclear Medicine’s Crisis
With conventional sources of technetium already under pressure, a collision between politics, business and science is forcing a shake-up in the way this essential isotope is made, and in the path it takes to hospitals.
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Food vs Man
What you eat can exert surprising amounts of control over your mind and body. (subscription required)
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Horizon scan: Synthetic biology blossoms
Funding opportunities abound as the UK positions itself to be a world leader in this nascent field. (subscription required)
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