ChemCafé

At a time when public expenses are shrinking, scientists are under close scrutinity and must justify the money they spend. Researchers are therefore increasingly exposed to the media, and it seems appropriate to ask whether they are ready for that. Two recent examples tend to show that they are not. The first is the clumsy [...]

After yesterday’s Nobel Prize in Physics which went to two relatively young researchers (Andre Geim* and Konstantin Novoselov from the University of Manchester) for a very recent discovery (graphene, isolated in 2004), today’s Prize in Chemistry went to much older people for discoveries made 40 years ago: Richard F. Heck (emeritus professor at the [...]

It is a pity Mr Nobel did not think about including a prize for biology in his final will. Today’s announcement was eagerly awaited in my department, particularly since a very member of our institute was part of the Thomson Reuters nominees, which raised considerable buzz over the last couple of weeks. We all crossed [...]

A recent issue of Nature featured a series of articles on global warming. Not that it is particularly new, but the interest here was that it was a mix of papers dealing with the current situation and its probable evolution over the next century – with all the likely consequences knocking at our (not well [...]