When the Manchester Guardian calls, the people of the North heed the call. And if those people are me, we inject Manchester Liberalism, even from across the Pennines, right back in to the paper of Northern record. Get your fill. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

New pre-print! Giorgio Volpe, Rob Malinowski, and myself discuss the possibilities of making materials from droplets that can move, process information, and make decisions collectively. @livunisps.bsky.social @uclchemistry.bsky.social arxiv.org/abs/2512.13425 #chemsky

**new blog post** I thought it would be interesting to see what it would look like if tuition fees had grown with the "triple lock" approach of the state pension. www.michaeloneill.org/blog-1/2025/...

There is truly no finer sight than walking into the group office to find a mess of screws, tools, and disassembled 3D-printers being hacked into god-knows-what. Looks like science to me, lads. #chemsky

Opportunity to join us at @liverpooluni.bsky.social as our new Chemistry HoD: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPQ019/p... - lots of brilliant science & exciting plans going on, plus the joy of being my line manager :D

Would you like to be our Head of Department? A unique opportunity to guide some important developments (see e.g., news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/11/18/u...). Advert now live on jobs.ac.uk. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DPQ019/p...

Ytterbium Surprise -a most unexpected paper from a former collaborator of mine, Helen Aspinall Be sure to checkout the 3D animations of various bell ringing peals! Visualisations of Minimus Methods #chemsky www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Hackathon time! Can you build an ML model for sigmatropic rearrangements of allylcatechols in flow? Teams of <=4; total prizes £2000; time limit 09 Jan. 🧪 #Chemsky Competition Link: www.kaggle.com/competitions... Example Notebook Link: www.kaggle.com/code/josepab...

Yeah so just a couple more major iterations and I reckon my grant will be ready submit. #chemsky

I went tonight to see my PhD student Emma Brass’s fantastic AI art exhibit in Liverpool. It features a 4x4 m screen with a giant robot arm (see video below) and the whole thing is really fantastic!

Choose LaTeX. Choose spending 20 minutes looking for a "}". Choose waiting to compile before you can read what you've written. Choose editing decades-old templates so your margins match the current journal style and you can see the page count. Choose collaborating with Physicists. #chemsky

Pleased to announce I've reached the PI stage at which the group actually runs better when I disappear for a week or two. I assume at some point they start switching off experiments when I enter the lab just so I don't mess things up? #chemsky

Heading home after 4 days visiting Chengdu and Sichuan University that were everything my inner @fuchsiadunlop.bsky.social fanboy wanted - might wait for a bit after getting back before weighing myself though.

This morning's breakfast was peanut-butter-stuffed French toast at a cha chaan teng. The white lump? Butter. The accompanying drink? Condensed milk tea, just in case that's not rich enough. About 900 calories for £2.80. [Narrator] _He will not need to eat for some time_

Hull's transformation over the last few years has got to be one of the North-East's great secrets.

MERCH. The real reason for any visit. #chemsky

There's something familiar about the guys they have working the coffee shop at XJTLU...can't put my finger on what it is though. #chemsky

Treating myself to airport pints after a 6am start, an open day, and a train journey down to Gatwick for wee jaunt to China through Suzhou, Hong Kong, and Chengdu.

Thrilled to share my first first-author review paper—now published in @jidjournal.bsky.social Massive thanks to all the co-authors for their time and insights! #InfectiousDiseases #Neuroinflammation #Neuroscience #BloodBrainBarrier #Virology #Research

New paper! Sarah Boardman takes us on a tour of Viral Infection and the Blood-Brain Barrier. Just out in The Journal of Infectious Diseases. From the group of Benedict Michael, with Cordelia Dunai, Adjanie Patabendige, and a host of others including myself. academic.oup.com/jid/advance-...

Our 6-hands review/perspective: "Hacking 3D printers as laboratory robots" is now on ChemRxiv. In there, we show how many robots you can make by simply modifying a 3D printer. #chemsky 1/n with @sandersays.bsky.social and @supersciencegrl.co.uk chemrxiv.org/engage/chemr...

IT IS TIME.

Bruce Springsteen is going to feel silly when he learns about autoignition temperatures

The UK is ‘losing the race’ for investment in R&D, clinical trials, and foreign direct investment, a new report warns. Since 2018, UK pharmaceutical R&D investment has underperformed against international rivals, the report from an pharma industry body said. www.soci.org/news/2025/9/... #chemsky 🧪

So this paper: spj.science.org/doi/10.34133... Aside from some major writing issues, appears to involve injecting *Ni-particle-filled-droplets of dodecane into a living creature*. Science Partner Journal. No ethical approval statement is given. Have @aaas.org just given up or am I misreading?

Can cellular life be created in the lab? We are not yet there, but clearly getting closer! Check this paper where a new scenario for protocell replication is presented by Job Boekhoven and co-workers @manlius.bsky.social www.cell.com/chem/pdf/S24...

