Catching radical molecules before they disappear

While in most molecules, each electron finds a partner to pair up with, some electrons in radical molecules are left alone and unpaired. This configuration grants radicals with some unusual and interesting properties, which disappear as soon as the radicals react or interact with other molecules. It has been difficult to generate relatively stable radicals, because they react and change in the blink of an eye, but researchers from the Center for Self-Assembly and Complexity, within the Institute for Basic Science (IBS, South Korea) succeeded in synthesizing four new kinds of stabilized radicals.