Today, there is very little doubt that chemistry owes as much to crystallography as crystallography does to chemistry. This mutual synergy defines modern chemical crystallography.

A novel sample cell with control of temperature and relative humidity permitted collection of data of excellent quality, enabling unrestrained refinement of all atomic parameters. One of the K atoms in the structure is disordered; very strong anisotropy in three of the four water O atoms indicates partial static disorder, which does not involve the bonded H atoms.

Ripon sinkhole concerns halt Harrogate council homes plans  BBC News

British Geological Survey recreates Great Britain in Minecraft  Eurogamer.net

Fracking in the UK was doomed a decade ago – Tories have wasted precious time on a fossil fuel fantasy  The Conversation UK

151 homes for Keyworth recommended for approval by council  West Bridgford Wire

The Ground Shakes Under Britain Again, Forcing the Government to Ban Fracking  Fortune

Fast trashion: Exhibition of garments made from street-litter opens at Imperial | Imperial News  Imperial College London

Earthquake strikes Sussex/Surrey border | Meridian - ITV News  ITV News

Interview: Michael Stephenson, British Geological Survey head of science & technology  The Engineer

Small earthquake recorded in Stirling on Christmas Day  Daily Record

Tsunami warning: Britain could be hit by 30m wave - Professor warns of hazards to Britain  Express.co.uk

Ripon sinkhole: British Geological Survey says area susceptible to holes  BBC News

British Geological Survey submits application for geoenergy observatory in Cheshire  ThinkGeoEnergy

Improving Britain’s geological mapping  The Guardian

Scottish Highlands hit by earthquake with magnitude measuring 2.3  The Scottish Sun

Earthquake strikes the west Highlands  Press and Journal

Earth's North Magnetic Pole Keeps Drifting towards Siberia, Latest World Magnetic Model Shows | Geophysics, Geoscience  Sci-News.com

Dr Tim Gregory Works with a Meteorite That's Older Than The Earth  LeftLion

'Several people' feel shaking as 4.2 magnitude earthquake strikes 190 miles from Dundee  The Courier

'Rumbling' felt during Ardnamurchan earthquake  BBC News

Geologists discover hundreds of buried valleys throughout Britain  Press and Journal

Researchers Describe Why Earth's Magnetic North Pole Is Straying Away From Canada Towards Siberia  The Digital Wise

Lockdown has cut Britain's vibrations, seismologists find  The Guardian

Snowdonia earthquake confirmed by British Geological Survey  Daily Post

Kendalian Dr Kent Brooks trained new director of British Geological Survey  The Westmorland Gazette

Fracking firm Cuadrilla signs secret deal with geological agency to 'destroy confidential documents'  iNews

Riddle of 'bang' in Birmingham intensifies as British Geological Survey issue statement  Birmingham Live

Coronavirus: the week explained - 10 April  The Guardian

Ancient underwater landslides help Brit scientists predict tsunamis  Metro.co.uk

Scientists Explain Why Earth’s Magnetic North Pole Is Drifting Away From Canada Towards Siberia  Mashable India

British Geological Survey welcomes visit from Rushcliffe MP  Agg-Net

Why the UK's streets have turned silent during coronavirus lockdown  Express.co.uk

Ancient underwater landslides help predict tsunami risk  Aberdeen Evening Express

Did the earth move for you? British Geological Survey has asked if Cumbrians felt an earth tremor last week  News & Star

The bacterial type VI secretion system (T6SS) secretes many toxic effectors to gain advantage in interbacterial competition and for eukaryotic host infection. The cognate immunity proteins of these effectors protect bacteria from their own effectors. PldB is a T6SS trans-kingdom effector in Pseudomonas aeruginosa that can infect both prokaryotic and eukaryotic cells. Three proteins, PA5086, PA5087 and PA5088, are employed to suppress the toxicity of PldB-family proteins. The structures of PA5087 and PA5088 have previously been reported, but the identification of further distinctions between these immunity proteins is needed. Here, the crystal structure of PA5086 is reported at 1.90 Å resolution. A structural comparison of the three PldB immunity proteins showed vast divergences in their electrostatic potential surfaces. This interesting phenomenon provides an explanation of the stockpiling mechanism of T6SS immunity proteins.

The enzyme 4-hydroxy-tetrahydrodipicolinate synthase (DapA) is involved in the production of lysine and precursor molecules for peptidoglycan synthesis. In a multistep reaction, DapA converts pyruvate and l-aspartate-4-semialdehyde to 4-hydroxy-2,3,4,5-tetrahydrodipicolinic acid. In many organisms, lysine binds allosterically to DapA, causing negative feedback, thus making the enzyme an important regulatory component of the pathway. Here, the 2.1 Å resolution crystal structure of DapA from the thermoacidophilic methanotroph Methylacidiphilum fumariolicum SolV is reported. The enzyme crystallized as a contaminant of a protein preparation from native biomass. Genome analysis reveals that M. fumariolicum SolV utilizes the recently discovered aminotransferase pathway for lysine biosynthesis. Phylogenetic analyses of the genes involved in this pathway shed new light on the distribution of this pathway across the three domains of life.

