Bethany Halford

A tiny chemical additive could prove to be a big hero in the world of biodegradable polymers. By incorporating small amounts of what they describe as a “masked acid” into polylactic acid (PLA), a team of chemists and chemical engineers have found they can speed up the breakdown of this plastic, which currently takes place only under the hot and humid conditions of industrial composting. The biodegradation boost this additive provides may make PLA suitable for at-home composting (ACS Cent. Sci.

Key Insights Chemists who hoped to start US-based PhD programs in fall 2026 have found there are dramatically fewer spots in those programs than in years past. Uncertainty in federal funding and the rising cost of stipends have forced many research groups to curtail the number of graduate students they can support. Data suggest there could be thousands of fewer PhDs coming out of US chemistry graduate programs in just a few years.

Synthetic organic chemists love their cross-coupling reactions, in which they quickly construct a complex compound by connecting two different, simpler structures. Building bonds of this type between two sp3 carbons has been a hot area of research, particularly if it can be done in a way that makes the new molecule as a single stereoisomer.