This week, we discuss new butyllithium formulations and ancient limescale chemistry with Emma Pewsey and Phillip Broadwith. New bench-stable tert- and n-butyllithium formulations developed by Merck KGaA, should make organometallic chemistry safer and more accessible. What's different about these formulations and how do they work? And a team based in Germany have managed to reconstruct the history of water sources used in Pompeii from an unlikely source: limescale. We discuss the findings and what chemistry can tell us about our past.

Welcome to the first episode of our latest podcast series, The chemical breakdown. Each week, we'll dive deeper into two stories we've covered here at Chemistry World. We'll provide insight into the facts, why you should care, and what it means for the chemistry community. We'll also give you that week's headlines to keep you up to date on what's happening in the chemistry community. And finally, we'll end each episode with a brief section on what was happening this week in chemistry history.

This week, we discuss total synthesis and halogen-bond catalysis with Jennifer Newton and Jamie Durrani. The field of total synthesis has endured for almost 200 years, but with mounting funding pressures and shifting priorities, what will the future hold? And halogen-bond catalysis is an emerging technique that many chemists might not have encountered. We'll delve into where it came from and the potential uses of this exciting new tool.

This month we introduce our new puzzles page, discuss the implications of Trump for science and meet Yuri Oganessian, the only living person with an element named after him