Protein–protein and protein–ligand interactions often involve conformational changes or structural rearrangements that can be quantified by solution small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS). These scattering intensity measurements reveal structural details of the bound complex, the number of species involved and, additionally, the strength of interactions if carried out as a titration. Although a core part of structural biology workflows, SAXS-based titrations are not commonly used in drug discovery contexts. This is because prior knowledge of expected sample requirements, throughput and prediction accuracy is needed to develop reliable ligand screens. This study presents the use of the histidine-binding protein (26 kDa) and other periplasmic binding proteins to benchmark ligand screen performance. Sample concentrations and exposure times were varied across multiple screening trials at four beamlines to investigate the accuracy and precision of affinity prediction. The volatility ratio between titrated scattering curves and a common apo reference is found to most reliably capture the extent of structural and population changes. This obviates the need to explicitly model scattering intensities of bound complexes, which can be strongly ligand-dependent. Where the dissociation constant is within 102 of the protein concentration and the total exposure times exceed 20 s, the titration protocol presented at 0.5 mg ml−1 yields affinities comparable to isothermal titration calorimetry measurements. Estimated throughput ranges between 20 and 100 ligand titrations per day at current synchrotron beamlines, with the limiting step imposed by sample handling and cleaning procedures.

The setup and operation of an industrial cryo-EM laboratory is described.

A novel monoclinic phase of human insulin co-crystallized with m-cresol was structurally characterized by means of powder and single-crystal X-ray diffraction.

Sample preparation within single-particle cryo-electron microscopy can still be a significant bottleneck, with issues in reproducibility, ice quality and sample loss. New approaches have recently been reported that use spraying or pin printing instead of the traditional blotting approach. Here, experience in the use of different nozzle designs and spraying regimes is reported together with their influence on the resulting spray and grid quality.

The crystal structure of the c-type cytochrome NirC from Pseudomonas aeruginosa has been determined and reveals the simultaneous presence of monomers and 3D domain-swapped dimers in the same asymmetric unit.

A new scaling program is presented with new features to support multi-sweep workflows and analysis within the DIALS software package.

This article presents an overview of the development of two basic software libraries for image manipulation and data visualization in cryo-EM: emcore and emvis.

Rice AKR in the apo structure reveals the ordered open conformation and its key residues which form the substrate channel wall and determine its substrate preference for straight-chain aldehydes.

The asymmetric unit of the title MOF, [Zn5(C14H5NO10S2)2(OH)2(H2O)10]n comprises three ZnII atoms, one of which is located on a centre of inversion, a tetra-negative carboxyl­ate ligand, one μ3-hydroxide and five water mol­ecules, each of which is coordinated. The ZnII atom, lying on a centre of inversion, is coordinated by trans sulfoxide-O atoms and four water mol­ecules in an octa­hedral geometry. Another ZnII atom is coordinated by two carboxyl­ate-O atoms, one hy­droxy-O, one sulfoxide-O and a water-O atom to define a distorted trigonal–bipyramidal geometry; a close Zn⋯O(carboxyl­ate) inter­action derived from an asymmetrically coordinating ligand (Zn—O = 1.95 and 3.07 Å) suggests a 5 + 1 coordination geometry. The third ZnII atom is coordinated in an octa­hedral fashion by two hy­droxy-O atoms, one carboxyl­ate-O, one sulfoxide-O and two water-O atoms, the latter being mutually cis. In all, the carboxyl­ate ligand binds six ZnII ions leading to a three-dimensional architecture. In the crystal, all acidic donors form hydrogen bonds to oxygen acceptors to contribute to the stability of the three-dimensional architecture.

The title compound, C4H9N5O2+·SO42−·H2O, is the monohydrate of the commercially available compound `C4H7N5O·H2SO4·xH2O'. It is obtained by reprecipitation of C4H7N5O·H2SO4·xH2O from dilute sodium hydroxide solution with dilute sulfuric acid. The crystal structure of anhydrous 2,4,5-tri­amino-1,6-di­hydro­pyrimidin-6-one sulfate is known, although called by the authors 5-amminium-6-amino-isocytosinium sulfate [Bieri et al. (1993). Private communication (refcode HACDEU). CCDC, Cambridge, England]. In the structure, the sulfate group is deprotonated, whereas one of the amino groups is protonated (R2C—NH3+) and one is rearranged to a protonated imine group (R2C=NH2+). This arrangement is very similar to the known crystal structure of the anhydrate. Several tautomeric forms of the investigated mol­ecule are possible, which leads to questionable proton attributions. The measured data allowed the location of all hydrogen atoms from the residual electron density. In the crystal, ions and water mol­ecules are linked into a three-dimensional network by N—H⋯O and O—H⋯O hydrogen bonds.

In the title compound, [CuCl2(C9H18N4)]·CH3OH, the central CuII ion is coordinated by three N atoms from the pyrazole derivative ligand and two chloride co-ligands. The coordination geometry around the CuII ion is distorted trigonal–bipyramidal. In the crystal, the mol­ecules are linked by C—H⋯O, C—H⋯Cl and O—H⋯Cl hydrogen bonds, forming a three-dimensional framework with the lattice solvent mol­ecule.