Contents: (Small 5/2013)

HIV DetectionAn individual nanopore drilled within an ultra-thin membrane created by M. J. Kim and co-workers provides a unique look into single-molecule structure and kinetics.The platform, described on page 750, can detect various subpopulations of proteinprotein complexes and calculates their excluded volumes.Furthermore, the elevated electric fi eld strengths within the pore can dissociate the freely translocating protein complexes, generating unique current signatures.The proposed method of locally unbinding protein molecules allows the specifi city of diagnostic nanopore sensors to be enhanced, and the recently unbound state of a protein can be studied. Alloy NanocrystalsManipulating the nanocrystal (NC) growth kinetics via control of the amount of reductant is the key synthetic lever to control the morphology of Au-Pd NCs.The alloys, which have a hexoctahedral structure enclosed exclusively by high-index {541} facets, are prepared on page 660 by S. W. Han and co-workers via the simultaneous reduction of Au and Pd precursors without seeds or additional metal ions as structure-regulating agents.These NCs exhibit higher catalytic performances toward the electro-oxidation of ethanol than Au-Pd alloy NCs bound by low-index facets.