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After decades of institutional deceit, deflection, defensiveness and delay, publication of the final report of the Infected Blood Inquiry lays bare the failings of the British state and its National Health Service. Now, it is time for justice, accountability and a change in patient safety culture.

Diamonds may be forever, but are some other forms of carbon merely passing fads? Stuart Cantrill considers why carbon often seems to be a chemist's best friend.

Stuart Cantrill explains why looking to the heavens for element 61 — named after the Titan who stole fire from the gods — could extend the periodic table.

Thomas Hager, author of popular science books that revisit some of the most significant developments in chemistry over the past century, talks to Nature Chemistry about the challenges of writing for a general audience, and how his dislike of chemistry was turned around by a fellow Oregonian of considerable repute.

No longer held in Bürgenstock or the preserve of stereochemists, the Bürgenstock conference on stereochemistry is much more than its name suggests. The diverse range of subjects discussed at the meeting highlights the fundamental importance of chemistry in other scientific disciplines ranging from molecular biology to materials science.

Publishing the wrong interpretation of experimental data can result in an immediate horde of chemists feeding on the error like vultures. On rare occasions, this phenomenon can open up an entire new field of science — and the structure of ferrocene is a case in point.

Phylogenomic analysis of 7,923 angiosperm species using a standardized set of 353 nuclear genes produced an angiosperm tree of life dated with 200 fossil calibrations, providing key insights into evolutionary relationships and diversification.

A molecular 'rack-and-pinion' device can be operated and observed using a scanning tunnelling microscope

The controlled oxidation of iron nanoparticles gives stable core–shell structures that can be dispersed in water

The in-situ formation of iron nanoparticles in carbon produces highly adsorbent materials that are easily manipulated with magnets

Experimental and theoretical studies suggest that hollow cages made of gold atoms can be doped with other metals and that some gold clusters adopt asymmetric structures

Carbon nanotubes can be assembled into circular structures on a surface patterned using dip-pen nanolithography

The composition and structure of self-assembled coordination cages are very sensitive to subtle changes in the geometry of the bent organic ligands that are used to stitch together the metal ions.

Bowl-shaped molecules pair up to form water-soluble capsules that can be used to separate and store hydrocarbon gases

The diameter and chiral angle of single-walled carbon nanotubes made with Co–Mo catalysts depends on the chemical composition and pressure of the carbon precursors

RNA molecules can be used as scaffolds for the synthesis of CdS nanocrystals of the same size

Discrete complexes comprising stacks of up to nine aromatic molecules can be assembled in one step from a few simple building blocks

Porous thin films made from a mesh of organic nanowires can detect explosives more efficiently and rapidly than other fluorescence-based sensors

The factors that determine how small organic molecules assemble on different noble metal surfaces are probed with a combination of experimental and computational techniques

Small organic molecules self-assemble into hollow nanotubes that can be filled with buckminsterfullerene

The operation of an artificial molecular machine is inspired by Maxwell's demon

A molecular sphere assembled from 12 metal ions and 24 organic ligands is lined with amino acids to generate chiral cavities reminiscent of those found in enzymes

Carbon nanotube electrodes are used to measure the conductance of organic molecules that can be switched back and forth between 'open' and 'closed' structures

The outer edges of a branched molecule can be zipped together to form a nanoparticle with a conjugated polymer coating

A layer-by-layer assembly strategy is used to make ordered composite materials comprising clay nanoplatelets embedded in a polymer matrix

Chemists in the US have developed a recipe for making asymmetric nanoparticles — just add DNA

Knowing the ins and outs of peptide nanotubes helps researchers to make coaxial nanocables

Polycyclic aromatic compounds sitting on a platinum surface lose their hydrogen atoms at 750 K and are zipped up to form fullerene molecules

A soft-ionization mass-spectrometry technique enables label-free imaging of fingerprints based on their chemical composition

A rotaxane in which a large part of the 'axle' component adopts a well-defined helical structure offers a new twist in the study of molecular machines.

Nanoscale resonators are taken to the limit using beams that are just a single atomic layer thick

The concept of 'chemical friction' is explored by studying how fullerenes rotate when surrounded by a molecular box

The chemical reactivity of organic molecules can be reduced significantly by confining them inside carbon nanotubes