Telling sober worms from tipsy ones using chromatography has been honoured with this year’s Ig Nobel chemistry prize. The prize was one of 10 awarded last night in a ceremony at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. Tess Heeremans, Antoine Deblais, Daniel Bonn and Sander Woutersen won the Ig Nobel chemistry prize in […]

A new electrodialysis technique that directly and continuously extracts lithium from brines could be around 40% cheaper and have a much smaller environmental footprint than the most common mining method. Currently, the metal is mainly mined by pumping natural lithium brines from underground aquifers into evaporation ponds and this takes a great deal of energy […]

Can scientists design and engineer artificial enzymes to make the chemicals that society needs, with the selectivities and efficiencies of natural enzymes? That’s the ultimate question motivating research in Anthony Green’s lab at the University of Manchester, UK. ‘We specialise in designing enzymes that have catalytic functions beyond those found in nature,’ explains Green. His […]

Interactions between neighbouring peptide bonds could explain how the collagen in dinosaur bones remains intact for hundreds of millions of years. Bone collagen is commonly used for palaeobiological dating because of its deep roots in the animal kingdom – fragments of type-I collagen have been extracted from the bones of 68- and 80-million-year-old fossils of […]

A team in France has detected hydrogen dimers – one of the simplest molecular complexes – at room temperature for the first time.1 Researchers first recorded direct spectroscopic evidence of van der Waals hydrogen dimers, (H2)2, in the infrared spectrum of molecular hydrogen at 20K in 1964.2 The dimers were then detected in the atmospheres […]

The Science and Technology Cooperation Agreement (STA) between the US and China that has been in place for about 45 years, and lapsed back in February, officially expired in late August, perhaps for the final time. The State Department said that the US and Chinese governments remain in communication about the agreement, including ‘the necessary […]

Tea tree oil is under threat of being banned in the UK and EU after assessments by regulators have found that it is toxic to reproduction. Industry representatives are challenging the proposals, claiming the animal data showing tea tree oil’s health effects does not apply to humans. With its distinct fragrance and antimicrobial properties, the […]

When President Joe Biden beat incumbent Donald Trump for the White House nearly four years ago there was relief within the US research community. This election year anxiety among scientists in the US has resurfaced stronger than ever as Trump runs for president once more again. The prevailing sentiment among scientists and research advocates across […]

As the US gears up to select a new president in November, representatives from the chemistry-using industries have mixed feelings about their prospects under either Donald Trump or Kamala Harris. The prevailing sentiment among academic scientists and research advocates across the country is that another four-year term for Trump would be disastrous. Trump’s record of […]

In the most recent episodes, we have been looking at developments in mechanics during the sixteenth century. Today we are going to turn to a different branch of what would become physics and cast a light on the development of optics in the sixteenth century. We left optics in the high middle ages with the […]