Lactam insight
Wiley’s new Handbook of Pyrrolidone and Caprolactam Based Materials –available as a six-volume print set and online edition – details the broad human benefits of the materials, many of which are from the chemist’s viewpoint.
Boning up on bones
Here the author, orthopaedic surgeon Roy Meals, offers a very readable overview of the various roles played by bones both currently and in the past.
Make-up – the essentials
This book, aimed at the non-specialist, aims to explain ‘the real science behind the cosmetics we use’, and in the scene-setting introductory chapter it explains the meaning of organic and inorganic in a scientific sense.
Water cleaning gel
A hydrogel tablet that rapidly purifies contaminated water could save lives. One tablet can disinfect a litre of water and make it suitable for drinking in under an hour, say its developers at the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, US.
Super-stable glass
A new type of super-stable organic glass has been created by researchers in Sweden. The group at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg generated a material with the lowest recorded fragility for organic glasses, by mixing eight derivatives of perylene, a polycyclic aromatic molecule (Sci. Adv., 2021, 7, eabi4659).
Antibiotic apocalypse
Almost ten years ago, the world was warned of an impending apocalypse of a post-antibiotic era. Yet as the latest WHO report points out, the threat is far from averted. Katrina Megget reports
Vancomycin assistance
Vancomycin is an antibiotic of last resort for tackling resistant bacteria like MRSA. Now, researchers have improved its effectiveness by boosting the associated immune response, they report.
Cyber breaches
Polling employers and employees around UK business during Q3 2021, data security company SecureAge discovered 48% of businesses experienced a cyber breach during the Covid-19 pandemic and another 8% ‘were not sure’. In addition, 16% of employees said they had personally had to deal with a cybersecurity incident.
Manufacturing investment for UK jobs and growth
A network of UK advanced manufacturing organisations has published a joint report setting out policy recommendations to maximise the potential of UK manufacturing to generate and sustain high value jobs and growth.