VSEPR theory provides a practical way to predict the 3D shapes of molecules by focusing on how electron pairs repel each other. This model explains why atoms arrange in specific geometries, from ...

Electron spin can create differences between mirror-image molecules, a potential explanation for why life favors one ...

Chemists have discovered a new molecular shape, and it is twice as odd as the twisty Möbius strip. The Möbius strip is a looped band with a twist, such that something tiny, such as an ant, would have ...

Scientists have developed molecular devices that can switch roles, behaving as memory, logic, or learning elements within the same structure. The breakthrough comes from precise chemical design that ...

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Science created the device. Their study was recently published in Advanced Materials. Silica is often used in electronics, but for health and environmental ...

For more than 50 years, scientists have sought alternatives to silicon for building molecular electronics. The vision was elegant; the reality proved far more complex. Within a device, molecules ...

The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Standing in the middle of a field, we can easily forget that we live on a round planet. We’re so small in comparison to the Earth that ...

Can you drill a hole in a cube that an identical cube could fall through? Prince Rupert of the Rhine first asked this question in the 17th century, and he soon found out the answer is yes. One can ...

In the third century BCE, Apollonius of Perga asked how many circles one could draw that would touch three given circles at exactly one point each. It would take 1,800 years to prove the answer: eight ...