Neil Withers
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neilwithers.bsky.social
Neil Withers
@neilwithers.bsky.social
1.5K followers 860 following 230 posts
Features Editor for Chemistry World, Twitter refugee. Tractor fan
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neilwithers.bsky.social
I heartily agree. Worth it for the part-finished raised carvings alone – incomplete art, frozen in time.

But also: a four-odd thousand year old dress! In pretty good nick!

Rameses III's girdle!!
rhiggitt.bsky.social Rebekah Higgitt @rhiggitt.bsky.social · 12d
Get to Made in Ancient Egypt at the Fitzwilliam Museum, if you can. Reveals the makers, techniques, mistakes, trials and gorgeous successes 📜
Flaked fragment of stone with writing on it. See next image for description. Museum label describing a 1550-1069 BCE limestone fragment and its text about absences from work, to attend a funeral, receiving a bite, being sick and 'did not work'. It is from the Louvre. Close-up detail from a stone shrine belonging to the Fitzwilliam. It shows figures and hieroglyphs and right in the centre you can just see a faint inscription from the person who made it.
October 30, 2025 at 2:15 PM
neilwithers.bsky.social
Glad to see AI has finally found its niche

www.aptaclub.co.uk/baby/baby-to...
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www.aptaclub.co.uk
October 28, 2025 at 11:55 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
That's all folks!
October 21, 2025 at 8:17 AM
Reposted by Neil Withers
jetsinglee.bsky.social
This is a very well-written piece on this year's MOF Nobel prize with a lot of personal accounts from the community
October 17, 2025 at 6:45 AM
Reposted by Neil Withers
robinson-julia.bsky.social
Last week Susumu Kitagawa, Omar Yaghi and Richard Robson were awarded the #Nobelprize in #chemistry for their work developing metal-organic frameworks. Here I tell the story of how MOFs came to be - incl. an interview with Kitagawa himself! www.chemistryworld.com/features/how... @chemistryworld.com
How the pioneers of metal-organic frameworks won the Nobel prize
From wooden models to thousands and thousands of structures, Julia Robinson tells the story of how Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi won the 2025 Nobel prize in chemistry
www.chemistryworld.com
October 16, 2025 at 8:48 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
Here it is! The full #LongRead feature article on this year's #ChemNobel - @robinson-julia.bsky.social managed to speak to Kitagawa yesterday!

www.chemistryworld.com/features/how...
How the pioneers of metal-organic frameworks won the Nobel prize
From wooden models to thousands and thousands of structures, Julia Robinson tells the story of how Richard Robson, Susumu Kitagawa and Omar Yaghi won the 2025 Nobel prize in chemistry
www.chemistryworld.com
October 15, 2025 at 3:25 PM
Reposted by Neil Withers
jetsinglee.bsky.social
A fun read while getting my #MOF fix

#chemsky #MOFs #NobelPrize #chemistry @chemistryworld.com

www.chemistryworld.com/news/i-worke...
‘I worked on it little by little, with the help of a beer’: Making MOFs out of paper
Chemistry World talks to Ryo Horikoshi about engaging students with chemistry concepts using his stunning paper models
www.chemistryworld.com
October 10, 2025 at 5:59 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
Ooh, looking back at the Nobel nominations database, which now goes up to 1974, John Goodenough was first nominated *in 1974* - before he'd even made a battery, and 44 years before he won it....
October 8, 2025 at 2:31 PM
Reposted by Neil Withers
sbattenresearch.bsky.social
Just a little humble brag. Here's me getting my PhD with my supervisors - Bernard Hoskins and newly minted #NobelPrize Laureate Richard Robson. So thrilled for Richard, and thinking also of Bernard tonight (who passed away many years ago but was a crucial collaborator of Richard's). #Chemsky #ozchem
October 8, 2025 at 12:35 PM
neilwithers.bsky.social
Can't wait to see the write-up of the MOF/[porous] coordination polymer/whatever nomenclature debate on the BBC!!!
Screenshot of text: However, while the term ‘coordination polymer’ had been in use since 1916,25 no established definition of this field existed at the time. Therefore, different terminology was being used to describe similar structures while the area matured. For example, ‘infinite polymeric frameworks’, ‘coordination networks’, or ‘network structures’ were used in addition to coordination polymer. The wildly popular term ‘metal–organic framework’ and its abbreviation ‘MOF’ appeared in the second half of the 1990s,21,26 while the alternative phrase ‘porous coordination polymer’ (‘PCP’) was introduced in the early 2000s.27 For clarity, the currently recommended terminology from IUPAC distinguishes the following structures:28 a coordination polymer is ‘A coordination compound with repeating coordination entities extending in 1, 2, or 3 dimensions.’; a coordination network is ‘A coordination compound extending, through repeating coordination entities, in 1 dimension, but with cross-links between two or more individual chains, loops, or spiro-links, or a coordination compound extending through repeating coordination entities in 2 or 3 dimensions.’; and a metal–organic framework is ‘A metal–organic framework, abbreviated to MOF, is a coordination network with organic ligands containing potential voids.’ Within this classification system, MOFs constitute a subset of coordination networks, which in turn constitute a subset of the overall group of coordination polymers.
October 8, 2025 at 11:17 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
I always say that although the Nobel gets criticised it is definitely good for one thing: getting some proper chemistry* in front of people's eyeballs, once a year.

