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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

So how DID Soai come up with his reaction?? You'll have to read it to find out what he said to Stara...

Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

The laureates themselves were hard* to track down, but we've had input from former Kagan post-doc Christian Girard, and from Irena Stara whose chance meeting with Soai at a chirality conference in 2008 led to a long-standing scientific connection *impossible

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 14/10/2026

Our correspondent @mwakley.bsky.social has spent the past week interviewing experts for the full story on this year's #ChemNobel - including Scott Denmark and Dan Singleton, plus Didier Astruc who wrote THAT article for Le Monde in 2001 when Kagan missed out! www.chemistryworld.com/features/how...

chemistryworld.com

How asymmetric autocatalysis won the Nobel prize

Mason Wakley tells the full story of how Henri Kagan and Kensō Soai's work on non-linear effects and asymmetric autocatalysis won the 2026 Nobel prize in chemistry

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David Bradley @sciencebase.com · 13/10/2026

I was on ChemComm when the fullerenes came to the fore...we had the paper from Harry K. The Kraetschmer paper was with Nature...we didn't technically fast-track it, but we worked on it diligently from refereering to proofs. I think Nature still beat us by a week (we were fortnightly)

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 13/10/2026

In which @philipcball.bsky.social raises the curtain on the life of a @nature.com editor faced with ground-breaking discoveries

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John Trant @trantteam.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I think so. I think you cant have properly shaped molecular machines based on carbon or silicon chemistry without homochirality or at least localized homochirality. I guess it is possible that one could have two separate ribosomal-like systems, mutually exclusive, using both enantiomers...seems bad

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Does life *have* to be homochiral? #ChemNobel Are there some racemic aliens out there watching our obsession with it and chuckling? #RacemicSpaceDinos

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Are you only allowed to break the omerta of who handled what paper when it wins a Nobel??

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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

It feels very good to have been the editor who handled Soai's 1995 paper in Nature on autocatalytic amplification of an enantiomeric excess - now known as the Soai reaction. This seemed a curiosity at the time, but we clearly made the right call.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Yeah, could have said 'he/she' or 'they', but come on, it's the Nobels!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I wonder which biologist has just got off the phone with Stockholm and is wondering why he's now a chemist... #ChemNobel

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

@stephengdavey.bsky.social dragged me over to shake his hand at the summer party once, he took it in good spirit! Free champagne eh...? I rewatched the doc while writing the obit, wish Horizon was still going

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Click through to hear the original answerphone message from the Nobel committee to tell Harry he'd won! And find a link to the 1992 Horizon documentary that inspired me as a 13 year old...

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

I've helped out @patdwalter.bsky.social with the live blog, adding a few bits from yesterday's 30th anniversary celebration at Sussex for Kroto's C60 Nobel #SussexC60Nobel30 www.chemistryworld.com/news/the-nob...

chemistryworld.com

The Nobel prize in chemistry 2026 as it happens – Live

Join us in the run-up to the announcement of the biggest prize in chemistry

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Safe to report that none of the photos I took ended up being used, or indeed any good.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

No worries – it's all of ~10 paces from my desk to the kitchen bookshelf!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

Having had to get the cookbook off the shelf for this, I had forgotten the recipe also includes an egg and 1tsp baking powder, but I never add those - maybe the baking pow would help, not sure the egg would!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

The one I use (normally half of to make 2 naan) is 200ml water, 2Tbsp oil, 4Tbsp yogurt, 450g strong white flour, 2tsp salt, 2tsp sugar, 7g yeast (1.5tsp?). Knead, prove, shape, rise. Cook in a v hot frying pan for ... 5min per side (no idea, just do it by eye). A lid helps.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

The petrol price comparison site reckons that is ~20p per mile. Charging our electric car at 10.5p per kWh and doing ~4 miles per kWh works out to 2.6p per mile. For my bike ride to/from work today I guess you could count the 75p banana: ~8p per mile. Shockingly expensive!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Diesel at my nearest + cheapest source (a supermarket) is £1.95 per litre, which Google AI converts to $9.94 per (US) gallon; regular unleaded petrol (gasoline) is £1.72 per litre => $8.77 per gallon.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

The furin cleavage site strikes bat, I mean back...

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Lols! I'm obviously only counting the solid sucrose varieties, and not the 3 types of honey, the golden syrup, black treacle, maple syrup, condensed milk, caramel sauce thing, jams, marmalades, etc. But I don't have any liquid glucose, I'm sad to report!

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 27/08/2026

Currently three - white caster, white icing and something that's either demerara/soft brown. There's occasionally white granulated (for jam/marmalade) and the type of brown varies now and then.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

It's sticky, you see, the sense that it's a tricky problem AND because honey is physically sticky. Also bonus points for us getting a test tube in the picture, which is normally basically forbidden otherwise we'd do it every month.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

'Regarded by many as <insert non-drooling description here>...' or 'Described by <vaguely reputable source> as <hopefully not too pervy quote>'

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Oh yes - I was amazed to discover he had spent 2–3 years touring Europe, I assumed he never left New Haven!

