Making complexes that absorb light and split water can be as difficult as making porridge for Goldilocks as steric and electronic factors clash

Simple and apparently benign molecule cleaves strong bonds and opens the way for organocatalytic substrate activation

Cambridge University, UK, has topped a league table of the world's best universities, with Harvard and MIT, USA, ranked second and third

Evidence for under-reported western European emissions of the potent greenhouse gas HFC-23 link to EU chemical industry

Panda poop contains bacteria that could help produce cheaper, more abundant biofuels

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

Ferdi Schüth, Max Planck Institute for Coal Research, Germany, receives GDCh prize for processes that conserve resources

Study of the structure–activity relationship of steroid sulfatase inhibitors explains why Irosustat is the best in its class

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

The Adolf von Baeyer Medal of the GDCh is awarded to François Diederich, ETH Zurich, Switzerland