Katrina Krämer
After finishing my A-levels, I wanted to study arts or languages, but then decided that being a chemist in a white coat was definitely cooler.
So I went on and spent ten years studying chemistry in Germany, Spain and the UK, before realising that not working in a lab can also be fun. After one year in the Royal Society of Chemistry’s graduate trainee scheme, I joined Chemistry World first as editorial assistant and now as science correspondent.
My favourite CAS number is 102-54-5.
NewsUK’s £800m ‘blue skies’ research funder still has no clear purpose
House of Commons calls on government to find focus for Advanced Research Projects Agency
- Podcast
Book club – The Poison Trials by Alisha Rankin
Clinical trials have come a long way since the 16th century
- Research
Half the world’s supply of element 99 used to reveal its chemical secrets
Scientists explore einsteinium’s unusual chemistry using less than 200 nanograms of the precious and highly radioactive material
- Research
Holes cause sodium nitride to behave like a metal
Clathrate’s strange metallic nature caused by electronically active cavities
- Research
Electric fields deep in Earth’s mantle helps diamond crystallise
Electrochemical experiments under extreme conditions show diamonds forming from molten carbonate rocks
- Research
Amine might end palladium’s reign over classic cross coupling reaction
Suzuki reaction now comes in an organocatalysed format
- News
Royal Society of Chemistry retracts 70 fake ‘paper mill’ articles
Extensive investigations found systematic production of fraudulent research
- Research
The hole story of how cage molecules could transform synthesis and separation
Chemists are getting to grips with how to put molecules inside other molecules and how this could protect highly reactive reagents and create enzyme-like catalysts
- Research
Vibrational energy antenna offers ‘a completely new way to run a reaction’
First infrared analogue to natural light-harvesting systems drives isomerisation
- Podcast
Book club – Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks
We celebrate 20 years of a popular chemistry classic – written by neurologist
- Research
First flat tetravalent silicon stabilised by metals and aromaticity
Chemists make stable compound featuring a silicon atom that forgoes tetrahedral geometry
- Research
Beryllole is the first alkaline earth metal antiaromatic molecule
Metallacyclopentadiene is the first beryllium compound to engage in π system chemistry
- News
Covid-19 scientists recognised in 2021 New Year’s Honours
Many awards go to scientists involved in the UK’s coronavirus response, but physicists, biochemists and materials scientists are also among those named in the list
- Research
Heavy-metal cluster sets size record for metal aromaticity
12 bismuth ring creates ‘substantial’ π aromaticity with only two aromatic electrons
- Research
Long-gone planets’ metal composition preserved as pollution around the dead stars that consumed them
Lithium pollution around white dwarf stars offers glimpse at the metal abundances on ancient rocky bodies
- Review
What makes a good children’s science book?
Three authors on what it takes to write for young readers
- Research
Steroid fossilisation discovery opens new chapter in debate around oldest animal
Are the biomolecules found in 635-million-year-old rocks the earliest evidence of animal life or just plant remnants?
- News
Researchers welcome government’s £15bn commitment to ‘turn the UK into scientific superpower’
Spending review promise puts country on track to invest 2.4% of GDP in research and development by 2027
- Research
Aluminium shows unprecedented selectivity for breaking toughest bond
An aluminium complex reacts with tricyclic hydrocarbon’s most stable ring while ignoring easier-to-break carbon–carbon bonds
