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Moses Dike and Shudipto Konika Dishari explore lignin’s historic journey alongside human civilization and showcase its game-changing potential to drive sustainability without compromising performance.
Modern scientists exist within the digital world. Shira Joudan describes how an online presence is beneficial to researchers, and what a baseline presence can look like.
Global energy consumption is rising rapidly; however, fossil fuel use is anticipated to peak soon owing to the widespread adoption of renewable energy sources. Bruce Gibb explores the pivotal role chemists can play in developing alternative technologies within the renewable energy sector, with a particular focus on thermal energy storage.
Zoe Hoffpauir and Audrey Lamb outline the history and prospects of riboflavin, also known as vitamin B2, a molecule found in food that is required for the formation of coenzymes involved in metabolic processes.
Did meteorites fall between the interdisciplinary cracks? Michelle Francl tells the nineteenth-century tale of the extraterrestrial origin of meteorites and suggests that there are lessons for those studying topics that involve multiple disciplines today.
Elena De Vita and Rebecca Page reflect on the unique properties of phosphate, an essential building block with versatile functions in living systems. Modulating protein phosphorylation is an effective therapeutic strategy, with emerging approaches highlighting the continuous development in this area of drug discovery.
There are many steps to preparing a research article for publication, from generating the figures and writing the draft, to responding to reviewers. Shira Joudan explains how their group approaches this task, specifically during the preparation of the research group’s first paper.
Artificial intelligence is being used in many aspects of chemical research. Bruce Gibb discusses top-down and bottom-up approaches to the development of AI, highlighting the issues with cultural divides and the challenges of data quality. He also introduces 'Eric', a potential AI research assistant for the future chemist.
Paulina Krzyszowska and Ewa Pacholska-Dudziak recap the history of porphyrins, their biological relevance, and discuss examples of their use in modern applications.
The acknowledgements sections of papers are used formally to recognize those who have contributed to an article but are not authors. Michelle Francl suggests that they can be more than that — they can say more than thank you and can flesh out a story.
In grad school, there is time to focus on learning about your field and your project — and to keep up with the literature. Now, as an assistant professor, Shira Joudan explains how learning science is necessarily different as they manage multiple projects and a busy schedule.
Legacy energy production has generated a climate crisis and left in its wake a history of injustices that have disproportionately impacted marginalized communities. Integrating energy justice into the curricula and research of those who aim to fix this crisis is essential to equip students with the expertise needed to create and implement equitable energy solutions.
About two thirds of western society are extroverts, but the contemplative nature of science means that this is not true of the academic population. Bruce Gibb discusses extraversion and introversion in science and asks whether the movement towards larger projects involving teams of scientists is making it harder for introverts and for disruptive discoveries.
Much natural-product-based drug discovery has depended on the practices of Indigenous Peoples, who have sometimes invested centuries of care into the cultivation and use of plant or fungal matter. However, the contributions of the original discoverers can be lost as the natural products are developed into pharmaceutical products.
Adam Noble discusses the diverse uses of eosin Y over its 150-year history, from its origin as a dye and pigment used by post-impressionist masters to its versatile reactivity as a catalyst in visible light photochemistry.
