BGS signs memorandum of understanding with Serviço Geológico do Brasil  British Geological Survey

New research supports conservation of fallow deer across Europe  British Geological Survey

BGS scientist announced as Scottish Government policy fellow  British Geological Survey

Visit by Indonesian Embassy representatives to BGS  British Geological Survey

First national-scale groundwater model in Great Britain developed  British Geological Survey

Delivering a sustainable urban future for Europe through geoscience  British Geological Survey

Extracting formation temperatures from stalagmites  British Geological Survey

Mining sand sustainably in The Gambia  British Geological Survey

Laboratory life: my work experience week at BGS  British Geological Survey

BGS collaborates with Icelandic colleagues to assess windfarm suitability  British Geological Survey

BGS data product licence fees to rise  British Geological Survey

BGS to help deliver International Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Resource Management  British Geological Survey

Studying multi-hazards from space  British Geological Survey

International geoscience research and development  British Geological Survey

Spotlight on BGS coastal erosion data  British Geological Survey

The Common Ground project  British Geological Survey

Local MP checks in on development of new geothermal 'living laboratory' in Nottinghamshire  British Geological Survey

Responsible extraction in South America’s Lithium Triangle  British Geological Survey

Update released for BGS open-source database software, ETL Helper  British Geological Survey

New geological collaboration for Ordnance Survey  Ordnance Survey

Monitoring coastal change from space  British Geological Survey

Update to BGS’s AGS file utilities tool released  British Geological Survey

Funding awarded for study on hydrogen storage potential in the East Midlands  British Geological Survey

BGS joins new initiative supporting technical career paths  British Geological Survey

New appointments to BGS Science Advisory Committee  British Geological Survey

Electromagnetic geophysics in Japan: a conference experience  British Geological Survey

UK Minerals Yearbook 2023 now available to download  British Geological Survey

Forty years and counting: new topsoil data provides most extensive snapshot of environmental pollution effects  British Geological Survey

2024 BGS summer placements scheme  British Geological Survey

Local MP helps BGS launch a ‘living laboratory’  British Geological Survey

What lies beneath Liverpool?  British Geological Survey

New underground observatory open for research  British Geological Survey

BGS Open Day 2024  British Geological Survey

New community launched to support effective management of the subsurface  British Geological Survey

World Mineral Production 2018 to 2022 is now available  British Geological Survey

Seabed geology data: stakeholder consultation  British Geological Survey

BGS to update geological maps of Strathmore  British Geological Survey

BGS announces collaboration with Ordnance Survey  British Geological Survey

Geochemistry and health in the Kenyan Rift Valley  British Geological Survey

Quake it off: Taylor Swift concerts shake Edinburgh  British Geological Survey

(Time-resolved) macromolecular crystallography at the new ESRF-ID29 beamline is described.

The results of the seventh blind test of crystal structure prediction are presented, focusing on structure generation methods.

The hydro­thermal synthesis and structural characterization of four novel 3D pillared-layer metal–organic frameworks are studied, revealing how the malleability of copper coordination geometries drives diverse supramolecular isomerism. The findings provide new insights into designing advanced hybrid materials with tailored properties, emphasizing the significant role of reaction conditions and metal ion flexibility in determining network topologies.

The seventh blind test of crystal structure prediction (CSP) methods substantially increased the level of complexity of the target compounds relative to the previous tests organized by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre. In this work, the performance of density-functional methods is assessed using numerical atomic orbitals and the exchange-hole dipole moment dispersion correction (XDM) for the energy-ranking phase of the seventh blind test. Overall, excellent performance was seen for the two rigid molecules (XXVII, XXVIII) and for the organic salt (XXXIII). However, for the agrochemical (XXXI) and pharmaceutical (XXXII) targets, the experimental polymorphs were ranked fairly high in energy amongst the provided candidate structures and inclusion of thermal free-energy corrections from the lattice vibrations was found to be essential for compound XXXI. Based on these results, it is proposed that the importance of vibrational free-energy corrections increases with the number of rotatable bonds.

A seventh blind test of crystal structure prediction was organized by the Cambridge Crystallographic Data Centre featuring seven target systems of varying complexity: a silicon and iodine-containing molecule, a copper coordination complex, a near-rigid molecule, a cocrystal, a polymorphic small agrochemical, a highly flexible polymorphic drug candidate, and a polymorphic morpholine salt. In this first of two parts focusing on structure generation methods, many crystal structure prediction (CSP) methods performed well for the small but flexible agrochemical compound, successfully reproducing the experimentally observed crystal structures, while few groups were successful for the systems of higher complexity. A powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD) assisted exercise demonstrated the use of CSP in successfully determining a crystal structure from a low-quality PXRD pattern. The use of CSP in the prediction of likely cocrystal stoichiometry was also explored, demonstrating multiple possible approaches. Crystallographic disorder emerged as an important theme throughout the test as both a challenge for analysis and a major achievement where two groups blindly predicted the existence of disorder for the first time. Additionally, large-scale comparisons of the sets of predicted crystal structures also showed that some methods yield sets that largely contain the same crystal structures.

