Departments of Materials Science and Engineering, and Chemistry and Physics, University of Illinois, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA Tough carbon-carbon bonds can snap in certain large molecules just because the two sides of the molecule cannot agree on which way to go during adsorption. Heresy? The view through the microscope suggests otherwise. On page 191 of this issue, Sheiko and colleagues show that the mechanical deformation induced merely by the adhesion of a complex molecule to a surface can trigger the break-up of that molecule. They thus provide convincing support for the seemingly heretical notion that the commonplace and unremarkable process of adsorption to a surface can bring about what otherwise occurs only with the greatest effort: the rupture of the strong, cova-lent carbon-carbon bond.
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