Are organic chemists discovering fewer reactions than they were decades ago?

A black-and-white photo showing an early 20th century lab. A woman wearing an apron is concentrating on retrieving something out of a desiccator with a pair of tongs, holding the lid with her other hand. Behind her, shelves are lined with chemical bottles

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Analysis of millions of transformations reveals reliance on popular methods – and the rise of complex reactions

Although the number of reaction examples chemists report has grown exponentially over the past years, fewer and fewer new reaction types are being discovered, scientists say . Using cheminformatics, researchers have analysed organic transformations deposited in databases and patent repositories, concluding that most synthetic chemistry relies on reusing well-known methods.