My wife and I never baby our kids. We rigorously exclude all oxygen and all sources of adventitious water. My daughter is 2 and only drinks liquids that pass the ketyl test. My son has learned to survive in an argon glovebox with sub-ppm O2 levels.

We heard an awesome talk yesterday by @FLPchemist here at Oxford!

Attention chemists missing conference season. Thanks to Marcus Drover Saurabh Chitnis, at 1PM EST, the inaugural 𝗚𝗹𝗼𝗯𝗮𝗹 𝗜𝗻𝗼𝗿𝗴𝗮𝗻𝗶𝗰 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝗰𝘂𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗪𝗲𝗲𝗸𝗲𝗻𝗱 (#GIDW2020) will begin. tinyurl.com/rvmb85m keep mic/camera off. Hand raise button for Q&A.

Looking for some cool compouds? Check out our latest paper about a tetrasilabicyclo[1.1.0]butane with a π-type single bond now available online in J. Am. Chem. Soc.. Outstanding work, Takumi! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja…

Very happy to finally be back in the lab!

Awesome work by my good buddy Patrick Moon! Not sure why I didn't make it into the acknowledgements, though...

Main Group compounds for C-H and C-C activation? Our mini-review on recent developments in electron-rich aluminium ('aluminyl') chemistry with Jamie Hicks, Petra Vasko and Jose Goicoechea just out in Angewandte Chemie onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/an… Oxford Chemistry

Minireview about small molecule activation by acyclic silylenes is available as Open Access in EurJIC …mistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ej…

ANIONIC MAGNESIUM: Turning R-Mg-I into R-Mg-Na which reacts as a Mg nucleophile RMg(-) Na(+). Heating gave spontaneous Na(+) --> Na(0) reduction (!) and RMgMgMgR, a long sought-after intermediate in Grignard formation. nature FAU Erlangen-Nbg nature.com/articles/s4158…

~180 pages, ~1400 references and a shelf of beer later... Check out our collaborative Chem Rev article on MG Metal Hydrides with Aldridge Group (U. Oxford) and the Hill Group (U. Bath)! pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ac… UAlberta Chemistry Alvaro A. Omaña, Ph.D. Matthew Roy

Matt’s latest paper on Li/Zn aluminyl compounds has been designated a ‘hot paper’ by the editors of Angewandte Chemie doi.org/10.1002/anie.2…

Here's the 2 hour update. Looks like teflon on the outside is worse than useless, though not much worse than nothing at all. Teflon on the inside is fading too, Parafilm is doing something to help, but electrical tape is the clear winner.

Matt’s paper on the aluminyl-mediated reduction of white phosphorus to give a planar pi-bonded isomer of [P4]4- is just out in @Angew doi.org/10.1002/anie.2… Oxford Chemistry Matthew Roy

Interested in doctoral research in organometallic/Main Group chemistry? We have projects available in both MG and TM catalysis (with Goicoechea Group and Dixon Group) and in materials synthesis with Nicole Grobert for 2022 entry via the OxICFM CDT. Virtual open day - 27 October

Fans of #HeavyMetal(s) please check out "Isolation and characterization of a californium metallocene" transuranium-hot off the press at nature. Feat. 24 folks from: Los Alamos National Laboratory, @TEAS_Actinides & WEvans Lab UCI. #ChemTwitter #RealTimeChem #Actinides nature.com/articles/s4158…

Huge congrats to Matt Matthew Roy for winning an Alexander von Humboldt Postdoctoral Fellowship! Humboldt-Stiftung

Congratulations to Dr. Ian Watson who passed his defence today! This is the groups first winter defence and the first where a sword was used to open a frozen bottle of champagne 🤺

Elemental Analysis came back no good? Bad luck mate. Well, maybe actually it’s bad luck. An international effort with Saurabh Chitnis Prof. Rebecca Melen and Martin Group chemrxiv.org/engage/chemrxi…

Structural Snapshots in Reversible Phosphinidene Transfer: Synthetic, Structural, and Reaction Chemistry of a Sn═P Double Bond University of Oxford Oxford Chemistry Aldridge Group Matthew Roy Malte Fischer #Snapshots #Phosphinidene #DoubleBond #SnP pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/ja…

Congratulations to Oliver Townrow (Oliver Townrow) on successfully completing his D.Phil. viva yesterday! Great things await in Erlangen with Harder-Research! Thank you to John McGrady and Stefanie Dehnen for doing the honours. More to come…