Analysis of glass and ceramic shards retrieved from an archaeological excavation in Sweden could reveal new insights into alchemical experiments carried out by the Renaissance astronomer, Tycho Brahe. The researchers found traces of nine chemical elements on the inner and outer surfaces of the fragments including copper, gold, zinc and tungsten. Brahe, who lived between […]

Element hunters at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have successfully used titanium-50 to make a superheavy element, paving the way for a hunt for element 120 as early as next year. New elements are no longer discovered. They are created by fusion reactions in particle accelerators, accelerating an ion beam of a lighter element into a […]

Artificial nanopore proteins that resemble the natural ion channels found in cell membranes have been synthesised by researchers in the US and Europe. The team has shown how these nanopores can be built into sensors that detect medically relevant substances. Ions cannot naturally pass through lipids. The effective functioning of cells, however, requires them to […]

Despite the 125 years that have elapsed since Ernest Rutherford first figured out that the particles emitted during alpha decay amounted to a helium nucleus comprising two neutrons and two protons, researchers are still making new revelations about what happens during the decay process itself. Researchers led by David Moore, a physicist at Yale University […]

Researchers in Germany have designed an organic reagent capable of inserting a single carbon atom into existing molecules – one of three group transfer reactions supported by the new compound. The designer reagent is easy to make and could become a powerful addition to the skeletal editing toolbox. Carbon atom insertions are important transformations in […]

After our longer discourse on the history of magnetic variation, we return today to the history of navigation in England during the second half of the sixteenth century. John Dee (1527–c. 1608) was a central figure in the English mathematical world during this period. His name has already turned up in several of the earlier […]

The Nobel prize medal awarded to the US physical chemist Robert Mulliken will be auctioned off at the end of July. Mulliken, who died in 1986, was awarded the Nobel prize in chemistry in 1966 for his work on molecular orbital theory – a method for describing the electronic structure of molecules using quantum mechanics. […]

A computer program has been created that can ‘paint’ molecules in the style of Piet Mondrian – a Dutch artist known for his unique and simple artworks. The researchers hope that both artists and scientists will appreciate this novel visual representation of molecular structure demonstrating a development in the interface of the two disciplines. Mondrian’s […]

The borole compound 1,2,3-triphenyl-1-boraindene has been made by researchers in Germany for the first time. Its borole ring is fused with a single aryl ring and has 1,2,3-triphenyl substituents. The structure has been overlooked until now because research has mainly been directed towards non-fused and doubly-fused borole systems. Boroles are antiaromatic and therefore highly reactive […]

Following a five-year legal battle, Chinese-born former University of Kansas chemistry professor Feng ‘Franklin’ Tao, who was arrested and convicted under the former Trump administration’s now-defunct ‘China Initiative’, has been vindicated. An appeals court in Denver, Colorado has acquitted Tao of his one remaining conviction that he made a false statement about his relationship with […]