A gut microbe has been discovered that can break down nicotine and, if abundant enough, may reduce harm to smokers, reports a Sino-American collaboration. This finding might one day translate into a therapy that saves lives. The work began with a clinical trial in China that found an ‘unexpected’ accumulation of nicotine in the gut, […]

Scientists, researchers and academics across Brazil are celebrating the victory of former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over incumbent Jair Bolsonaro. Leading up to the runoff election on 30 October, there was strong support for Lula from the country’s research community. Lula beat Bolsonaro with 50.9% of the vote to 49.1%. The exceptionally close […]

The Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) has committed to making all of its journals open access within the next five years. It is the first chemistry publisher to commit to a 100% open access model and hopes to fund the move in a way that will avoid individual authors having to pay article processing charges […]

The UK has a rich network of small, technology-intensive companies, many of which have been spun out of research-based universities. Unlike in the US, however, relatively few recent UK startups have grown into large companies, let alone become household names. Ask the senior management teams of these companies what is holding them back, and one […]

Researchers in China have created a dual-phase ceramic that deforms rather than cracks when compressed. The team believes the technique, in which silicon nitride absorbs stress through bond switching during gradual phase change, could potentially be applied in other hard ceramics made from covalent bonds. Covalent ceramics like silicon nitride are among the strongest, hardest […]

The electronic structure of hydrated proton complexes has been measured precisely using x-ray spectroscopy and simulations.1 The new results, which give insights into what happens during proton transport in water, could be used to optimise hydrogen fuel cells and understand how proton pumps work in biological systems. ‘Solving the structure and transport mechanism of an […]

Do you have children, grandchildren, nephews & nieces, grandnephews & grandnieces, the children of friends, age group 7–12, that you would like to give a book as a Christmas present. An entertaining but also educational book, a well written and beautifully illustrated book, a fascinating and intriguing book? Then look no further, I have the […]

By tuning the magnetic properties of porphyrin chains, researchers are gaining new insights into materials that could be used in data-storage and quantum computing. A research team led by Xiaodong Zhuang and Shiyong Wang from Shanghai Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, China, prepared porphyrin chains on a gold surface. Using microscopy techniques applied in atomic […]

When populist Jair Bolsonaro was narrowly elected as Brazil’s new president four years ago, scientists and academics across the country were shaken. They were concerned that funding for research in Brazil would further dry up, along with academic freedoms, and the consensus among essentially all of them is that these fears have been realised. As the […]

George Freeman, the conservative MP who resigned as science minister in July, has been reappointed as a minister for science in Rishi Sunak’s new government. Freeman previously served as science minister for nine months from September 2021 before resigning in protest at then prime minister Boris Johnson’s leadership. At the time, Freeman cited Johnson’s ‘lack […]