I usually stop reading, or at least read on with skepticism when a “popular science” like publication makes an absurd statement such as “chemists are looking for catalysts that would yield the opposite reaction.”. First off, catalysts don’t “yield the opposite reaction. They lower the activation energy barrier on an otherwise thermodynamically favorable reaction, thus improving kinetics and therefore the forward reaction rate. There is no “catalyst” that magically turns the arrow around on an energetically favored (but maybe blocked by an energy barrier) forward reaction.
Of course not. That is where the flux capacitor comes in...