Provivi, an agricultural chemical firm cofounded by Nobel laureate Frances Arnold, took home the Small Business Award for creating a greener treatment for fall armyworm moths—insects that destroy over 80 varieties of crops, including corn and cotton. The treatment, Provivi FAW, is a pheromone that muddles male moths’ mating behavior, resulting in fewer fall armyworm larvae.
by Leigh Krietsch Boerner | June 11, 2022
Joining veterans like ITM and Fusion, many small companies, developing α-emitting radiopharmaceuticals in particular, have cropped up in the past few years, including RayzeBio, Curie, Aktis Oncology, and Precirix. The money is there, Orvig says, from venture capital firms and bigger drug companies.
by Leigh Krietsch Boerner | April 18, 2022
She was subsequently hired by a firm involved with crop science, and then by a top 10 pharmaceutical company. “This happened in a year and a half,” he says. Bill Wuest, a chemistry professor at Emory University, says the hot job market in pharmaceutical chemistry contrasts with a dearth of jobs in academia.
by Rick Mullin | September 12, 2021
One of the most powerful air pollution monitors currently circling the globe is the European Space Agency’s TROPOMI (Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument). Carried on a low-Earth-orbiting satellite, TROPOMI collects data across the planet, typically taking readings over North America once a day, in the early afternoon.
by Katherine Bourzac | June 20, 2021
Frances Arnold: So I’m pacing my hotel room and going round in circles. And there’s a press conference—you’re not allowed to tell anyone, including family, for the first 20 min. I’m there at four o’clock in the morning pacing a hotel room deciding, you’ve got 20 min: coffee, shower, coffee, shower—what should I do first?
by Lisa M. Jarvis | February 20, 2021
Half an hour after the message hit reviewers’ in-boxes, pale green circles dotted the screen where eager readers left suggestions and edits. Over the next four days, more than a dozen of the original 80 invitees anonymously debated the new chemical synthesis presented in the manuscript. They commented on the reaction’s novelty, questioned the molecular mechanisms proposed by the authors, suggested control experiments, pointed out spectra of samples with subpar purity, flagged typos, and most crucially, recommended rejection or acceptance.
by Tien M. Nguyen | November 26, 2018
—Charmed fairy chemical derivatives may work on the farm “C–H arylation of a plant hormone creates growth stimulants that could increase crop yields” Underlying lush circles of turf called “fairy rings” is a natural product made by fungi that spurs the growth of grass. Researchers have now created a bioactive compound that stimulates this growth even better than the natural compound (Org.
by Louisa Dalton | September 26, 2018
The footprint consists of a series of double dashes in a circle broken at regular intervals. The dashes are surrounded by two rings of dots, which likely held posts. This henge was made from different materials than Stonehenge, the Neolithic ring of standing stones in Wiltshire, England. “There’s no immediate sign that there were any stones involved, but rather some sort of very large wooden structure,” Murphy says. On one side of the circle sits a large rectangle, which he suggests may have been an entrance feature. The entire structure is 150 to 200 meters in diameter and may once have accommodated thousands of people. Over time, the wood from the structure would have rotted away, but the footprint remains visible because of differences in the soil makeup, Murphy theorizes.
by Alexandra A. Taylor | August 18, 2018
After circling the Earth for 30 days, the two experiments returned to Earth, where the firm’s innovation team is now pondering the results. The company explains that it is “taking steps now to better understand how [beer] ingredients react in microgravity environments so that when we get to Mars, Budweiser will be there.”
by Marc S. Reisch | January 29, 2018