Investigators found a storehouse of bomb-making chemicals in the suspect's home and also discovered the suspect made a call to his mother just hours before the attack.

Synthetic biology researchers have demonstrated a new method for digital information processing in living cells, analogous to the logic gates used in electric circuits. The circuits are the largest ever published to date in eurkaryotic cells and a key step in harnessing the potential of cells as living computers that can respond to disease, efficiently produce biofuels or develop plant-based chemicals.

AS SPRING arrives, the hills of Languedoc in southern France turn green with the leaves of grapevines. This is helped along by chemicals—lots of them, confides a winemaker based near the town of Thuir in the Pyrenees. In their absence, vineyards would need natural fertilisers and to be weeded by hand, both costly. French farmers use more chemicals than anyone else in Europe: 65,000 tonnes of pesticides alone each year.
Even the smallest of vine-growers has an interest in a series of takeovers proposed between their chemicals suppliers. After a decade without any big deals, since 2015 three mega-mergers, collectively worth around $240bn, have been proposed. When they were first announced, many doubted that regulators would allow the mergers because of competition worries. If all three proceed, as now seems likely, four companies will produce 70% of the world’s pesticides instead of six today.
The first mega-merger, announced in December 2015, was between Dow Chemical and...

Chemists have developed a new technique to convert carbon-hydrogen bonds into carbon-carbon bonds using catalysts made of silicon and boron, both abundant and inexpensive elements.

, The New Republic
Right now in America, there are more than 1,300 large swaths of land and water where toxic stews of chemicals like asbestos, mercury, PCBs, and arsenic linger, threatening the health of tens of thousands of humans. They’re called Superfund sites, some of the country’s most contaminated places—and on Tuesday, President Donald Trump reportedly will propose cutting the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund budget by 25 percent. According to The New York Times, his fiscal 2018 budget proposal will also call for a 36 percent cut to a separate program for cleaning up...

He had apparently stockpiled enough chemicals to make additional bombs.

Activist investor Dan Loeb plans to publicly push for changes to the complicated combination and breakup of Dow Chemical and DuPont, according to a presentation reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.