It’s one of the most popular and creative toys around, but playing with plastic building bricks could create something much less desirable in households and childcare settings: large amounts of micro- and nanoplastic particles. While it remains unknown whether such plastic particles pose any risk to health, the findings add yet another source of emerging […]

By chemically modifying a soft film material, researchers in China have developed an especially lightweight, small and flexible refrigeration system, the most efficient of its kind.1 The device, developed by Xiaoshi Qian of Shanghai Jiao Tong University (SJTU) and colleagues, uses an electrical field to move the film and drive heat into and out of […]

Over 60 articles published by the chemistry journal Chemosphere have had an expression of concern added to them. Reasons given vary from article to article but include unusual changes to the authorship of the article prior to publication, potential citation manipulation, potentially undisclosed conflicts of interest by a reviewer or editor handling the peer-review process […]

Organic cages have been used as precursors to synthesise higher-order porous structures, adding to their functionality while the ability to solution process them is retained. The team from the UK and China used ether-bridged cage molecules as a building block – its chlorine atoms are essential for forming ether bridges – with fluorine-enriched tetrafluorohydroquinone (TFHQ) […]

The Covid-19 virus is more stable in air containing high levels of carbon dioxide, typical of poorly ventilated indoor spaces, new research claims. This means it lasts longer and is more likely to infect people. Even a moderate rise in carbon dioxide results in a significant increase in the risk of disease transmission, confirming the […]

A remarkable project is drawing to a close, one that has given us new insights into the mind of one of history’s greatest chemists: Humphry Davy. Over 3500 volunteers have transcribed 83 notebooks that had been sitting in the archives of the Royal Institution, unable to reach a wider audience. And they give us unprecedented […]

Elisabeth Bik doesn’t regret becoming a scientific sleuth who catches researchers behaving badly for a living for one minute. That’s despite her recently facing legal threats from two bioscientists in France – prosecutors in Marseille just concluded that there was not enough evidence to charge her.  In a previous life, she was a microbiologist at […]

French prosecutors have concluded that there is not enough evidence to investigate research integrity specialist Elisabeth Bik over accusations of making threats, extortion and blackmail brought by two high-profile bioscientists. The complaints followed Bik highlighting errors in the scientists’ work that claimed that hydroxychloroquine could treat Covid-19 – something that did not turn out to […]

A general and quick strategy for converting complex aromatic building blocks into saturated molecules with improved medicinal properties has been developed. The new approach – called late-stage saturation – opens up opportunities in drug discovery and drug optimisation.1 ‘The production of new medicines depends on the synthetic availability of suitable molecular structures, which usually have […]

A general and quick strategy for converting complex aromatic building blocks into saturated molecules with improved medicinal properties has been developed. The new approach – called late-stage saturation – opens up opportunities in drug discovery and drug optimisation.1 ‘The production of new medicines depends on the synthetic availability of suitable molecular structures, which usually have […]