Too busy teaching to read all the journals (and my blog!)? You can take the lazy way out and catch up on all the latest developments in Chemistry during the past year by reading the article “Cutting edge Chemistry in 2011” published in the December edition of Chemistry World.

Perhaps the most unusual and disputed discovery was reported by Felisa Wolfe-Simon et al. working at the Nasa Astrobiology Institute in the US. They claim that certain bacteria from Mono Lake in California use arsenic rather than phosphorus in their DNA backbone. Presumably since phosphorus and arsenic are in the same group it simply replaces phosphorus to form an arsenate rather than a phosphate so the diagram on the right (taken from Neuro Dojo) is overdoing it somewhat. If this turns out to be true – and many chemists doubt it – then it is almost as surprising as the most contentious physics claim this year that neutrinos can travel faster than the speed of light. But there again Santa must be able to travel faster than the speed of light to get down all those chimneys in one night. Have a good Christmas.