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Philip Ball @philipcball.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

Gibbs was an austere genius, too little appreciated.

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Jon Beves @jonbeves.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Interesting article about molecular ratchets. I’m really inspired by the studies mentioned, but I can never get a student to work on such complicated problems! #chemsky www.chemistryworld.com/features/mol...

chemistryworld.com

Molecular ratchets: unlocking the chemistry of biological motion

Motor proteins power everything from muscle contraction to bacterial swimming. While replicating their chemically fuelled directional motion in the laboratory has proved difficult, researchers are mak...

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Reposted by Neil Withers

Patrick Walter @patdwalter.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

🧪 🔬 🔭 Calling all STEM students who studied in the UK! Our amazing freelancer (and former intern) Victoria wants to hear from you. How has your Plan 2 student loan affected you? Are you struggling with debt? Have you been forced to leave science? lnkd.in/e9RmuZgv

lnkd.in

How do Plan 2 student loans impact science graduates? | Victoria Atkinson

How has the Plan 2 student loan system impacted science graduates compared with other disciplines? I am currently researching a feature piece for Chemistry World investigating this question and, if ...

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 12/08/2026

Surely very low spring #tide too? New moon for the eclipse and all that.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Sobers: subslikescript.com/series/The_C... Sadly I can't find a YouTube etc clip of the line – or of the game they played in Cosby's living room. Compton: en.espn.co.uk/espn/sport/s...

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

I was going to say that Garry Sobers, among many other things, was surely the only cricketer to be mentioned on prime time US TV (in an episode of the Cosby Show, guest starring Norman Beaton) – but then I remembered that Tim Rice mentioned Denis Compton in his 95 Oscars acceptance speech #niche

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 16/07/2026

I remember reading once that doing 50% should mean *feeling* like you're doing ~70%, as there will be stuff you don't see – or don't consider work, or don't consider important.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

OK, new challenge for everyone – can we find the London chippy that KC Nicolaou's dad ran and that young KC worked in?? From @natrevchem.nature.com www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Screenshot from the linked interview, text:
"What is next for you?
I have been working since I was nine years old when my father brought home a bicycle for me to deliver milk before school. Since then, I have worked in my grandparents’ fields harvesting fruits, in my uncle’s pastry shop in Cyprus, in my father’s fish-and-chips shop in London, and in some of the world’s greatest universities. This summer, as I turn 80 years old, I will formally retire. However, I will not stop learning, teaching, mentoring and admiring my colleagues and past students as they take the field of organic synthetic chemistry to heights beyond our imagination."
The bit about the fish and chip shop is highlighted

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

I haven't been able to eat pear drops since those 2-3 weeks as a first year undergraduate when there was always someone in the lab doing the synthesis of isopentyl acetate practical

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

As my sons' school would say: Embrace the power of 'yet' - you're not a cricket person YET! There's still time. A mathematically minded Irish friend of mine was fascinated* when we were discussing it, that how you express the margin of victory depends on whether bowling or batting side won.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Not entirely related, but our local paper (The Express & Star) used to have ads on its vans/kiosks saying 'GO HOME [line break] TO A STAR' - which at first sight looked a lot like 'GO HOME TOASTER'

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 09/07/2026

I saw an unusually large and unusually low plane overhead while sweltering in the garden yesterday evening – turns out it was the new (*slightly* controversial) Air Force One (w/o POTUS) heading from Ankara to RAF Mildenhall theaviationist.com/2026/07/08/v...

Screen shot of the Flightradar website, showing a map of the Cambridge area with a large plane tracked, directly over the village of Waterbeach.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 08/07/2026

I was 7 going on 8, and remember watching it and thinking 'I wonder if anyone will mention it in school tomorrow?'. The next morning people were pushing the ball around the playground with their hands! 'If Maradona can do it, so can I!'

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

I think the horse has bolted on modern materials - BUT they should make them the same size as the wooden ones. And just ban the second serve. They're pros FFS, why do they get a second chance?? And no lets on net cord serves. Just play.

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

I remember going on holiday with my family to Paris in the summer after my second year and we stayed on the Left Bank in a student-y area - and I saw copies of Atkins in the bookshop windows! #SlightlyTriggering

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Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · 01/07/2026

Extremely proud to see my* copy of Atkins (5th edn) photographed for this interview - what edition are you?? *It was my brother's before me – not sure if he sold or gave it to me! www.chemistryworld.com/peter-atkins...

chemistryworld.com

Peter Atkins: ‘Rather than a single author book with an author’s voice, it’s becoming more of a committee construction’

The author of the venerable Physical Chemistry on how writing chemistry textbooks has changed over his career

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