The term the Republic of Letters is one that one can often encounter in the history of Early Modern or Modern Europe, but what does it mean and to whom does it apply? Republic comes from the Latin res publica and means res “affair, matter, thing” publica “public, people.” However, here it is the “people” or “men”, as they mostly were, […]

In an effort to effectively deal with a changing climate, there is no question humans are making progress. Yet, at the same time in this global fight, anthropogenic forces are facing some strong headwinds. Many argue it’s a race against the clock. Experts have warned and are warning us that if we don’t head off […]

Research into new, environmentally friendly ways of making molecules has won the 2021 Nobel prize in chemistry. Benjamin List and David MacMillan were recognised by the Nobel committee ‘for the development of asymmetric organocatalysis’. Announcing the award, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ secretary general Göran Hansson described organic catalysts as ‘an ingenious tool for […]

Prize-winning topics produce more papers and are better able to retain talent and attract new researchers than non-prizewinning fields. The finding comes from an analysis by researchers in the US and China, who looked at the role prizes play in propelling scientific fields to new heights. A team led by Brian Uzzi from Northwestern University, […]

8.14am Poll position And Nature Chemistry editor Stuart Cantrill has run his annual who will win the chemistry Nobel on Twitter. With almost 2500 votes it’s a pretty decent cross section of the chemistry Twitterati. A month tomorrow (Oct 6th), the 2021 #chemnobel will be announced, so it’s time for the annual #ChemTwitter poll! What […]

Researchers at MIT and Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have developed a new way to determine whether individual patients will respond to a specific cancer drug or not. This kind of test could help doctors to choose alternative therapies for patients who don’t respond to the therapies normally used to treat their cancer. The new technique, which […]

The 2021 Nobel prize in physics has been awarded to three scientists who improved our understanding of the complexity of systems that range in scale from atoms to our planet’s climate. Syukuro Manabe, Klaus Hasselmann and Giorgio Parisi’s research provided fundamental insights that underpin much of our knowledge of climate change. Half of the prize […]

A second worker has died, three months after a chemical exposure incident at Daikin-America in Decatur, US. 33-year-old Will Delashaw died in late September, after being hospitalised with severe lung injuries since his exposure on 2 July. His death follows that of 20-year-old Wesley Rusk, who was injured in the same incident and died in […]

One third of children with a microdeletion of chromosome 22 will later develop a psychotic illness such as schizophrenia. But how do we know which of these children might be affected? Today, various studies have contributed to the understanding of the neurobiological mechanisms that are associated with the development of psychotic illnesses. The problem is […]

New research published in The Journal of Physiology has shown that ketone supplements may be a novel therapeutic strategy for protecting and improving brain health in people with obesity. People with obesity are known to be at a higher risk of developing cognitive impairment and neurodegenerative diseases. This new study found that giving a ketone […]