People have always yearned to peer at that which can’t be seen. Hence, telescopes to see into the distance and microscopes to magnify the tiny.

The resolving power for any such instrument depends of the wavelength of light used for detection and the ingenuity of the optical device used to capture that light. The human eye, as an example, is highly ingenious but limited to the visible wavelengths, thus restricting our ability to directly inspect small objects.

Electron microscopes use smaller wavelengths and can thus see smaller objects. But nobody thought we could ever see the individual atoms and bonds of a molecule because the necessary light would be so energetic as to destroy the very molecule under observation.

Luckily, intractable problems attract smart scientists. A group from IBM Research in Zurich and the Debye Institute in the Netherlands avoided the optical problem by touching the molecule instead of looking at it (Science 325: 5944 [28 August 2009], 1110–1114).

The new work uses atomic-force microscopy to visualize the complete chemical structure of pentacene, a five-ring aromatic hydrocarbon. The trick in this accomplishment lies in refining the tip of the AFM device (in this case with adsorbed carbon monoxide) so that it doesn’t perturb the sample and allows highly precise visualization. The technical achievement is dramatic enough, but the experience of actually “seeing” a real molecule is truly cosmic.

Check it out yourself, and be prepared for the most remarkable reality show possible. The wholly authentic images will send a chill down your spine.

Most people love movies. Whether drama, comedy, westerns, thrillers, romance, documentaries, or animation, what’s not to like about settling in for a couple of hours with popcorn and film?

But have you ever seen a chemistry movie? Obliquely maybe, in The Andromeda Strain, GATTACA, or The Absent-Minded Professor. But we count ourselves lucky if scientists are depicted as anything better than nerdy geeks who spend all their time wearing lab coats and not knowing how to behave in social situations.

But now, thanks to the good folks at Nature, we can watch videos that show chemists in full Technicolor glory. Following on a successful film feature with physicists last year, the Nature crew invited hundreds of young researchers to interact with Nobel laureates on the German island of Lindau. Then they filmed the proceedings and produced five totally beguiling movies.

A different member of the chemistry firmament is displayed each week in September: Aaron Ciechanover, Harry Kroto, Peter Agre, Richard Schrock, and the duet of Roger Tsien and Richard Ernst. The films are nicely edited, with cool graphics and an appealing soundtrack. If you love chemistry, check ‘em out!

Astute readers will recognize that “all the world’s a stage” is a classic metaphor. Shakespeare, in fact, created metaphors by the bushel, this particular one from As You Like It.

Without consulting a dictionary, I would say that a metaphor is a comparison that shows how two things not fundamentally the same have at least one thing in common. The actual dictionary says much the same thing, albeit with more precision. Thus, while not physically a stage, the Bard tells us that much drama is acted out in the world.

The periodic table, that veritable icon of science, has itself been used as a metaphor for countless ideas. So much so that I’ve posted more blogs than on any other subject on what Mendeleev (unintentionally) begat.  (See posts from 14 February 2008, 25 February 2008, 14 April 2008, and 2 October 2008).

And now, combining idioms, comes the Periodic Table of Metaphors, courtesy of artist Christoph Niemann.

Like all periodic tables, the metaphors are aligned into groups with similar properties. There is Group I, “The Classics” (e.g., worm in an apple, hammer and nail, train entering a tunnel), and Group VI, “The Toxics” (piles of money, light bulb, piggy bank). Presumably you want to steer clear of these.

There is also Group IV, “The Zombies,” but since this includes the double helix I think I’d have trouble avoiding it. My favorite is Group III, the “Editors’ Faves” (Swiss army knife, brain, crown of thorns). Presumably I’d have no trouble getting published if I claimed that the Chemical Heritage Foundation is a brainy Swiss army knife.

But the real value of this version of the periodic table, at least according to Niemann, lies not in figures of speech, but in creating conceptual metaphors. There’s no way to describe what he has in mind so visit his Web site to see for yourself. Then announce your ideas so our drama can have “all the men and women merely players” (Shakespeare, ibid).

Anyone familiar with the synthesis of complex organic molecules knows that it requires a clever combination of art, guile, dumb luck, and smart science.

One of the biggest challenges is that any but the simplest of molecules requires several different chemical reactions that must proceed consecutively. Each step needs new reagents and different solvents. Also usually needed are “protecting groups” that prevent unwanted reactions from occurring, and which then must be removed. Finally, purification of product for the next step adds further complexity.

Wouldn’t it be nice if everything needed to produce a molecule could be plopped into a single pot, stirred, and voila, out pops the finished product? Impossible, you say.

But not impossible to a group of Dutch chemists from the Vrije University in Amsterdam. Writing in Angewandte Chemie, Elders et al. report on an efficient one-pot reaction of up to eight different components (48: 32 [27 July 2009], 5856–5859).

The secret lies in what the authors call “multicomponent reactions,” which produce several new chemical bonds in one operation. Although not a new idea, the latest contribution ups the stakes by simultaneously combining more than one MCR to produce quite complex reaction products.

Besides being awesomely clever, MCRs also should save on materials cost and on the chemical waste normally involved in syntheses. Score another victory for green chemistry!