Sandwich compounds are the colloquial term used for molecules where a metal atom such as an iron dication is “sandwiched” between two carbon-based rings as ligands, most commonly cyclopentadienyl anion (the “bread”) as in e.g. Ferrocene – a molecule first discovered in 1951.

Do it yourself. I don’t mean that as a descriptive phrase. It’s a complete sentence, in the imperative. Do it yourself. Pick up the pencil, pen, stylus, paintbrush, airbrush, mouse, keyboard, scissors, rolling  pin, hammer, drill, wrench, saw, welding torch, sewing needle, instrument, guitar pick, pickaxe, shovel, dumbbell, jump rope, paddle, piton, hiking pole.

Part 3 in a series of posts going back 14 years

Jan. 2026Ryan Gibb. Free and Open Source Software Developers’ European Meeting (FOSDEM) .

For years, the Invenio community has been known for powerful open-source repository solutions - especially InvenioRDM. But many institutions need more than a repository: they need a modern, flexible platform that also supports collections, loans, acquisitions, and patron services.

Shadow libraries, that is, illegal massive repositories of books of all kinds, are of course prone to takedowns by police and disappearance from the internet. In recent days, one of the most prominent shadow libraries, Library Genesis (libgen), was taken down and its archive removed from public consumption.

2025 is gone, bringing with it another opportunity to share some highlights from a warehouse worker’s swing at studying our living history a sheaf of genome graphs and shelves full of protein-forms at a time.

This year marks 10 years since development of Citation.js started! Horvathiolus superbus , observed November 18th, 2025, Colares, Portugal.

Micro-reviews of the first 12 books I read in 2025 My annual round-up of the books I read in 2025 was pre-empted by a request from Research Professional News (RPN) to write 250 words on my favourite reads of the past year.

On finding joy in slow, imperfect code in an age of copilots, agents, and chatbots. 1.2k words, 5 min reading time.

Three weeks ago, I wrote a the post Rescuing Scholia: will we make it in time?, where I sketched a future without Scholia. Scholia, started almost 10 years ago and I think it is worth keeping around longer.