Andy Extance

Explainer: The chemistry of permastink and how to prevent it How to avoid throwing out smelly polyester sportswear

Permastink is as gross as it sounds. It's the lingering smell on polyester sportswear, and leads to people throwing away otherwise good quality clothes. Preventing permastink is therefore important for our environment. My explainer in @chemistryworld.com: www.chemistryworld.com/news/explain... 🧪

Sarepta gene therapy deaths highlight tragic rare disease dilemma Regulators block Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment after fatal side-effects outweigh questionable efficacy

Rare genetic diseases like Duchenne's Muscular Dystrophy in are desperately horrible, and when people die from treatments that's tragic. But when the need is so great, sometimes the risk is worth it. My story in @chemistryworld.com www.chemistryworld.com/news/sarepta...

Sarepta gene therapy deaths highlight tragic rare disease dilemma Regulators block Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment after fatal side-effects outweigh questionable efficacy

Regulators block Duchenne muscular dystrophy treatment after fatal side-effects outweigh questionable efficacy.

Is story this one of yours Kit? (No Times sub over here sadly)

But which climate protest? Inquiring minds want to know...

New experiment uses levitated magnets to search for dark matter – Physics World Although it hasn’t detected dark matter yet, its developers say it offers an alternative path that is worth exploring

Two physicists from different disciplines met at a climate protest (as you do). They got to talking about their research (as you do). Within a year or so, they'd designed a new type of dark matter detector experiment (as you...wait, what?). First results here: 🧪⚛️ physicsworld.com/a/new-experi...

Here's an idea that I had never heard about before from Google's Mevan Babakar at #abswss25 'Blind cynicism', a general loss of trust partly the aim of disinformation, including the people around us, one of the many risks

Enjoying hearing from Jon Roozenbeek at #abswss25 about the tobacco 'disinformation playbook' shared pseudonymously by a 'Mr Butss' with three elements:

- Sow doubt
- Counter attack
- Don't lie (too much)

Sound familiar?

Photovoltaic module Recycling: A review on material recovery methods and waste management approach The increasing demand for sustainable energy solutions has driven a massive rise in the installed capacity of photovoltaic (PV) modules. This, in turn…

Recycled PV cells achieve efficiencies similar to commercial cells, promoting material reuse. Recycling methods recover 60-95% of materials, but face challenges like emissions and costs.
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🔌💡

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Ireland just became Europe’s newest coal-free country Ireland just shut down its last coal plant – part of a clean energy shift that’s making Europe coal-free, one country at a time.

Ireland joins the growing number of nations that are now coal free for electricity generation. 💪 🧪🔌💡☀️💨🔋 electrek.co/2025/06/20/i...

Thank you!

Climate activism is scary, and is facing increasing resistance, but also connects you to some amazing people. That was my message when interviewed in January by Deutsche Welle, the German equivalent of BBC World Service, about my arrest while protesting with Just Stop Oil: pod.link/livingplanet...

Muck Rack | For journalists and public relations Find Andy Extance's articles, email address, contact information, Twitter and more

Hello, can I please be added to the Bluesky science feed? I'm a science writer, you can see my work here: muckrack.com/andyextance and I'm chair of the Association of British Science Writers, www.absw.org.uk/pages/25-our... I'm happy to answer questions, thanks in advance for your help!

What are they?

In trying to work out why people argue that UK needs new oil for energy security, when just 7% of our refineries' input comes from domestic fields, I discovered that refineries are cutting emissions to ensure they survive. That includes making 'green' hydrogen and renewable liquid fuels. 🤔

How decarbonisation will help the UK’s last refineries survive Carbon capture and low-carbon hydrogen are central to any possibility of supplying liquid fuels compatible with net zero, reports Andy Extance

My latest story for Chemistry World describes UK oil refineries' ambitious attempts to ensure they don't go from economic lynchpins to historic relics. 🛢️

Read it here: 🤳

www.chemistryworld.com/features/how...

#abswss25 is on June 26th, but registration closes this Friday, June 13th, at 5pm. Tickets start at just £30, including a hybrid option if you can't be in London on the day. I hope to see many of you there - register now to make it happen, if you haven't already!

By the way, because this is hybrid, it's also open to attendees from other countries. If the UK timezone is manageable for you, and you want to learn about science writing/journalism, feel free to sign up!

Obviously some researchers disagree. I'd love to know what the research funders think at this stage.

What are the prospects for making green hydrogen straight from seawater? Competing with better-established desalination coupled with electrolysis, direct seawater splitting technologies are targeting niches

Green hydrogen could be central to our energy future, but requires lots of water and electricity. Making it straight from seawater could be a niche technology, but pilots and 'factory-scale research' are already underway. My latest at @chemistryworld.com:
www.chemistryworld.com/news/what-ar...

Registration 2025 | Association of British Science Writers Registration now open

Learning from other people usually much so deeper and richer than doing so alone. So I'm really looking forward to seeing with colleagues at the @absw.bsky.social Summer School on June 26th. Tickets are available from just £30: please do come and connect with us. www.absw.org.uk/pages/regist...

What can we do within the #scicomm community to tackle misinformation? Our @scicommcentre.eu session at #PCST2025 will be addressing this question.

If you are at PCST2025 come along to Conference Suite 3 at 2pm today (Thurs) for the discussion.

Photo: Mika Baumeister, Unsplash

#science

Graphic with UBC logo and the text "seeking journalists for a study on watchdog science journalism"

Are you a journalist who reports on research integrity issues for a Canadian or UK outlet? If so, we want to hear from you!

🚨Note: X is a public space, so engaging with this thread will publicly associate you with this study—even if you don’t participate.🚨

ABSW Scottish Social - Aberdeen Join ABSW Chair and Secretary for informal networking and drinks as part of the Public Communication of Science and Technology (PCST) Conference

#ABSWmembers #ScottishSocial

@andyextance.bsky.social Chair of @absw.bsky.social invites members attending #PCST Conference in #Aberdeen or local members to join an informal networking event

📆Thursday, 29 May 2025
🕚 18:30
📍The Blue Lamp

Come along and bring a friend👉zurl.co/XTP2l

While in some ways Bluesky's similarity to Twitter is welcome, keeping the lack of ability to edit posts is not 🤦‍♂️

Snark: A recent interviewee for another piece I’m doing on AI in science said that relying on it removes the richness that information generated in other ways creates. She called that process “banal-washing”. That accords with a lot of my experience, and some interviewees here felt the same way.

Second takeaway: I was surprised to hear that chemistry calculations (DFT to those in the know) use 20% of all supercomputer time in the US. So AI alternatives could reduce energy usage.

First takeaway: it was interesting to me that one of my interviewees admitted that useability was a secondary consideration, the highest one was the ability to publish a new paper

A guide to navigating AI chemistry hype If you plan to use machine learning for research, consider ChatGPT’s shortcomings and inquire about AI tools’ training data and benchmarking performance

Having written many stories about exciting new chemistry AI technologies, I wondered how easy it would be for people to try for themselves.

This story is the outcome of that curiosity – read on for two interesting takeaways and a piece of snark.

cen.acs.org/physical-che...

Congratulations to all the finalists! I'll be looking forward to catching up on all the best science writing and reporting that I hadn't already seen - the shortlisted entries are always excellent.