Ulrike Flad is the granddaughter of the founder of the Dr. Flad Institute in Stuttgart, Germany, and will take over its management from her father

Andreas Pfaltz, University of Basel, Switzerland, is the first Swiss scientist to give the Heilbronner Hückel Lecture

Richard Zare, Stanford University, USA, discusses his editorial on why the West should help China develop its science

Iron veins running through grains of magnesium allow fast and reversible uptake of enough H2 to power a car

Nickel catalyst can produce methyl acrylate in up to 56 % yield from carbon dioxide and ethene

Aromatic planar boron rings with metal centers display unusual bonding and aromaticity

Metal–organic framework that selectively binds oxygen could separate oxygen from air in a less energy-intensive way

Polymerization reaction drives micromotor that weaves a web and can be directed towards specific targets

Timothy Long, VirginiaTech, USA, talks about new charged polymers for biomedical applications

Peter Atkins discusses the future of chemical education and the role of the multimedia electronic textbook