Emmanuel Nicolas

Excellent talk by @supersciencegrl.co.uk with insights on what will labs may become, and also a nice view on AI that will help scientists but never replace them. (And less admin for chemists!)

Pareil ici. Pas obligatoire et c’est dans iris. Je trouve utile de mettre si c’est pour des éléments spécifiques (un appareil, un poste de dépense sortant un peu de la norme du CES), sinon plutôt qu’un focus sur la somme demandée, mettre sur les moyens associés (thèse, postdoc, etc)

We are alarmed by reports that Germany is on the verge of a catastrophic about-face, reversing its longstanding and principled opposition to the EU’s Chat Control proposal which, if passed, could spell the end of the right to privacy in Europe. signal.org/blog/pdfs/ge...

"The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request"

How can this still appear in scientific papers from 2025? As a reader, reviewer, and evaluator (promotions, faculty hiring, awards), it is a red flag #OpenScience #ChemSky

g-xTB: A General-Purpose Extended Tight-Binding Electronic Structure Method For the Elements H to Lr (Z=1–103) We present g-xTB, a next-generation semi-empirical electronic structure method derived from tight-binding (TB) approximations to Kohn–Sham density functional theory (KS-DFT). Designed to bridge the ga...

After years of development and preparatory works which you might have seen on this profile, a major milestone is achieved:
g-xTB marks not just an evolution, but a revolution in the capabilities of semiempirical quantum chemistry. Convince yourself! A thread.
🔗 chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...
#compchem

Stir Bars Can't Be Ignored

Great article highlighted here by dereklowe.bsky.social on stirbar effects - hits home when your scale up doesn’t work because the K2CO3 wasn’t ground to powder with overhead stirring on large scale like it was with a stirbar in a flask or vial

#science 🔬 | Et si on recyclait le CO₂ de l’air comme le font les plantes ?
🌬️ Avec AIR Capture, le CEA explore une voie radicalement nouvelle : s’inspirer du vivant pour capter et convertir le CO₂ atmosphérique en carburants. Un pari permis grâce au programme #Audace !
🎥 + d'informations 👇

Changes to the 2026 and 2027 Work Programmes With the launch of the competitions for grants under ERC Work Programme 2026 in July of this year, several changes to the submission of applications and the evaluation of proposals will apply. The mai...

Planning to apply for #research #funding from the ERC?

From the next application rounds, expect changes to the:

• proposal structure
• evaluation process
• extra funding you can request
• eligibility for Starting & Consolidator #Grants (from 2027)

More 👇 europa.eu/!RPHWvv

For the arrow conditions, it is just convention in subfields. I usually consider that a reaction is run under inert atmosphere… it is also a simplification anyway you always go the experimental details for rates of addition or other parameters.

For academic labs, access to a glovebox is increasingly common, especially in catalysis. (Not necessarily in the lab directly but at least nearby)

Il décrit ça comme une egohistoire (après l’invité en a justement fait un objet d’étude)

Guillaume Blanc, l’histoire grandeur nature : épisode 1/3 du podcast Historiennes, historiens, quand le “je” dit “nous” AUDIO • Historiennes, historiens, quand le “je” dit “nous”, épisode 1/3 : Guillaume Blanc, l’histoire grandeur nature. Une série inédite proposée par France Culture. Écoutez Le Cours de l'histoire, et...

Justement on en parle tout de suite sur France Culture : www.radiofrance.fr/francecultur...

Many congratulations Lucile! A very well deserved prize, that recognises excellent science. Looking forward for the future results!

encore un délire du CNU: un dossier de qualification a été jugé non recevable car le rapport de soutenance de thèse contenait des paragraphes en anglais (i.e. non traduits). Les mêmes qui se permettent de porter un jugement sur l'internationalisation des collègues (promo par ex)

J’ai eu le cas pour une post doctorante l’année dernière. Le rapport était en anglais, rejeté administrativement. On a tenté de demander un recours mais rien à faire. Elle a perdu un an. Et en plus pas de demande de traduction certifiée, une simple traduction vite faite aurait suffi.

A fruitful collaboration between molecular chemists and photophysicists to uncover the mechanism of a simple but intriguing photocatalytic process now out in Chemrxiv. Congrats Zineb and Marianne for this work!

#Recherche🔬| Au CEA, on a de l’Audace !
Ce matin a eu lieu le lancement officiel d' « Audace ! », un programme de recherche à risque.👀
🎯Son objectif ? Encourager les chercheurs à explorer des voies inédites et imaginer les innovations de rupture de demain.

Save the date: Webinaire Jeunes "Chimie théorique" 📢

📅 Quand ? 11 mars de 13h à 14h
🌐 Où ? En ligne

Venez rencontrer et échanger avec nos 4 speakers (les titres dans les commentaires) autour du thème de la chimie théorique.

Nous vous y attendons nombreux !
Inscription via bit.ly/WebinaireJeu...

Experimental evaluation of the hydricity of hydrosilanes Despite their widespread use as reductants, the thermodynamic hydricities of hydrosilanes have not been determined experimentally. We report the hydricities of three triarylsilanes, determined by a co...

First opportunity to post on Bluesky 😁 check out our preprint on the hydricity of hydrosilanes: chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...
We used a combination of electrochemistry and hydride transfer reactions to evaluate silane hydricity - a measure for how good of a hydride donor these molecules are!

Excited Organic Radicals in Photoredox Catalysis Many important synthetic-oriented works have proposed excited organic radicals as photoactive species, yet mechanistic studies raised doubts about whether they can truly function as photocatalysts. This skepticism originates from the formation of (photo)redox-active degradation products and the picosecond decay of electronically excited radicals, which is considered too short for diffusion-based photoinduced electron transfer reactions. From this perspective, we analyze important synthetic transformations where organic radicals have been proposed as photocatalysts, comparing their theoretical maximum excited state potentials with the potentials required for the observed photocatalytic reactivity. We summarize mechanistic studies of structurally similar photocatalysts indicating different reaction pathways for some catalytic systems, addressing cases where the proposed radical photocatalysts exceed their theoretical maximum reactivity. Additionally, we perform a kinetic analysis to explain the photoinduced electron transfer observed in excited radicals on subpicosecond time scales. We further rationalize the potential anti-Kasha reactivity from higher excited states with femtosecond lifetimes, highlighting how future photocatalysis advancements could unlock new photochemical pathways.

Excited organic radicals in photoredox catalysis

Our perspective just published in JACS Au:

pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

Congratulations Kajetan Bijouard for the nice paper! A great collaboration with Thibault Cantat and Lucile Anthore-Dalion! Glad this is out !

chemistry-europe.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Est-ce qu'il y a des infos sur les changements de section ? i.e. des chercheurs qui seraient allés de l'ancienne 14 à la nouvelle 14, ou autre ?

Changes to the classification

Big news from Finnish publication forum. Almost all MDPI and Frontiers journals will be downgraded to level 0 and thus are not considered as properly peer reviewed trustworthy scientific journals.
julkaisufoorumi.fi/en/news/chan...

four step synthesis of nucleophilic attack on alkyne, by targeted tritiation and in situ beta decay to 3He which leaves to produce alkynyl cation

Organohelium chemistry.

ref: J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1988, 110, 4, 1298–1299

#chemsky ⚗️🧪

pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1...

Renumérotation des sections au Comité national de la recherche scientifique

www.cnrs.fr/comitenation...