Ben Bellenie
@chemb.bsky.social
Medicinal chemist at ICR London. Lots of proteins being degraded around these parts. I’ll write something more interesting here when I have time, so never. Views my own
Sad news. I saw the Frames a few times, although not enough. The first at a small gig in around 1999. Hadn’t heard a single song before the show, bought their two (at the time) albums immediately after.
Rolling Stone@rollingstone.com · 4w agoGlen Hansard, the Frames frontman and 'Once' star who won an Oscar for Best Original Song, has died at 56 following a motorcycle crash in Dublin. www.rollingstone.com/music/music-...
Many scientists I've been talking to are freaking out about NIH "immediate deposit" mandate and the publishers, like journals in the Nature family, telling them they have to pay ~13k to satisfy the mandate. People have been paying it - but they don't need to.
Yeah this. Understand the drive to “protect children” but there are valuable uses for these platforms - organising community action and events, music and sport - which also get lost. and if you ban teenagers from Snap etc - they go to more unregulated sites, chat rooms etc… I don’t have an answer
John Bull@garius.bsky.social · 2mo agoi assume banning kids from social media will be accompanied by a huge investment in teen-friendly communtiy spaces (like youth clubs) and social activities? No? Huh.
Arbuscular Mycorrhizal Fungi added to my mental list of really Important Things I never heard of… 🧪 www.theguardian.com/science/2026...
Subterranean fungi networks more than 100 quadrillion km in length, study finds
First ever global mapping of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi shows scale of hyphal systems that sustain plant life
theguardian.com
We are recruiting! We are looking for a Lecturer (Teaching) in Pharmaceutical and Biological Chemistry to join our diverse team in the School of Pharmacy at UCL. Please share and happy to discuss the role with potential applicants. @ucllifesciences.bsky.social www.ucl.ac.uk/work-at-ucl/...
UCL – University College London
UCL is consistently ranked as one of the top ten universities in the world (QS World University Rankings 2010-2022) and is No.2 in the UK for research power (Research Excellence Framework 2021).
ucl.ac.uk
A fellow of the Royal Society slashed funding for disease prevention, leading directly to the deaths of uncounted children. He promotes white supremacy and is actively encouraging racist violence in the UK. But he's Elon Musk, a billionaire. So the Royal Society does nothing. @royalsociety.org
A fellow Labour Party member once described Wes Streeting to me as Zippy from Rainbow if he'd been radicalized by Mumsnet. which is a very specific set of references but also disturbingly accurate.
Some people say we don’t build beautiful things anymore and, like, lol. Motherfuckers, we built this:
Well this is great. Wondering how I can incorporate it into our safety protocols
@vrboombatzmdphd.bsky.social · 5mo agoBorrowing from @clairezagorski.bsky.social .... If you heat a closed container, that's a bomb (clapping) If you heat a closed container, that's a bomb (clapping) If you heat a closed container, you'll be cleaning it up later If you heat a closed container, that's a bomb (clapping)
It is the anniversary of the My Lai massacre today. I'd say that even more than most years, it's important to remember what happened. And the role Hugh Thompson, an active serviceman, played in both stopping and publicising it. Despite enormous military, political and public pressure to stay quiet.
John Bull@garius.bsky.social · 2y agoOn 16th March, 1968 Warrant Officer Hugh Thompson Jnr was flying helicopter recon for a US attack on My Lai, an alleged Viet Cong-controlled village in Vietnam. But as the attack developed below, Thompson realised he was witnessing something something else: A massacre. He decided to act. 1/28
Good news: meeting finished on time Friday Bad news: booked the later train because I didn’t expect it to not really good news but…: the earlier train I could have caught is cancelled anyway Good news: time to get a pint of lovely pre journey beer (later bad news: train toilets probably rank)
Inactive batch 2 and dead cells, were you in our lab meeting this week?! Although we had “literature compound surprisingly working” instead… I better check the patent updates and submit some more things for hERG just in case this list is fortune telling
Peter Hewitt@petehewitt.bsky.social · 11mo agoWhen you work in drug discovery there are *so* many ways of hearing you're in for a very bad day. Efficacy Results Came Back [competitor] Patent Just Published Batch Two Looks Inactive Every Example Has hERG Literature Compound Isn't Working The Cells Died... Again Hits Everything In Selectivity
When you work in drug discovery there are *so* many ways of hearing you're in for a very bad day. Efficacy Results Came Back [competitor] Patent Just Published Batch Two Looks Inactive Every Example Has hERG Literature Compound Isn't Working The Cells Died... Again Hits Everything In Selectivity
Marjorie James Keenan@unenthusiast.com · 11mo agoIn honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand. rm -rf ~/
important scientific question: would a beer help me finish these overdue meeting slides faster?
Can confirm the letters turned to mush upon the ground would, in fact, re-assemble into the missing spots on the tree. Fantastic (even if they didn't)!
Brian Bilston@brianbilston.bsky.social · 11mo agoHappy National Poetry Day to all those who celebrate. This year’s theme is ‘play’ so here’s a poem which plays with some letters. It’s called ‘The Problem of Writing Poems in the Shape of Deciduous Trees’.
