Google PageRank (PR) isn't the first network modeling tool to which you would imagine chemists would turn to help them understand the complex systems of hydrogen bonds that give rise to so many of water's anomalous properties, such as expanding when it freezes.

Nevertheless, Aurora Clark, Washington State University, USA, has done just that. She has adapted the original formula devised and patented by Google/Stanford University that orders the web pages in the search engine results to allow her to not only reduce the chemist's overall workload, but to gain new insights into the way molecules interact either at the bulk level or by zooming in on molecular clusters. Read the full story in my Research Highlight this month in the ChemistryViews magazine.