Blogs
Royce W. Murray, a pioneer in electrochemistry, chemically modified electrodes, self-assembled monolayers, and ionic liquids, died on 6 July at age 85. Much of how we think about modifying surfaces and measuring changes induced by those modifications comes from Murray’s lab. Murray’s scientific accomplishments have been enumerated elsewhere, but those who knew him will best remember hi
As someone who spent a few years trying to attack Gram-negative bacteria (unsuccessfully, I should add), I enjoyed this new paper. Bacteria of all kinds (Gram-negative, Gram-positive, and mycobacteria) use a substance called peptidoglycan as part of their cell walls. It's a complex mixture of proteins and N-acetylamino carbohydrate polymers, and the short proteins involved incorporate D-amino acid
Here's a paper that comes under the heading of "so odd that it can't be passed over". The authors are looking at octafluorocubane, shown at right, because it is predicted to have the ability to hold a free electron in the middle of that cube (!) That's because of the C-F bond properties - all the electron density is being pulled towards the F atoms, so the center of the cube really has room for o
Editor's Blog
Royce W. Murray, a pioneer in electrochemistry, chemically modified electrodes, self-assembled monolayers, and ionic liquids, died on 6 July at age 85. Much of how we think about modifying surfaces and measuring changes induced by those modifications comes from Murray’s lab. Murray’s scientific accomplishments have been enumerated elsewhere, but those who knew him will best remember hi
Ten years ago, an editorial in Science remarked on how little progress had been made on improving the postdoctoral experience since a landmark report in 2000 detailed the variability of such positions. Postdoctoral scholars (postdocs) are hardly better off in 2022; however, postdoctoral fellowship programs can serve as the nuclei for changes that have long been recognized as necessary for improvin
The past 2 years have been a period of mourning, anger, fear, and exhaustion for Asian Americans: 16% of Asian American adults were victims of hate crimes in 2021, up from 12.5% in 2020; 31% worry “all the time” or “often” about being victimized because of their race; and 36% have changed their routines over concerns about personal safety. Despite the increase in anti-Asian
Our food system is a rich, complex blend of biology and culture. From the biodiversity in forests, oceans, and farms to the living weave of long-standing traditions and emerging trends, food touches every aspect of life on Earth. This diversity hasn’t always carried through to agricultural and culinary literatures, but fortunately this is changing. Fresh perspectives are emerging in the lite
Three weeks ago, I wrote about how graduate education is still in serious need of reform and pointed to a NextGen Voices piece that we ran describing how principal investigators can be better mentors. Recently, I learned that two outstanding chemistry professors—Jen Heemstra at Emory University and Neil Garg at the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA)—had launched an initiative
Paul Farmer—anthropologist, physician, Harvard University professor, and cofounder of Partners in Health (PIH)—died on 21 February. He was beloved as a medical doctor who cared for the poor and influenced countless others to do the same. His moral vision was tied to a quietly radical intellectual one: Through service, scientists can help make a fragmented world more whole.
For scientis
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Visuals
Have you ever wondered why some research makes science news and other research doesn’t? Of course, content is king but in addition to having significant findings, strong visuals can catch the attention of the press and larger audiences. It pays to spend some time taking high-quality photos of your work and putting them somewhere a photo editor (a person like me that seeks out pictures for news sto
I remember first learning about the nuclear pore. It was in high school biology, and I was immediately struck by how it looked. Its symmetry certainly stands out: eight copies of a protein unit arranged in a ring, encircling an opening in the nuclear membrane. And they cover the nucleus like holes in a colander (if that colander was very choosy about what it let through). The next thing one notice
Working with animals is unpredictable by nature. To them, there are always more interesting things to be doing, fresh smells to sniff, and new acquaintances to make. After reading the paper on dog breed stereotypes for the 29 April issue of Science, I knew we had to have a cover with as many dogs as possible. But if you’ve ever walked by a doggy daycare, you know it’s nearly impossible to get a group of dogs to focus on one thing, let alone sit still for a portrait.
I was fascinated by the complex shape of the intricate glass sculpture. Yet it was only 4.5 millimeters tall—less than the thickness of a No. 2 pencil. But the small scale posed a big problem: Would a photograph of such a minute object work as a Science cover?
In the Pipeline
As someone who spent a few years trying to attack Gram-negative bacteria (unsuccessfully, I should add), I enjoyed this new paper. Bacteria of all kinds (Gram-negative, Gram-positive, and mycobacteria) use a substance called peptidoglycan as part of their cell walls. It's a complex mixture of proteins and N-acetylamino carbohydrate polymers, and the short proteins involved incorporate D-amino acid
Here's a paper that comes under the heading of "so odd that it can't be passed over". The authors are looking at octafluorocubane, shown at right, because it is predicted to have the ability to hold a free electron in the middle of that cube (!) That's because of the C-F bond properties - all the electron density is being pulled towards the F atoms, so the center of the cube really has room for o
Here's the sort of detailed look that we'd all like to get in our drug discovery efforts, but rarely so. This new paper is looking at HSP70 inhibitors - that's a well-known family of "heat shock proteins", molecular chaperones that get expressed under stress and help to prevent damage to important protein partners. I believe that pretty much everything living has HSP70-type proteins; they're one o
It's a quiet late summer weekend - why don't we stir things up a bit, eh? I last wrote about the controversy over the origins of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic here, after a preprint came out with a lot of hard evidence for the "Wuhan market" hypothesis (and conversely, no real evidence for the "lab leak" hypothesis). That paper was recently published here at Science as two papers, and no matter whi
Bacteriophage therapy is an idea that's been around for a long time, but although a lot of people have heard of it, not many people really know much about it. The principle is appealing: if someone has a harmful bacterial infection, why not treat it by unleashing a virus that only infects those bacteria? Why isn't this done more often? Bacteriophages really don't target human cells, that part of t
Organic and (especially) medicinal chemists spend a lot of effort messing around with carbon-nitrogen bonds. It’s a pretty rare drug that has no nitrogen atoms in it, and because there are so many amines available, C-N substitution is a great way to explore a lot of structural diversity very quickly. If, of course, you have a reliable way to couple them.
If you want to substitute aryl rings