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.

Protein discovery reveals mechanism of anaphylactic shock.

For some people, it just takes a taste of peanut to induce a sudden and possibly fatal allergic reaction. Now researchers have unpicked the mechanism behind this anaphylactic shock, and have managed to protect mice against the condition.

Read the story here.