Our new preprint 📑 about oscillating chemical reactions ⚗ just came out! arxiv.org/abs/2508.15273 We introduce tools 🛠️ that expand the scope of oscillators that can be analyzed, and use them to extract a lot of new qualitative and quantitative insights about oscillating chemical reactions! 1/3

The Roadmap for Animate Matter is out! From self-building lasers to buildings that breathe, we lay out a vision for materials that are: 1. Active - they move, 2. Adaptive - they switch between dynamical states, 3. Autonomous - they can make a decision. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1... #chemsky

Tell you what lads Alberta's lovely. Go to Alberta.

📢 3 PhD positions available in the Raval group! ⏰ Deadline 1st of September 2025 🧑‍🔬 The selected students will be enrolled in the @ukbiofilms.bsky.social BITE doctoral training programme. Follow the link to apply 👇 www.liverpool.ac.uk/antimicrobia... @livunisps.bsky.social #MicroSky

Crossing off a really big item on the Academia bucket list today lads. #ChemSky

UCL Chemistry Hackathon 2 is running 22nd & 23rd July. How to make Lab Environments FAIR? See www.inator-project.org/Events/event... for details

📢 We’re hiring: Postdoctoral Research Associate in Theoretical Chemistry Join Prof Alessandro Troisi’s group at the Materials Innovation Factory → cutting-edge work on the theory of materials for bioelectronics ⚛️⚡ 💼 £39,355–£45,413 🗓️ Closes 10 July 2025 Apply now 👉 tinyurl.com/z2yp4rff

NEWS | The University of Liverpool is leading GreenNanoBone, an €8.6M EU project using AI and plant waste to tackle MRONJ—a severe jaw condition affecting cancer survivors. Read more ⬇️ news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/06/17/l...

New paper! Droplets that change shape, move, and divide by incorporating an active magnetic particle cytoskeleton. Collaboration with Tom Russell at @berkeleylab.lbl.gov. Led by Paul Kim. Happy to have played just a little part in this one! #chemsky advanced.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

📢 We are hiring!! 3 year PDRA available in our group on self-optimising flow microwave platforms for #MOFs At Leeds Uni, UK, with me & Rich Bourne. ⏰ Deadline: 8th June. #flowchemistry #automation #chemjobs #chemsky @universityofleeds.bsky.social Info & to apply: jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

New paper! We use printing methods and some simple theory to discuss a liquid material made of water droplets that builds itself. A collaboration with Giorgio Volpe, Matt Blunt, and Rob Malinowski at @uclchemistry.bsky.social. Led by Anshu Thapa. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Delighted to share the first publication from our group at @livunisps.bsky.social in collaboration with @barryblight.bsky.social! In this work, we combine two of our favourite things: #automation and #photocatalysis! 🤖💡🧪 Huge congrats to Harri Jones and Chris Bradshaw 🎉 shorturl.at/A67BG

In our latest manuscript, we demonstrate that grayscale control over local #biomaterial biochemistry and mechanics can be rapidly achieved across large constructs using an inexpensive (~$300) and commercially available LCD-based printer. Find it published in JBMR-A! doi.org/10.1002/jbm....

We may not have really squared the circle — but we came close! 😉 In our @NaturePhysics paper w/ @fakhrilab.bsky.social, light-triggered membrane excitability enables programmable shapes — a step toward engineering living matter. 🔗 www.nature.com/articles/s41... #biophysics #syntheticcell #softmatter

Abstracts for #ViCEPHEC25 close in 6 weeks. We've had a good number of proposals for lightning talks, posters, talks, lab sessions, and workshops already. It looks like the conference is going to have a really exciting programme. If you want to share your work, submit an abstract by May 9th.

In collaboration with @fakhrilab.bsky.social we show how cell shape can be controlled with light 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

One week left to apply to join me, Will Sharratt, and Katarzyna Gurzarska-Comis as a postdoc at @livuninews.bsky.social and @livunisps.bsky.social! The successful applicant will be using Machine Learning to design granular microgels for accelerated bone healing. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DLY766/p...

📣Join our Department of Chemistry as a Research Associate in AI-Accelerated Microgel Design and help shape the future of biomaterials! 📍 Grade 7 | £39,105–£45,163 🤖 AI + Soft Materials + Tissue Engineering 📅 Apply by 13 March ⬇️ 🔗 tinyurl.com/cpzdjt39

🚀 #PhD studentship available to work with me and Gabriella Pizzuto on the #digital transformation of chemical analysis for #sustainable materials development @livunisps.bsky.social in collaboration with @unileveruki.bsky.social, starting October 2025 🧪🤖 Deadline 30th April tinyurl.com/yf38kshs

Our review is now out in the March print issue of Lancet Neurology! www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

We're hiring! I have a 3-year Postdoctoral Researcher position at University of Liverpool (@livuninews.bsky.social) to use Machine Learning to formulate granular microgels for accelerated wound healing. DM / email me for details - closes on 13th March. my.corehr.com/pls/ulivrecr...

Huge congratulations to Professor Brianna Heazlewood from our Department of Physics, who has been named a finalist in the 2025 Blavatnik Awards for Young Scientists in the UK—a first for the University of Liverpool! 👏 Read the full story ▶️ news.liverpool.ac.uk/2025/02/19/l...