At the beginning of the first episode of this series I wrote the following: In popular histories of science in Europe the history of physics is all too often presented roughly as follows, in antiquity there was Aristotle, whose writings also dominated the Middle Ages, until Galileo came along and dethroned him, following which Newton […]

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) used in many lithium battery electrolytes pose an underappreciated threat to the environment, according to a new report. The researchers behind the finding say that the material must be removed from wastewater streams and call for a more holistic approach to the design of green energy technologies to avoid causing […]

The common journal standard of 0.4% for elemental analysis has come under scrutiny again as researchers demonstrate the method has a failure rate exceeding 25% in correctly identify the molecular formula for tryptophan. This comes after the method – particularly the journal standard – came under fire for the lack of reliability in measurements resulting […]

The Japan Institute of Heterocyclic Chemistry has initiated legal proceedings against the digital preservation site CLOCKSS, which made thousands of papers published by a journal previously run by the institute accessible, Chemistry World has learned. In April, Chemistry World reported that the Japanese institute abruptly removed all the papers published by Heterocycles since it was […]

The president of the Kyoto Institute of Technology (KIT) in Japan, Masahiro Yoshimoto, is facing several accusations of self-plagiarism. Yoshimoto is alleged to have duplicated data from his own research group across 34 research papers, according to a report in Retraction Watch. The accusations, which were brought to KIT’s attention last October, are based on […]

On 20 June, the Spanish prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, announced a new initiative to promote links between politicians and scientists. ONAC – the national office for scientific advice – will work directly with the prime minister’s office to coordinate the scientific advisers in each government ministry. ONAC will also create a strategic support unit within […]

If you work in a lab where you run chemical reactions under reflux conditions, you’ve likely considered the downsides of using water in your condenser. Such experiments heat a solvent to boiling, using a condenser above the reaction vessel to cool and capture the vapour produced, returning it as liquid to the vessel. Traditionally, chemists […]

A team of researchers has shown that paper industry waste can be transformed into a zinc–air battery.1 The battery, created from cellulose and lignin, exhibited a high power density and a wide operating temperature, while avoiding the longstanding issue of dendrite growth. Zinc–air batteries are popular due to their low cost and high energy density. […]

At the end of 2023, the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) challenged several pharmaceutical companies (including AbbVie, AstraZeneca and Teva) on the accuracy or relevance of over 100 patents listed in the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) Orange Book – a registry for patents relating to approved drugs, which have bearing on the possible […]

The world’s largest sodium-ion battery has gone into operation in Qianjiang in China’s Hubei province. The developers of the energy storage system say that it can meet the daily electricity requirements of 12,000 households. Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries are used in everything from mobile phones and electric vehicles to grid-scale energy storage. But with lithium in […]