Anisotropic fluids are demonstrating that liquid crystals need not be organic. Recent theories predict the existence of lyotropic liquid crystalline phases for particular anisotropies and concentrations of the fluid constituting objects, regardless of their chemical nature. Attention has been focused on the solution-phase chemistry of LiMo3Se3, which dissolves in highly polar solvents to give very long Mo3Se3 strings (the Figure shows a texture photograph of LiMo3Se3 in N-methyl-formamide).