Leader: Resilience climbs up the agenda
Resilience is generally understood to mean the ability to weather and overcome difficulties – the ability to bounce back, to recover and persist during challenges. And the world’s economic resilience is being challenged as it currently experiences major difficulties due to the conflict in the Middle East.
Re-imagining skincare: The rise of neurocosmetics
Cosmetics and skincare products don’t just affect our appearance, but emerging neurocosmetics are also claiming to change our mood – and even our health and wellbeing. Maria Burke reports
Researchers look at how psilocybin targets brain circuits to relieve pain
Researchers have investigated how psilocybin targets brain circuits to relieve pain. A single dose of the compound reduced pain and depression-like behaviours in lab mice with nerve injury and inflammatory pain. Those effects lasted for almost two weeks.
Fluoride-ion battery research: Charging into the future
As battery needs become more demanding to support sectors such as aviation or long-haul container shipping, alternative ‘beyond-lithium’ battery chemistries are highly sought-after. XiaoZhi Lim reports on research into fluoride-ion alternatives.
Click chemistry helps scientists map cellular targets of drugs
A collaboration between researchers in the US and Canada has yielded a method that reveals precisely where drugs end up in a mammalian body. Their method used click chemistry and was demonstrated with two cancer drugs, afatinib and ibrutinib.
Antibiotics: World Health Organization publishes three target product profiles
The World Health Organization (WHO) has published three new Target Product Profiles (TPPs) for antibiotics designed to address key drug-resistant bacteria causing infections in at-risk populations worldwide.
Comment: Global medicine use
Increasing usage of medicines, and the associated amount being spent, have become central issues in health policy and international trade discussions in recent years, including the potential reshaping of global markets and drug pricing that is being proposed by the US administration.
Apples: From waste to bioethanol production
Apple pomace, the waste in the form of peel, stem, seeds and stalks which can make up 25 to 30% of the processed fruit, is often discarded into landfill despite its high carbohydrate content and potential for bioconversion. Because apple pomace is rich in cellulose, pectin and hemicellulose, it can be enzymatically converted into sugar monomers and then into alcohol.
High-energy compound could be rocket fuel for round-trip to Mars
US researchers have created a new high-energy compound suitable for rocket fuel. The boron-containing compound could make return flights from Mars possible, says the group at the University of Albany, New York.
Lithium: Remaking the global supply chain
A short video clip posted on social media by Tesla in January 2026 served as a perhaps modest introduction of a major development: the electric vehicle maker’s new lithium refinery – the largest in North America – becoming operational.