In Part I of this series, all topologically possible 1-periodic infinite graphs (chain graphs) representing chains of tetrahedra with up to 6–8 vertices (tetrahedra) per repeat unit were generated. This paper examines possible restraints on embedding these chain graphs into Euclidean space such that they are compatible with the metrics of chains of tetrahedra in observed crystal structures. Chain-silicate minerals with T = Si4+ (plus P5+, V5+, As5+, Al3+, Fe3+, B3+, Be2+, Zn2+ and Mg2+) have a grand nearest-neighbour 〈T–T〉 distance of 3.06±0.15 Å and a minimum T⋯T separation of 3.71 Å between non-nearest-neighbour tetrahedra, and in order for embedded chain graphs (called unit-distance graphs) to be possible atomic arrangements in crystals, they must conform to these metrics, a process termed equalization. It is shown that equalization of all acyclic chain graphs is possible in 2D and 3D, and that equalization of most cyclic chain graphs is possible in 3D but not necessarily in 2D. All unique ways in which non-isomorphic vertices may be moved are designated modes of geometric modification. If a mode (m) is applied to an equalized unit-distance graph such that a new geometrically distinct unit-distance graph is produced without changing the lengths of any edges, the mode is designated as valid (mv); if a new geometrically distinct unit-distance graph cannot be produced, the mode is invalid (mi). The parameters mv and mi are used to define ranges of rigidity of the unit-distance graphs, and are related to the edge-to-vertex ratio, e/n, of the parent chain graph. The program GraphT–T was developed to embed any chain graph into Euclidean space subject to the metric restraints on T–T and T⋯T. Embedding a selection of chain graphs with differing e/n ratios shows that the principal reason why many topologically possible chains cannot occur in crystal structures is due to violation of the requirement that T⋯T > 3.71 Å. Such a restraint becomes increasingly restrictive as e/n increases and indicates why chains with stoichiometry TO<2.5 do not occur in crystal structures.

Analytical calculations of absorption corrections for X-ray powder diffraction experiments on non-ideal samples with surface roughness, porosity or absorption contrasts from multiple phases require complex mathematical models to represent their material distribution. In a computational approach to this problem, a practicable ray-tracing algorithm is formulated which is capable of simulating angle-dependent absorption corrections in reflection geometry for any given rasterized sample model. Single or multiphase systems with arbitrary surface roughness, porosity and spatial distribution of the phases in any combination can be modeled on a voxel grid by assigning respective values to each voxel. The absorption corrections are calculated by tracing the attenuation of X-rays along their individual paths via a modified shear-warp algorithm. The algorithm is presented in detail and the results of simulated absorption corrections on samples with various surface modulations are discussed in the context of published experimental results.

Conjugation is the process by which plasmids, including those that carry antibiotic-resistance genes, are mobilized from one bacterium (the donor) to another (the recipient). The conjugation efficiency of IncF-like plasmids relies on the formation of mating-pair stabilization via intimate interactions between outer membrane proteins on the donor (a plasmid-encoded TraN isoform) and recipient bacteria. Conjugation of the R100-1 plasmid into Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae (KP) recipients relies on pairing between the plasmid-encoded TraNα in the donor and OmpW in the recipient. Here, the crystal structure of K. pneumoniae OmpW (OmpWKP) is reported at 3.2 Å resolution. OmpWKP forms an eight-stranded β-barrel flanked by extracellular loops. The structures of E. coli OmpW (OmpWEC) and OmpWKP show high conservation despite sequence variability in the extracellular loops.

Molybdenum- or tungsten-dependent formate dehydrogenases have emerged as significant catalysts for the chemical reduction of CO2 to formate, with biotechnological applications envisaged in climate-change mitigation. The role of Met405 in the active site of Desulfovibrio vulgaris formate dehydrogenase AB (DvFdhAB) has remained elusive. However, its proximity to the metal site and the conformational change that it undergoes between the resting and active forms suggests a functional role. In this work, the M405S variant was engineered, which allowed the active-site geometry in the absence of methionine Sδ interactions with the metal site to be revealed and the role of Met405 in catalysis to be probed. This variant displayed reduced activity in both formate oxidation and CO2 reduction, together with an increased sensitivity to oxygen inactivation.

Glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PD) is the first enzyme in the pentose phosphate pathway. It has been extensively studied by biochemical and structural techniques. 13 X-ray crystal structures and five electron cryo-microscopy structures in the PDB are focused on in this topical review. Two F420-dependent glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (FGD) structures are also reported. The significant differences between human and parasite G6PDs can be exploited to find selective drugs against infections such as malaria and leishmaniasis. Furthermore, G6PD is a prognostic marker in several cancer types and is also considered to be a tumour target. On the other hand, FGD is considered to be a target against Mycobacterium tuberculosis and possesses a high biotechnological potential in biocatalysis and bioremediation.