There's a surprisingly competitive global race on to grow a 3,000-pound pumpkin. Ian (left) and Stuart Paton pose with a giant pumpkin in their nursery in the New Forest, Hampshire. Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent every weekday. The pumpkin's name was Muggle and it weighed as much as a bull moose. At 2,819 pounds and over 21 feet in circumference, this enormous gourd claimed the dual titles of "heaviest pumpkin" and "largest pumpkin by circumference" in the on October 4, 2025.

Researchers have constructed a public database of 4000 experimentally derived organocatalysts. The database also contains several thousand molecular fragments and combinatorially enriched structures based on the experimentally derived entries. It'represents the first steps towards an extensive mapping of organocatalyst space with large chemical diversity,' says database co-creator Clémence Corminboeuf from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (EPFL). Researchers will be able to use the Organic structures for catalysis repository database, known as Oscar, 'to train machine learning models and predict the properties of new catalysts' comments EPFL team member Simone Gallarati. The team also hope the database will function as a starting point for organic chemists designing new catalysts.

Experts have discovered an'impulsivity switch' in the brain that lets mammals suppress the urge to'jump the gun' and only act when the time is right. In lab experiments on mice, researchers found a brain area that's responsible for driving action and another that's responsible for suppressing that drive. Manipulating neurons, also known as nerve cells, in these areas can override our ability to control the urge to jump the gun and therefore trigger impulsive behaviour. Keeping the'impulsivity switch' on is how athletes stop themselves from running before the starting gun has fired, how dogs obey a command to resist a treat, or how lions in the wild can wait for the perfect moment to pounce on its prey. Keeping our'impulsivity switch' on is how athletes stop themselves from running before the starting gun has fired (file photo) 'We discovered a brain area responsible for driving action and another for suppressing that drive,' said study author Joe Paton, director of the Champalimaud Neuroscience Programme in Lisbon, Portugal.