The molecule under study consists of a conjugated anthracene backbone with two additional methyl groups. The sp 3 conjugation of the latter severely limits their contribution to the low energy -orbitals, making the molecule's electronic properties comparable to those of pristine anthracene. Anthracene's reported HOMO-LUMO gap is indeed only slightly larger (EG ≈ 3.6 eV) , and the appearances of its frontier orbitals are very similar to those of the frontier orbitals of the hydrogen-passivated m1 (Fig. ). The conductance measurements, however, show a stronger than expected contribution at the methyl positions if compared to the calculations. Here it needs to be noted that the DFT calculations are performed for gas-phase molecules, according to which the molecule presents a completely planar C backbone with the H atoms bound to each of the sp 3 C atoms protruding to either side of the plane.