Shape-shifting sugars pinned down

Science 10 Jan 11 Oxford University scientists have solved a 50-year-old puzzle about how, why or indeed if, sugar molecules change their shape. Sugar molecules have long been known to adopt chemically unusual shapes but some scientists attributed this to the presence and influence of water or other substances. To test this theory, the Oxford researchers found a way of isolating the sugars from all other substances - by turning them into a gas - and then a method of monitoring their behaviour. The discovery could have implications for medicine but perhaps more readily for the manufacture of products currently reliant on waning supplies of oil. Sugars are the most abundant organic molecules in the world. Their metamorphosis was acknowledged by scientists in 1955 and the phenomenon named the anomeric effect. This was because of the unusual shape around the carbon atoms of sugar molecules and to one carbon atom in particular called the anomeric centre.