Silky smooth tissue regeneration

For polymer engineer Anuya Nisal, silk has always been a fascinating research material. ‘India is the world’s second largest producer of silk,’ she says. ‘The industry employs 8.6 million people.’ With her spin-out company Serigen Mediproducts, Nisal aims to develop silk into tissue regeneration products. India’s ancient literature describes using silk sutures to close wounds, […]

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AI picks out fake science

A machine learning algorithm that can flag papers that may have come from paper mills could help publishers fight fake scientific studies. Paper mills may be the biggest organised fraud perpetrated on scientific journals ever. While there have been instances of individual researchers manipulating images or simply inventing data, paper mills serve up professional fakery […]

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An evolution in pharma outsourcing

‘We essentially created from nothing a product ready to go into clinical testing,’ says Daniel Fitzgerald, chief executive of UK-based Halo Therapeutics about his company’s pan-coronavirus antivirals. The biotech launched at a challenging time – in the middle of the pandemic. ‘We had an [active pharmaceutical ingredient, API] to begin with,’ explains Fitzgerald. ‘What we […]

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Under pressure? Room temperature superconductivity paper retracted over data analysis

A ground-breaking paper claiming to show the first room-temperature superconductor has been retracted by the journal Nature over concerns around its data analysis, following allegations the results were manipulated. Superconductors are materials that exhibit no electrical resistance and are useful for a host of applications, including NMR machines, quantum computing and particle accelerators. However, currently […]

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Access to chemical database Reaxys under threat in UK as fees spiral

Concerns have been raised that institutional access to the Reaxys chemical and reactions database could end at universities across the UK in a row over rising costs. The dispute over subscription fees is being described as a potentially significant problem for chemists in the UK, and maybe worldwide. Reaxys incorporates Beilstein – the largest organic […]

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Exclusive polymers made using mechanochemistry

Researchers have created a set of polymers that cannot be made via solution-phase reactions, using a ball-milling method.1 Ring-opening metathesis polymerisation is a synthetic technique for producing functional polymers. It’s typically conducted in a liquid, which limits reactions to those where the monomers and initiator share a common solvent. As a result, many polymers remain unexplored […]

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Renaissance science – XLIV

This blog post is a modified version of two blog posts from my The emergence of modern astronomy–a complex mosaic series and yes it involves self plagiarism. I wrote it, rather than simply linking, because the content also belongs in this blog post series, which I wish to be complete and autonomous Short popular presentations […]

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Benzene’s bond lengths corrected

Scientists in South Korea are reporting the most accurate experimental geometries for benzene and deuterated benzene to date.1 The team led by Thomas Schultz at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology say that previously reported experimental structures were out by several milliangstroms. Sérgio Domingos from the University of Coimbra in Portugal, who wasn’t […]

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