Up to four stereocenters can be created efficiently in a single step by the asymmetric hydrogenation of oxazolidinone‐substituted pyridines (see scheme). Furthermore, selective chirality transfer and nondestructive cleavage of the chiral auxiliary occur under the same reaction conditions, making an additional cleavage step unnecessary.

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The poorer, the better: A metal-free catalytic procedure for the reduction of electron-poor allenes and alkenes has been developed. The method employs a frustrated Lewis pair based catalyst. 1,4-Diazabicyclo[2.2.2]octane (DABCO)/B(C₆F₅)₃ was shown to be the best combination in optimization studies

Carbene-stabilized [L(3)P](+3) cations have been synthesized for the first time by a reaction between 1-chloro-2,3-bis(dialkylamino)cyclopropenium salts and P(SiMe(3))(3). In addition, the first structural characterization of such an entity is reported. Consistent with the X-ray data, density functional calculations indicate that these P-centered cations, despite their high positive charge, still feature a nonbonding electron pair on the P-atom (HOMO) and a very low-lying LUMO depicting them as poor σ-donors and excellent π-acceptors.