Highlights

Scientist studying a protein with a camera

Serial femtosecond crystallography reveals protein dynamics in real time

Proteins are constantly moving, but our structures of them are static. Clare Sansom talks to the researchers using free-electron lasers to make time-resolved structures

Antarctica viewed from above

Carbon in an ice world

Antarctica may seem pristine and almost devoid of life, but there’s plenty of chemistry going on. Victoria Atkinson explains what it can tell us about the climate and pollution across the globe

Cecilia Payne and spectral lines

The young female astronomer who worked out what the sun is made of

100 years ago, Cecilia Payne deduced that the sun is mainly made of hydrogen – but was encouraged to downplay her findings by her PhD supervisor. Mike Sutton takes up the story

Hibernating doormouse

Hibernation awakens interest for drug discovery

With many different species entering torpor for a variety of reasons, scientists are looking to their sleepy secrets for ways to treat human diseases. Anthony King reports

Sun rising over refinery

How decarbonisation will help the UK’s last refineries survive

Carbon capture and low-carbon hydrogen are central to any possibility of supplying liquid fuels compatible with net zero, reports Andy Extance

Topics

Gordon Moore

US charity launches $100 million green chemistry initiative

Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation to fund seven year project headed by sustainable chemistry pioneer Paul Anastas

Pitfalls in cytotoxicity studies could be tripping up chemists

Team proposes how to broaden and standardise biological testing in sustainable chemical research

Light-driven catalytic system makes ammonia from nitrogen and water

Dual catalyst system operates under ambient conditions, offering a way to reduce ammonia production’s environmental impact

Chemists urged to build a greener future by Stockholm declaration document

‘Father of green chemistry’ Paul Anastas among those spearheading call to action

Filter paper simplifies squaramide synthesis

Capillary-driven flow distributes reagents evenly

Seed oil-based polymer should survive a day in the rain but degrade within years in the sea

Researchers create polyesteramides from brassylic acid and explore their potential as a replacement for polyethylene

Robotic hands

Springer Nature launches new tool to spot awkward, tortured phrases

This latest machine learning tool follows ones created earlier this year to detect AI-generated text and flag duplicate or manipulated images

Cracked soil

Chemistry ‘deserts’ threaten to push poorer undergraduates out

Course and departmental closures in the UK are creating ‘cold spots’, leaving students high and dry

Researcher severely injured in 2016 Hawaii lab explosion receives £5 million settlement

Thea Ekins-Coward lost an arm in an experiment with unsafe apparatus

Wellcome backing gets project to recreate human genome from scratch off the ground

Effort to synthesise human genome will likely take decades but should provide insight into disease

How do you rebuild your lab after it is hit by an Iranian missile?

Milko van der Boom talks to Chemistry World about dealing with destruction at the Weizmann Institute, saving samples and people coming together