Source: https://www.cell.com/chem/fulltext/S2451-9294(26)00362-1 At a glance Breaking down a polyester usually produces two chemically different components: a diacid and a diol. Researchers from Soochow University and Sichuan University bring depolymerization and diol upgrading into the same vessel, using KOH to break
Source: https://pubs.acs.org/jacsat/article/doi/10.1021/jacs.6c14581/5453260/Aliphatic-Diazonium-Chemistry-through-Hydroquinone At a glance Diazonium chemistry provides a versatile way to replace the amino group of aromatic amines with other functional groups. Extending that chemistry to aliphatic amines is more difficult: their diazonium
Source: https://advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aenm.71708 At a glance Organic donor–acceptor nanoparticles can absorb sunlight and generate charges for hydrogen production, but their performance depends on how the two polymers arrange inside each particle. A Chalmers University of Technology-led team tackles that structural
Catalysis
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-026-78873-3 At a glance Converting waste PET into an aromatic diamine requires a catalyst that promotes nitrogen incorporation and oxygen removal while preserving the aromatic ring and the newly formed C–N bonds. A Tianjin University-led study in Nature Communications
Chemistry
Source: https://pubs.acs.org/chreay/article/doi/10.1021/acs.chemrev.6c00373/5452761/Mapping-Local-Environments-in-Single-Atom At a glance An isolated metal atom does not automatically represent a single, uniform catalytic site. In a Chemical Reviews article, Andrea Ruiz-Ferrando, Sharon Mitchell and Javier Pérez-Ramírez
Career
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03178-w Is AI eroding PhD students’ critical thinking and analysis skills?An expert panel debates the impact of artificial intelligence on doctoral programmes.Nature Publishing Group UKDavid Payne Graduate students increasingly use artificial-intelligence tools to search the literature, summarize papers,
Career
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-026-03226-5 What’s the secret sauce for happy scientists at work? These eight countries offer some cluesMeaningful work, flexibility and job security all matter more than salaries do, Nature’s job satisfaction survey shows.Nature Publishing Group UKLinda Nordling Funding pressure,
Career
Source: https://www.science.org/content/article/women-academics-feeling-devalued-can-be-fatal-career-blow Being held to higher standards while receiving fewer resources. Being excluded from important conversations. Being presented as evidence of diversity without having meaningful influence. Such experiences can be difficult to document individually, yet their
Career
Source: https://www.science.org/content/article/how-i-learned-speak-confidence At 4:45 p.m., Lan Nguyen Chaplin was watching both the presentation slides and the clock. Day care closed at 5:30, and a project meeting had already overrun. The team was debating disappointing results: one senior
Career
Source: https://www.science.org/content/article/new-assistant-professor-i-thought-i-needed-hide-my-family-responsibilities?referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F When Alexandra Piotrowski-Daspit became an assistant professor at the University of Michigan, she was also raising young children. In a Science Working Life
Energy
Source: https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.6c12618 At a glance Can two dopants take different jobs in an oxygen-evolution catalyst? Researchers at Northwestern University and collaborating institutions explore this idea in Ru₀.₇Mn₀.₁Ti₀.₂Oₓ. Their study assigns Mn a redox-active role in tuning reaction-intermediate energetics
Source: https://doi.org/10.1021/jacs.6c11755 At a glance What changes when a catalytic site is placed inside a pocket only a few ångströms wide? A study from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and collaborators uses density-functional-theory calculations to separate the effects of confinement distance, boundary chemistry