Whilst clusters of carbon atoms are well-known, my eye was caught by a recent article describing the detection of a cluster of boron atoms, B ₄₀ to be specific.[cite]10.1038/nchem.1999[/cite] My interest was in how the σ and π-electrons were partitioned. In a C ₄₀ , one can reliably predict that each carbon would contribute precisely one π-electron. But boron, being more electropositive, does not always play like that.

For those of us who were around in 1985, an important chemical IT innovation occurred. We could acquire a computer which could be used to draw chemical structures in one application, and via a mysterious and mostly invisible entity called the clipboard , paste it into a word processor (it was called a Macintosh). Perchance even print the result on a laserprinter.