By synthesising a mirror-image version of protein-digesting enzyme trypsin, scientists in China have pioneered a method of sequencing D-proteins. The strategy could aid the development of promising mirror-image peptide and protein therapeutics. Where natural peptides and proteins exhibit L-chirality, their mirror-image counterparts show D-chirality and have been investigated as potentially useful drugs. Because these molecules […]

The enormity of the challenge posed by plastic pollution is almost too much to grasp. At the risk of drowning readers in incomprehensible figures, here are some stats: plastic production has more than doubled since the turn of the century to an eye-watering 460 million tonnes each year – a figure that is predicted to double again […]

In 1970 Nobel laureate Anthony Leggett made the apparently nonsensical suggestion that the properties of superfluid helium ‘may be shared by some solids’. Contradictory though it sounds the notion that a crystalline solid might flow like a superfluid – that is, having zero viscosity – without any compromise in rigidity has stuck, and the hunt […]

A new robotic platform produces proteins with improved properties in a fully autonomous manner. Moreover, the system is able to experimentally assess these proteins and, thanks to artificial intelligence, interpret the results and then redesign the proteins’ amino acid sequences to boost their functionalities further. In a preliminary test to bolster the thermal tolerance of […]

A new treatment for Covid-19 can shorten illness among adults with mild cases of the virus, according to a study in the New England Journal of Medicine. Simnotrelvir is an oral 3-chymotrypsin-like protease inhibitor that was developed by Simcere Pharmaceutical in partnership with two Chinese academic institutions. It was approved in China under an emergency authorisation […]

The Committee on Publishing Ethics (Cope) is urging immediate action to tackle the threat posed by paper mills, which it says are ‘polluting’ the scholarly record with fake research articles. Paper mills are third-party companies that produce and sell falsified research papers and authorship spots. Cope, which is charged with defining best practice in the […]

Up till now I have treated Greek culture in antiquity as if it were a single entity existing from the pre-Socratics in the seventh and sixth centuries BCE down to John Philoponus in the sixth century CE and beyond. This is, of course, anything but the truth. Before Alexander the Great, there was a collection […]

The ongoing disruption of shipping in the Red Sea is having repercussions for chemical industry supply chains. With Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen stepping up their strikes on cargo ships in support of Hamas in its war with Israel. Houthis have launched dozens of attacks against ships in the Red Sea since late 2023, including firing […]

At first glance, cyclocarbons look almost boring: rings of carbon atoms that can be drawn either with alternating triple and single bonds, or all double bonds. But their simplicity is deceptive, as these compounds remained impossible to make for decades. Only in the last few years have chemists managed to push the limits of synthesis […]

The detailed reaction mechanisms by which isolated hydronium and hydroxide ions neutralise each other have been observed by Israeli and Swedish research groups in ion-beam experiments. The results differ from what we expect to occur in liquid water, but could help guide future investigations into what is one of the most fundamental chemical reactions. The […]