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Enlarge ImageBetter angle. Computer-simulated molecules crystallize faster in the more comfy 70-degree groove (left) than the cramped 45-degree wedge (right). Credit: A. J. Page and R. P. Sear, J. A. Chem. Soc., Online publication (11/13/2009) If you ever took a chemistry lab class in college, chances are you once stared desperately at a flask of liquid, crossing your fingers for tiny crystals to appear. Your lab instructor may have offered advice that sounded like voodoo: "Scratch the inside of the flask to make the crystal grow." But the trick worked--and now scientists have uncovered new details behind it. Compared...

This message, made up of tiny crystals suspended in a gel, was created using a series of laser pulses scanned through a template.A. Alexander / U. Edinburgh A technique that creates crystals on demand using laser pulses could make it easier to prepare the high-quality crystals needed to study protein structure.Chemists and biologists need crystals of proteins and other chemicals to analyse their atomic structure using X-rays, while many industrial processes rely on triggering crystal formation at precisely the right time and place during the production of drugs and other useful compounds.Yet "crystallization still remains largely a black art," says...