Science

For over a century, the well-known 18-electron rule has guided the field of organometallic chemistry. Now, researchers at Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have successfully synthesized a novel organometallic compound that challenges this longstanding principle. They have created a stable 20-electron derivative of ferrocene, an iron-based metal-organic complex, which could lead to exciting…

Speeding up chemical reactions is key to improving industrial processes or mitigating unwanted or harmful waste. Realizing these improvements requires that chemists design around documented reaction pathways. Now, a team of Penn State researchers has found that a fundamental reaction called oxidative addition can follow a different path to achieve the same ends, raising the…

Getty Images Water companies spilled raw sewage into England’s rivers and seas for a record 3.6 million hours in 2024, according to Environment Agency figures. Limited amounts of sewage are allowed to be discharged during periods of excess rain, but environmental groups say the levels pose a threat to wildlife and risk swimmers’ health. A…

From poached to panfried, when it comes to eggs, it’s all sunny side up, as new research from the University of South Australia confirms that this breakfast favourite won’t crack your cholesterol. Long blamed for high cholesterol, eggs have been beaten up for their assumed role in cardiovascular disease (CVD). Now, UniSA researchers have shown…

Katy Watson Australia correspondent Reporting fromWestern Australia Watch: Can you un-bleach coral? BBC visits remote Australian reef to find out Australia boasts plenty of superlatives when it comes to its natural landmarks. The Great Barrier Reef, the world’s biggest coral reef system on the north-east coast, is rightly recognised as a Unesco World Heritage Site….

Victoria Gill Science correspondent, BBC News Link et al/Biology Letters The researchers say the terror bird did not survive the encounter Teeth marks made on the leg bone of a large avian reptile known as a terror bird 13 million years ago suggest an even bigger predator may have killed it, scientists say. Terror birds…

Recently, Professor Dong Eon Kim from POSTECH’s Department of Physics and Max Planck Korea-POSTECH Initiative and his research team have succeeded in unraveling for the first time the mystery of the ‘electron tunneling’ process, a core concept in quantum mechanics, and confirmed it through experiments. This study was published in the international journal Physical Review…

The Metropolitan Museum of Art Artwork: The new system predicts missing text from broken inscriptions, their date and original location A new AI tool has the potential to turbocharge our understanding of all human history, researchers say. Artificial intelligence has already been used to fill in gaps in ancient Roman scrolls, but a new system…

Esme Stallard and Georgina Rannard BBC News Climate and Science Watch: Activists react to landmark UN climate change ruling outside The Hague A landmark decision by a top UN court has cleared the way for countries to sue each other over climate change, including over historic emissions of planet-warming gases. But the judge at the…