Chlorinated per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been degraded using microbes, offering a new way to tackle these persistent pollutants that have been dubbed ‘forever chemicals’ by the media. A University of California, Riverside team in the US reports that a specific class of PFAS, chlorinated polyfluorocarboxylic acids, can be broken down by the action […]

The EU’s research commissioner, Mariya Gabriel, has submitted her resignation and is leaving to help Bulgaria form a new coalition government. The European Commission announced her departure on 15 March, just days after she was selected by her party’s leader, Boyko Borisov, to be Bulgaria’s next prime minister and charged with establishing a government. Gabriel […]

A new type of dual-backbone ‘ladderphane’ polymer that combines extremely high thermal conductivity with very low electrical conductivity has been reported by researchers in China and the US.1 The team believe their polymer could help to prevent overheating in the growing number of high-power applications such as vehicles and aerospace systems that use electricity as […]

A Nasa spacecraft has discovered that Saturn’s rings formed within the last few hundred million years – lending weight to the idea that they coalesced much more recently than some scientists thought. This supports an ongoing debate about their age, suggesting they are not as ancient as the planet itself – which is around 4.5 […]

A report released by the science, innovation and technology committee of the UK House of Commons is recommending that a subcommittee dedicated to tackling issues related to the reproducibility of research should be created. In 2018, the committee, which consists of 11 MPs, previously recommended that a body be created to address research integrity issues […]

The new chemical technology lab of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) officially opened its doors on 12 May. The launch of the ChemTech Centre coincides with a historic milestone for the organisation that may now be just weeks away: the elimination of all declared stockpiles of chemical weapons in the world. […]

The scientific community was shocked when Charles Lieber, who chaired Harvard’s chemistry department and was a faculty member for almost 30 years, was convicted of hiding his links to China in December 2021. More than three years after the nanoscience pioneer’s arrest, he has finally been sentenced and avoided jailtime. With this case closed, researchers […]

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed new rules that would set carbon emissions standards for coal and gas-fired power plants under the US Clean Air Act. The agency estimates that this would avoid the emission of more than 600 million tonnes of carbon dioxide pollution by 2042. The proposed regulations would also result […]

The Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) has welcomed the UK government’s decision to scrap plans for all retained EU laws to automatically expire by the end of 2023, in the absence of a decision to preserve them. The institution had expressed concern that safety legislation could be affected by the sunset clause. Under the Retained […]

Using dental calculus from Neanderthals and Palaeolithic humans, researchers have reconstructed ancient microbial genes and engineered modern bacteria to produce their previously unknown metabolites. The approach will allow natural product researchers to ‘add a new dimension and go back in time’ according to bioorganic chemist Pierre Stallforth from the Hans Knöll Institute in Jena, Germany, […]