There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
Catalysts for change: the science of making molecules
Last week, the Nobel prize in chemistry 2021 was awarded for ‘the development of asymmetric organocatalysis’ — ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and JOEL HELLEWELL introduce a greener way to build molecules
NOBEL PRIZE: David WC MacMillan (left) and Benjamin List were awarded for finding an ‘ingenious’ and environmentally cleaner way to build molecules
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
MAKING molecules is easy for humans: within your body, billions of delicately balanced chemical processes are happening every day, moving groups of atoms around in shifting patterns.
As carbon-based life-forms, our internal chemistry is fantastically rich. Carbon can combine with other atoms so easily and in so many ways. It’s a toolbox that produces all of life as we know it. But we don’t know how most of these submicroscopic reactions work.
Natural molecular processes have evolved over billions of years, with complex pathways looping in dizzying complexity within the cell. These require sophisticated biochemistry to untangle.
More from this author
What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society
While politicians condemned fascist bombing of Spanish civilians in 1937, they ignored identical RAF tactics across the colonies. Today’s aerial warfare continues this pattern of applying different moral standards based on geography and race, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
The distinction between domestic and military drones is more theoretical than practical, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
