Like pieces on a chess board, centrist parties lose ground as they accommodate rather than challenge far-right agendas — socialists must play things better, warns MATT KERR
Bacteria: hunting microscopic giants
Reports of gigantic proteins in extremely tiny bacteria raise exciting questions, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

MOST people will primarily associate protein with its role as a major food group. But at a cellular level, there are millions of possible proteins: they are large, complex molecules that play crucial roles in biochemical processes.
A single protein molecule is made up of amino acids linked together in a long chain. The precise order of these amino acids is specified by the exact sequence of DNA in its corresponding gene.
Although the double helix structure of DNA was known in 1953, it remained a mystery for the rest of the decade how the sequence of a gene contains the “information” needed to transform the four chemicals given the shorthand A, T, C, and G into a protein.
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It’s sunny times for the solar industry which is expected to continue to grow rapidly — but there are still major environmental issues with how solar cells are made, explain ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT

Fraud in Alzheimer’s research raises difficult questions about the current state of science, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT