Pharmaceutical manufacturers face increasing pressure to reduce solvent use, energy consumption and waste. Mechanochemistry explores mechanical force rather than heat to drive chemical reactions in the absence of solvents, and offers a promising alternative.
At the Max-Planck-Institut für Kohlenforschung in Germany, Dr Jan-Hendrik Schöbel and Dr Michael Felderhoff are exploring how large, industrial milling technologies can be adapted to produce high-value pharmaceutical co-crystals cleanly and efficiently. Their recent studies demonstrate that both drum mills and attritor mills, equipment long used in mining and materials processing, can be repurposed for greener production of ibuprofen:nicotinamide co-crystals.

Scientists have long debated where solar cycle magnetic fields come from—deep within its interior or closer to its surface. Compelling new evidence suggests these fields may originate much closer to the Sun’s visible surface than previously thought, with important implications for understanding our star’s complex magnetic behaviour. The Sun’s activity also holds important implications for exoplanets currently being discovered around many solar-like stars.

Physicists typically have two frameworks for considering mechanics – a classical picture, looking at larger-scale objects, or a quantum picture, considering things on a subatomic scale. Where the boundary between these two pictures lies is an open question. Dr Khaled Mnaymeh from National Research Council Canada and Carleton University argues that this boundary does not exist. Through his analysis of Bell’s inequality, configuration space, and counterfactual definiteness, his work highlights the importance of considering these foundational principles in our study of the world around us.

A significant debate continues between scholars in the astronomical community regarding the early history of our solar system. It’s been hypothesised that the solar system experienced a dramatic cataclysm a short while —in cosmological terms— after the Earth and Moon solidified. Dubbed the Late Heavy Bombardment theory, disturbances in gas giant orbits may have caused a sudden hailstorm of comets and asteroids to be hurled towards the inner planets. Lunar rock samples collected from craters during Apollo missions seemed to support the idea, but new evidence is demanding a rethink.

Professor Yi-Gang Xu and his team examined samples recovered from the Chang’e-6 mission in 2024, and they suggest a more gradual change in the frequency of asteroid impacts, rather than a sudden, violent cataclysm.