Impatience will cost you: this is the core message of finite-time thermodynamics. Just how to coax a system along the optimal path by interaction with a judicially varying reservoir is revealed by B. Andresen in a Review. In a Minireview, T. A. Holak et al. discuss the structure-based design of new nongenotoxic anti-tumor agents. The Highlights deal with platinum-based electrocatalysts with core–shell nanostructures (H. Yang) and the isolation and spectroscopy of diazirinone (C. J. Shaffer and D. Schröder).
In the Communications section, G. A. Burley et al. present a programmable DNA photonic wire, which they assembled using fluorophore-tethered pyrrole-imidazole polyamides in a site-directed fashion along a pre-formed DNA duplex. A double-decker ferrocene-type complex with N-fused porphyrinato ligands was synthesized by H. Furuta et al. from N-fused porphyrin. S. Cambré and W. Wenseleers show how empty (end-capped) and water-filled (open) carbon nanotubes, which coexist in aqueous solutions, can be separated by density gradient ultracentrifugation (see picture). R. Hong et al. describe a bioinspired concise synthesis of (+/-)-stemoamide.