So it's great to see this real in-depth reporting from the Guardian:
www.theguardian.com/science/2025...

Oh.

*and biology
A screenshot of a very short news story: "The Nobel prize in chemistry 2025 has been awarded to three scientists for developing revolutionary porous materials for applications ranging from gas storage to drug delivery. Susumu Kitagawa, at Kyoto University, Richard Robson, at the University of Melbourne, and Omar Yaghi, at the University of California, Berkeley, share the 11m Swedish kronor (about £871,400) prize announced by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. The trio were honoured “for the development of metal-organic frameworks”."
October 8, 2025 at 10:57 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
I didn't realise Robson was from Yorkshire! Just 12 miles (as the crow files) from where Geoffrey Wilkinson was born...
October 8, 2025 at 10:44 AM
Reposted by Neil Withers
jamieagould.bsky.social
Another person who would surely have been in contention is Gérard Férey, who sadly passed away in 2017. His MIL-53 and MIL-101 structures continue to wonder and show new applications.
October 8, 2025 at 10:35 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
Always good to remember that the T in BET adsorption is Edward Teller, 'father of the H bomb'
October 8, 2025 at 10:34 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
In all seriousness, I've long been impressed by how MOFs bring together so many different bits of chemistry - a well deserved prize!
neilwithers.bsky.social Neil Withers @neilwithers.bsky.social · Oct 8
Ah, but is it [organic, solid state, coordination, physical] chemistry?
October 8, 2025 at 10:28 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
Ah, but is it [organic, solid state, coordination, physical] chemistry?
October 8, 2025 at 10:20 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
So what meeting has Kitagawa got to go to?? Hopefully champagne is involved!
October 8, 2025 at 10:17 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
I predict a lot of happy #OzChem ists
October 8, 2025 at 9:52 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
MOFs in a box
October 8, 2025 at 9:50 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
It's MOFs!
October 8, 2025 at 9:48 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
What's in the box?? #ChemNobel #ChemSky
October 8, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Neil Withers
patdwalter.bsky.social
Morning all. An exciting day in the chemistry calendar. The #NobelPrize in chemistry will be announced in a little over an hour. We're keeping track of all the developments as they happen at Chemistry World #chemnobel www.chemistryworld.com/news/the-202...
The 2025 Nobel prize in chemistry as it happens – live
Join us as we provide analysis and commentary in the run up to the announcement of the biggest prize in chemistry
www.chemistryworld.com
October 8, 2025 at 8:38 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
The laureates' 'prize-earning' papers in Phys Rev Lett, Phys Rev B from 1985 + 1987 have 276, 342 and 518 citations [Scopus] - low for Nobel-winning work, maybe?
[1/2]
October 7, 2025 at 10:16 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
Electrons go wheeee
In a normal conductor, the electrons jostle with each other and with the material. When a material becomes a superconductor, the electrons join up as pairs, Cooper pairs, and form a current where there is no resistance. The gap in the illustration marks the Josephson junction. Cooper pairs can behave as if they were all a single particle that fills the entire electrical circuit. Quantum mechanics describes this collective state using a shared wave function. The properties of this wave function play the leading role in the laureates’ experiment. ©Johan Jarnestad/The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences
October 7, 2025 at 9:55 AM
neilwithers.bsky.social
It's a good day for Johns in California! #PhysicsNobelPrize
October 7, 2025 at 9:50 AM