Reading over sciencedaily.com I came across another fascinating article. The title of the article was “A twisted world: Chemist build a molecular banister” and the source of this specific article was University of Basel. The basic summery of the article was that chemists have effectively twisted a molecule by merging molecular strands of different lengths. Essentially, the longer strands end up winding around a central axis like a staircase banister. This then creates a helical structure that exhibits unique physical properties. It is significant to understanding the chemistry of substances that are highly defined by their structure. This new approach to distort a small molecule into a form similar in appearance to the banister on a spiral staircase is really exciting development the chemistry world. This is because the linking of two oligomer strands with different lengths forces the longer strand to wind around the shorter strand on its own in order to balance the differences in length. This then produces a helix with a constant twisting direction, however, the molecule then becomes chiral. A molecule is considered chiral if there exists another molecule that is of identical composition, but which is arranged in a non-superposable mirror image. It was also significant because the researchers were able to make this transformation in just a few hours. Researchers are very proud of this new discovery because it’s a completely new way of constructing a continuous helix. By creating this chiral, they can be used in biological systems research, such as crop protection chemistry, pharmaceutical, and fragrance industries.
Submitted by Erica Schulz
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