![The Problem of Writing Poems
in the Shape of Deciduous Trees
[The poem has been written in the shape of a deciduous tree with letters (or ‘leaves’) missing from the text]:
a comm n
pr ble whe writin
p ems in the shape of decid o s
trees is t at once t ere ar ives the fir t
sti rings of he new aut mn breeze, he
oems will begi to shake hemselves
ge tly ntil their letters loos n
d
like leaves, an
they
start
to
float
down
then
[The missing letters from the tree have landed on the last line to form the phrase]
turntomushuponthegroun
[The final ‘d’ is floating down to complete the phrase.]](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:3hptt3d3jvwahhnl3jvsycc2/bafkreicmofismc32qk26i4leqicdulf6ttgw45p33qtgjzvhfbi5mswgta)
Interesting read on enshittification… www.theguardian.com/technology/2...
Way past its prime: how did Amazon get so rubbish?
Sick of scrolling through junk results, AI-generated ads and links to lookalike products? The author and activist behind the term ‘enshittification’ explains what’s gone wrong with the internet – and ...
theguardian.com
"of course ChatGPT is full of errors when it comes to my specific area of professional or technical expertise, that's why I only use it for other stuff, where I can't tell if it's bullshit or not" 📰🗞💥
Wow. You sure about closing that London site, MSD?
C&EN (Chemical & Engineering News)@cenmag.bsky.social · 11mo ago$100,000 H-1B visa fee could be too high for chemistry employers New fee could have a chilling effect for foreign workers in small companies and academic labs. cen.acs.org/careers/empl... #chemsky 🧪
Being owned and financed by a nation state unfair to other teams - Me
I love London so much. So much. Did you know that London has the lowest level of ethnic violence of any city of comparable size in the world? Multiculturalism has in fact worked here. They just don’t want it to be true because we happen to have a Muslim mayor.
Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan@london.gov.uk · 11mo agoIn London, hate will never win.
Two very important graphs. Net migration reached record levels in 2023 - and has since halved. The vast majority of arrivals comprises students and workers. Arrivals in small boats and asylum seekers - less than 5%. www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...
Reminder that 100,000 people marched for Trans Pride in London earlier this year, but because they weren't violent fascists, there was minimal press coverage, unlike the Nazis today. https://www.them.us/story/london-trans-pride-march-turnout-record-uk-transphobia
London’s Trans Pride March Just Shattered Its Turnout Record
Organizers say it was the largest transgender rights march in the world.
them.us
Love this! great science, a great team of people with shared goal and yes, some stubbornness too are always needed!
Jasmeen Oberoi@jasmeenoberoi.bsky.social · 12mo agoResearch is never a solo effort. It takes teamwork. It takes belief. It takes collaboration across disciplines, institutions, and communities. We know what it takes to beat blood cancer. #BloodCancerAwarenessMonth @bloodcanceruk.bsky.social @sussexbcr.bsky.social @sussexcancer.org 🩸
Come and work with @andreascarpino.bsky.social and develop your in silico chemistry skills working on @icr.ac.uk cancer drug discovery projects. Learn stuff, discover new cancer medicines, what’s not to like :-)
Andrea Scarpino@andreascarpino.bsky.social · 12mo agoWe're #hiring! 💻💊 Our @compchem-icr.bsky.social team is seeking to recruit a #postdoc to contribute to breakthrough cancer #drugdiscovery at @icr.ac.uk 📅 Application deadline: 12-September-2025 📍 Centre for Cancer Drug Discovery, Sutton, UK jobs.icr.ac.uk/vacancies/13... #CADD #compchem #cheminfo
This came up when we updated our risk assessments too - take note, TMS-diazomethane is less likely to kill you spectacularly but more likely to kill you in a boring way…
Nathan Hawkins@nathhawkins.bsky.social · last yr.Wikipedia article for TMS diazomethane says it’s safer than diazomethane - when I did the risk assessment we estimated that it was at least 3-4 orders of magnitude more toxic than diazomethane, toxic by all routes of administration and probably permeates nitrile gloves #ChemSky
Using copilot to reformat NMRs and check count the number of hydrogens. It’s like dealing with a lazy teenager. After the first few it starts cutting corners and not counting properly and I have to give it a telling off. Why has copilot been programmed to be like a shoddy coworker? #chemsky
![Comic. Dimensional Lumber Tape Measure. [mockup of “2x4” piece of wood showing the dimensions as 1½“ by 3 ½“] Dimensional lumber sizes are tricky. A “2x4” is actually 1½“ by 3 ½“, and a “1x8” is ¾“ by 7⅛“. [two tape measures: one is labeled 12’, the other 12’*] If you know someone into carpentry or woodworking, get them our *dimensional lumber tape measure*. [A “normal tape measure” with even increments and a “dimensional lumber tape measure” with increments at different lengths for each inch] *Don’t tell them you got it*—just leave it in their toolbox. They’ll appreciate the surprise when all their measurements work out!](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:cz73r7iyiqn26upot4jtjdhk/bafkreigv4ewit5j2o4jyy5twrm5kz4bv5iq7ve72fg7b6dncksdluntfnq)