David Walker

Perhaps the pilot should too?

A junk paper and totally careless to boot. But the Panalytical X'pert Pro is manufactured in Amelo, Netherlands. However, I suspect they just cut and pasted this from other papers without it making any sense. Or AI.

Dear Sir Paul, Re: Royal Society Code of Conduct I am sure that many scientists have written to you about the specific question of Elon Musk’s Fellowship and whether, under the Royal Society’s Code of Conduct, his retaining that Fellowship is appropriate. I will not rehash these issues. Instead, as a female scientist with extensive experience of activities aiming to increase equality, diversity and inclusion in the engineering and physical sciences sector, I am writing to you (in a personal capacity) to ask you to reconsider the statements you have recently made in this context to the UK press about the Royal Society’s Code of Conduct and how it is applied. A 2018 report from the joint National Academies of the United States of America, concluded that “sexual harassment is common in academic science, engineering, and medicine” and that “greater than 50 percent of women faculty and staff and 20–50 percent of women students encounter or experience sexually harassing conduct in academia”. This report described codes of conduct that make clear that sexual harassment is unethical and will not be tolerated as a “powerful incentive for change”. The authors also noted that sexual harassment can have significant and damaging effects on the integrity of research. In my own praxis, I have found that clear and consistently-implemented codes of conduct that address these issues make female scientists and engineers safer, and allow them to focus more effectively on their research. For codes of conduct to have such a positive effect, it is vital that sanctions for actions which transgress the code are meaningful and substantial.

I was hence aghast to realise that in an interview with the Financial Times published on 9/1/26, you appear to have suggested that the Royal Society “should only expel fellows if their science proved “faulty or fraudulent or highly defective””. Moreover, in a further interview with the Guardian on 11/1/26 you suggested that the code “may need to be looked at again”, with the implication that your aim would be to remove the option of sanctions on Fellows for reasons not strictly related to faults or defects in their research. I suggest that changing the Royal Society’s code of conduct so that the likelihood of serious sanctions for sexual harassment is reduced, would directly endanger women who interact with the Royal Society at events or otherwise, and would provide a licence to harass to the already powerful people on whom the Society bestows fellowship. The implications of your words - that under your leadership the only infringements of the code which are likely to receive the sanction of the Fellowship being removed are those related to research misconduct - already risk empowering harassers. You stated, in the Financial Times interview, that “there’s many bad people around, but they have made scientific advances”. Given this awareness of the possibility of bad actors in our scientific community, it is wholly irresponsible to suggest that the Royal Society would not act to sanction these people if they harass more vulnerable scientists. I am hence writing to request that you retract any suggestion that the Society’s Code of Conduct should be changed so that the only reason a Fellow might be sanctioned by the removal of their Fellowship is “faulty or fraudulent or highly defective” research. This action is necessary to safeguard female scientists, a requirement placed on the Society by safeguarding legislation and UK statutory guidance. Yours sincerely, Professor Rachel A. Oliver.

Following coverage over the weekend of Sir Paul Nurse's comments that suggested that the only reason that a Fellow should be expelled from @royalsociety.org is scientific misconduct, I have written to him to explain the risks such an attitude poses of increasing sexual harassment in STEM.

A Metal‐Organic Polyhedron‐to‐Coordination Polymer Transition Revealed by 3D Electron Diffraction Here, we show that 3D electron diffraction (3D ED) is an effective technique to observe structural transformations in porous metal-organic polyhedra (MOPs), as well as for obtaining the structure of ....

Really happy to see this team effort out in Angew. Chem., where we used 3D electron diffraction to observe a metal-organic polyhedron-to-polymer transition, and observe the activated phase.

Big thanks to @leverhulme.ac.uk for supporting our work on this.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Experimental determination of partial charges with electron diffraction - Nature An experimental method is used to assign partial charges based on crystal structure determination through electron diffraction, applicable to any crystalline compound.

Nature research paper: Experimental determination of partial charges with electron diffraction

go.nature.com/3UBdgwX

He'll love Coca Cola day next week!

Stacked perovskite photodetector outperforms conventional silicon image sensors – Physics World New device could lead to sensitive, artefact-free imaging with improved colour fidelity

A new photodetector made up of vertically stacked perovskite-based light absorbers can produce real photographic images, potentially challenging the dominance of silicon-based imaging systems. 🧪⚛️💡 physicsworld.com/a/stacked-pe...

