A more direct way to synthesize styrene: Foam cups, foam pellets, plastic cutlery: All are made of polystyrene, which in turn is made of styrene. The massive manufacturing scale of this commodity chemical places a premium on the efficiency of its synthesis. The current industrial route requires three steps to make styrene from benzene and ethylene. Vaughan et al. present a rhodium catalyst that achieves the coupling in a single step by using a recyclable copper salt as an oxidant. Although the catalyst is slow for industrial application, it demonstrates the viability of a more direct process. Science , this issue p. 421

The controlled conversion of hydrocarbons to functionalized products requires selective C–H bond cleavage. This perspective provides an overview of 1,2-CH-addition of hydrocarbons across d⁰ transition metal imido complexes and compares and contrasts these to examples of analogous reactions that involve later transition metal amide, hydroxide and alkoxide complexes with d⁶ and d⁸ metals.