In the wake of high-profile, successful strikes by tens of thousands of academics at the University of California (UC) system late last year, higher education workers across the US are now mobilising. The United Auto Workers (UAW), through which University of California employees negotiated with their university system, says it is in talks with graduate […]

A Lego-like synthesis previously produced record-breaking nanoribbons of 30, then 53 fused rings. Now, a similar ‘accelerated’ modular methodology made a molecular nanoribbon that is triple the longest ever made – in just three simple steps. The gargantuan graphene nanoribbon is almost 36nm long, featuring 147 linearly linked rings and a conjugated core of 920 […]

Gene-edited poplar trees that produce less lignin could improve the efficiency and environmental impact of wood processing. Lignin is one of wood’s three main components, but it is left over as a by-product during processing. Lowering wood’s lignin content would reduce the waste generated during pulping, as well as the energy used in the process. […]

The Biden administration has banned the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China from receiving US federal funding after concluding that research there that had been financed by the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) likely violated biosafety protocols. Earlier this month, the NIH’s parent agency the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) determined that ‘the […]

Twenty-six megatonnes of chemicals were illegally traded between 2004 and 2019, despite UN treaties meant to limit their transport and use. The substances, that can have harmful impacts on people and the environment, ranged from tetraethyl lead for fuels to tributyltin compounds for anti-fouling paint. The new Swiss study has highlighted that there is a highly […]

By being my usual pedantic self and insisting on the correct use of terms in a historical context, I appear to have kicked a wasp’s nest.  Paul Williams, who has a Youtube channel titled Blogging Theology, twitted this map with the following text. Oxford University has published a map showing the oldest universities in the […]

A new technique for making fluorochemicals bypasses the production of hydrogen fluoride (HF) gas. This could make fluorochemical production safer, and the researchers who developed the method say it also has the potential to streamline supply chains and decrease energy requirements, helping to lower the industry’s carbon footprint. All of the fluorine atoms in fluorochemicals […]

Marc Tessier-Lavigne has resigned as president of Stanford University after a month-long review of his research found significant issues with published studies he had supervised. The review of 12 of his papers, which was carried out by an independent panel, was initiated in December 2022 following allegations of scientific misconduct related to Tessier-Lavigne’s research which […]

By attempting to transform a substituted aldehyde into a substituted benzene, researchers have found a new and unexpected way to synthesise spiro[2,4]heptadienes. Computational studies, from the group of 2021 chemistry Nobel prize winner Ben List, calculated the reaction pathway to forming the substituted benzene. It was only when the experiment was undertaken in the lab […]

A protein fragment from the brain could be used to track progression of Alzheimer’s disease. The tell-tale fragment of tau protein was detectable in the cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) of patients with the disease, and researchers now hope to develop a blood test using it. Alzheimer’s is a disease of errant protein aggregates that include amyloid […]