“Everything's a sample”: Characterizing everyday materials using x-ray powder diffraction We can learn something scientifically interesting about literally everything around us by examining it in a powder diffractometer. Comparing a macroscopic under

Have you ever wondered 'what would that look like in a diffractometer?' - then Jim Kaduk has probably got you covered in this paper pubs.aip.org/aca/sdy/arti...

Ciri is an excellent character, looking forward to seeing where they go with the story.

YouTube video by The Daily Show Carole Cadwalladr - Broligarchs, AI, and a Techno-Authoritarian Surveillance State | The Daily Show

Jon Stewart is a legend & the way this show is trying to explain to a mainstream audience the gravity what is happening in the US is amazing. It was both thrilling & terrifying to be part of it. Thank you @TheDailyShow 👏

www.youtube.com/watch?v=vG7C...

Economic uncertainty update:

The thing about veering wildly between policy positions, favouring and then discarding a new maverick advisor each week, and using contradictory justifications at every turn, is that even if one particular pivot is in the direction of sanity, chaos is the constant.

Royal Society decides not to take disciplinary action against Elon Musk Exclusive: Fellows argue Musk has violated code of conduct but council believes investigation ‘could do more harm than good’

A decision I find hard to understand.
www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

Cosmic Distance Calibration xkcd.com/3066

George Sheldrick will be missed🕯️🕯️🕯️#SHELX #crystallography #education

Should that go in recycling, general waste or food waste?

Great to see you yesterday and glad you enjoyed the visit. Looking forward to your next visit already.

Screen grab of the bright spot of the undiffracted beam at the centre of an electron diffraction image. A lone weak diffraction peak adjacent to the large central spot looks like a bit like a planet orbiting a star.

Electron diffraction image of a crystal zone axis with a stripe of evenly spaced spots running across the image.

Just enjoyed a very productive day at the National Electron Diffraction Facility at the University of Warwick where our host Jere Tidey helped us solve some amazing structures and spot an exoplanet. Today I also learned why orienting a crystal on a zone axis is bad thing even though it looks pretty.

The Royal Society continuing to have Elon Musk as a Fellow is atrocious

Comprehensive microcrystal electron diffraction sample preparation for cryo-EM - Nature Protocols We present a protocol for preparing microcrystal samples for cryo-EM diffraction imaging, including room temperature solid-state small molecules and soluble and membrane protein crystals.

Super happy to share our latest work! A detailed protocol for #MicroED sample prep available @NatureProtocols! It covers #FIB, grid making, sample handling, #CryoFLM, and more! Hope it helps!

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Cats get away with so much by virtue of being cute.

Isn't that around the point the generator hour count gets stuck? Pretty sure our one stopped updating at around that many hours.

We had a hybrid perovskite that was monoclinic at RT but with a really small angle. Cooling to 100 K and the pattern was just a mess that couldn't be solved. Heating just above RT the angle went to 90degrees and one could solve the structure. Once it was clear, a simple twin could be used.

Magnetic crystallography comes of age: see Acta Cryst. (2024). B80, 509-513 doi.org/10.1107/S205...

I will work on that when I see him today!

The human factor: results of a small-angle scattering data analysis round robin A data-analysis round robin was performed using four real-world datasets to quantify the role of the human factor in analysis; the 46 responses show that the analyses by different researchers and labo...

Do different people analyse the same ( #SAXS ) datasets differently? We did a huge round robin experiment to find out.

Turns out the answer is: "yes, more than it should be", and, surprisingly: "you don't automatically get better with more experience or age".🧪⚛️

doi.org/10.1107/S160...

Microcrystal electron diffraction promises a revolution in study of proteins, small molecules Microcrystal electron diffraction microED promises revolution study proteins small molecules

I was very fortunate to be asked to comment on #microed in the realm of supramolecular chemistry. Extremely interesting article in @chemistryworld.bsky.social

Microcrystal electron diffraction promises a revolution in study of proteins, small molecules:
www.chemistryworld.com/news/microcr...

Hey, I guess I am a materials scientist. I certainly study enough of them with X-rays to qualify, I think.

Just woken up. Want to go back to sleep for 4 years!

Hah, that's what all those slots are for 😜

Energy bills could be cut using water from abandoned Welsh coal mines Work is under way to develop mine water heat projects in Rhondda Cynon Taf, Caerphilly and north east Wales.

🌍 Extracting heat from water contained within abandoned coal mines is one of the geologically most fascinating heat decarbonisation opportunities of recent years.

👇🏾 Read more about it here:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...