Multiple copies of a mystery gene may make us human
From mice to monkeys to chimps to people, a brain-protein gene pumps up. Read more
From mice to monkeys to chimps to people, a brain-protein gene pumps up. Read more
Boosting killer T cells shows promise with skin tumours. Read more
As the conference winds down, I think it was, all in all, a good thing. It will be interesting to see how it develops. Will it become a mega-meeting, like the ACS meetings, or will it find some sort of niche, disciplinary or otherwise? Read more
A big conference just isn’t a big conference without a lot of handing out of medals. So here’s congrats to Jonathan Nitschke of the University of Geneva, for winning the European Young Chemist’s award. He got an IOU from the Italian Chemical Society for 1,800 €, and a nice gold medal. Lee Cronin promised me that if he didn’t win, he would get up and shout ’It’s rigged! It’s rigged!‘, but unfortunately, he got one of the silver medals, and so we didn’t get to see a temper tantrum in the tent. Read more
Analytical chemists won’t run out of work any time soon. The world is reassuringly full of unknowns. Perhaps less reassuring is the nature of some of these unknowns. Koni Grob at the Kantonales Laboratory in Zurich, which he calls ‘a nano FDA’, has been looking at the compounds that food packages shed into the food we eat. His most recent focus has been on the plastic gaskets found inside jar lids. He finds that when oil–like that in tomato sauce, for example-touches these gaskets, all sorts of known and unknown things leach out into the food. Read more
Imaging study shows that godly experiences trigger a network within the brain. Read more
Unapproved food additive could make baked goods safer. Read more
Astronomers petition against new definition of a planet. Read more
This week’s Nature Podcast investigates male infertility, examines how the brain categorises visual information, heralds SMART-1’s last hurrah, and has more on RNAi and indefinite inheritance, size and the death of a star, and gamma-ray bursts. Read more