In the last episode I was rude about the pre-Socratics and today I intend to be rude about another more noted Ancient Greek philosopher. Quite logically, Socrates (c. 470–399 BCE) follows on from the pre-Socratics, who was followed by his pupil Plato (c. 428–348 BCE), in turn followed by his pupil Aristotle (384–322 BCE). Socrates, […]

Even before the US government announced plans to crack down on perceived espionage by China in 2018, scientists of Chinese descent were leaving the US. Since then the numbers leaving have only accelerated as both junior and experienced faculty depart, according to a new analysis. The work reveals that nearly 20,000 scientists of Chinese descent […]

Click chemistry has been used to create antibody-based molecules that can treat cancer. These sorts of molecules are already in trials and have shown good anti-tumour activity in human cancer cell lines. These checkpoint inhibitory T cell engager (CiTE) molecules can engage the body’s immune system and direct cytotoxic T cells to destroy cancer cells. […]

Biogen plans to lay off 1000 employees, over 11% of its global workforce, by 2025, as it reorganises to cut costs. The company already shed 900 staff worldwide in 2022, from about 9600 employees to 8700. Biogen claims its broader cost-cutting effort will generate approximately $1 billion (£780 million) in gross operating expense savings by […]

Up to 70% of nitric acid remains undissociated when adsorbed on nanoparticles of ice, new research shows. This is in stark contrast to how nitric acid behaves in water and on bulk amorphous ice, where it dissociates fully. ‘Nitric acid is a key player in the composition of polar stratospheric ice clouds,’ comments Kevin Wilson, an […]

The Hammett equation, a chemical theory that is over 80 years old, is being expanded upon and improved with the help of machine learning. The equation, which can help to explain the electron-donating or withdrawing nature of aromatic substituents via calculation of Hammett constants, has been analysed computationally by a team of Brazilian researchers who […]

Ever since a train carrying tonnes of industrial chemicals derailed in the Ohio town of East Palestine on 3 February and began leaking its contents, questions have been raised about the health effects of the disaster. In the aftermath of the incident, officials from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced that air and water […]

The embattled US Chemical Safety Board (CSB), the small independent federal agency charged with investigating serious industrial chemical accidents, continues to court controversy. Most recently, it has come to light that former chairwoman Katherine Lemos – who resigned from the CSB last year, reportedly citing ‘eroded confidence’ in the board’s ability to focus on its […]

UK government rules that prevented Dan Kaszeta, a chemical weapons expert, from speaking at an international conference organised by the Ministry of Defence have been suspended following a legal challenge. Under the rules, speakers could be blacklisted if they had criticised the government on social media over the past five years. Kaszeta, an associate fellow […]

A new high-throughput technique can analyse the folding stabilities of nearly one million protein sequences at a time. The unprecedented method – which is fast, accurate and scalable – promises to help understand how amino acid sequences fold into three dimensional conformations, while providing the data needed to improve machine learning models. The propensity for […]