In 1825 Michael Faraday isolated a sweet-smelling chemical that he dubbed bi-carburet of hydrogen. That molecule, better ...

Benzene is an organic chemical compound in the form of a colorless, flammable liquid. It has many uses as an additive in gasoline, and it is used to make plastics and synthetic rubber.

This isn’t the first time chemists have wedged open benzene’s ring, Aldridge says. One well-known instance, the Buchner ring expansion, dates to the 19th century.

Most organic chemical compounds contain loops of six carbon atoms called benzene rings. The nineteenth-century German chemist August Kekulé claimed to have pictured the ring structure of benzene ...