Amide bonds underpin protein stability, but distortion from their preferred geometry makes them reactive. An archetypal twisted amide has at last been made, and its chemistry will be revelatory.

Is it time to stop worrying over whether the ancient structures called stromatolites are of microbial origin? 'Yes' is the answer to emerge from field and lab work on a 3,430-million-year-old marine ecosystem.

Rather than merely firing in a digital on–off fashion, vertebrate neurons may have an analogue aspect to their signalling too — a finding that will not surprise many who have worked on invertebrate neurons.