A US jury has convicted biochemist Mark Schena of nine fraud charges related to how he ran medical technology company Arrayit. He faces a maximum prison term of more than 100 years and is scheduled to be sentenced on 30 January, 2023. Schena defrauded investors in Arrayit by claiming that he had invented revolutionary technology […]

Quantum dots have been turned into a 3D printer ink by researchers in China. The technique could be used to make advanced light-emitting devices or photodetectors. 3D printing offers new ways to make all sorts of different products, but the technique generally relies on traditional polymers. Many researchers hope that incorporating inorganic materials into 3D […]

As regulators look to limit the use of many synthetic crop protection chemicals, alternatives derived from or inspired by biology offer the promise of potentially safer, more environmentally benign substitutes. The European commission this summer proposed halving the use of synthetic pesticides in the EU by 2030. If accepted, an enforcement framework would compel farmers […]

As the UK’s new prime minister Liz Truss begins appointing her first cabinet, scientific organisations are making the case for research and innovation to be at the heart of government policy. But questions remain about the new government’s plans for science, with no science minister yet appointed. The UK’s research community has found itself in […]

UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) is raising its minimum rate for PhD stipends by 10%. The move follows calls from postgraduate researchers for more support amid the UK’s ongoing cost of living crisis. In July, an open letter addressed to UKRI chief executive Ottoline Leyser and its chair Andrew Mackenzie demanded action to support postgraduate […]

Normal service is being suspended as I have to write an obituary for a friend. Anybody who has read the autobiographical fragments on this blog will know that I have led a far from the normal life that is expected of a child from a middle-class English family–school, university, career, family, retirement. My path through […]

A new class of synthetic molecular pump has been created that can rapidly and selectively prepare oligorotaxanes with a specific number and sequence of macrocyclic rings. Molecular pumps are a type of molecular machine which drive a system away from equilibrium by moving molecules against an energy gradient. In nature, this movement is called active […]

Chemical characterisation of rare or dangerous isotopes is now possible with as little as 1µg of material, thanks to a new technique developed by nuclear chemists. Currently, much of the in-depth chemistry of heavy actinides is unknown, largely because they are not available in the quantities needed for a thorough investigation. This is either because […]

A move by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to designate two formerly widely used per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) as ‘hazardous chemicals’ means that companies deemed polluters will have to either pay to clean up the sites they contaminated, or reimburse the agency for the costs of remediation. The proposed rule has been strongly […]

For the first time, chemists have synthesised single crystals of aza-triangulene and its cation. These high-spin species are especially unstable – and until now they were only accessible via on-surface synthetic methods, which require complex manipulations with microscopes. Starting from an amine decorated with aromatic groups, chemists built the structure of aza-triangulene through a series […]