An organic catalyst that performs better than known catalysts was discovered by a group of researchers using a computational approach inspired by evolution. A genetic algorithm suggested new catalytically active molecular structures for a common reaction in organic synthesis, as the team reports in the journal Angewandte Chemie, International Edition. The team says that the method could be used more broadly to find better molecular catalysts. In a wide range of chemistry fields, machine learning systems are already able to predict material properties and molecular structures with high precision. In any case, robotizing the quest for better than ever impetuses