Primers and PrimeViews

This PrimeView highlights the utility of citizen science across a range of ecological and environmental science research.

Contributory citizen science is a method in which non-professional participants contribute to data collection in whole or in part to advance scientific research. This Primer outlines the use of citizen science in the environmental and ecological sciences, discussing participant engagement, data quality assurance and bias correction.

This PrimeView highlights the pre-concentration and stripping steps in electrochemical stripping analysis.

Trace quantities of metal cations, inorganic anions, organic compounds and biomolecules can be measured using electrochemical stripping analysis (ESA). This Primer describes the principles of ESA, including methods of performing the pre-concentration and stripping steps, instrumentation and technique optimization.

This PrimeView highlights how a series of partial diffraction intensities are collected, combined and integrated to give a full crystal structure

Serial femtosecond crystallography is a high-throughput, serial crystallography technique for studying macromolecular crystals at an X-ray free-electron laser. This Primer gives an overview of microcrystallization methods, sample delivery and data analysis for applications including membrane proteins, radiation damage-prone systems and time-resolved experiments.

This PrimeView highlights the fabrication of van der Waals heterostructures using top-down and bottom-up processes.

Van der Waals epitaxy provides numerous opportunities for materials integration in heterostructures. This Primer provides an overview of methodologies for producing van der Waals heterostructures, focusing on top-down assembly and bottom-up synthesis, and discusses future opportunities for their continued development.

This PrimeView highlights the adaptation of optogenetics techniques for use in areas ranging from neuroscience and cardiovascular research to vision restoration and plants.

Optogenetic techniques involve the introduction of photoreceptors into selected cells to allow control over their activity using light. In this Primer, Emiliani et al. discuss the most commonly used optogenetic tools, illumination approaches and applications in medicine, cardiovascular science and plants, among many other uses.

This PrimeView highlights the basic setup and variants of an ARPES experiment

The physical properties of a solid-state material depends on its electronic structure, which can be studied using angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES). This Primer introduces the ARPES technique and describes how different variants can be used for applications including superconductors, topological materials and two-dimensional materials.

This PrimeView highlights the steps involved in image processing and reconstruction of volume electron microscopy data sets.

Volume electron microscopy techniques are high-resolution imaging approaches that reveal the 3D structure of cells, tissues and small model organisms at nanometre resolution. This Primer introduces the different imaging modalities, specialized sample processing and key applications in biosciences.

This PrimeView highlights the best practices for synthesizing ionic liquids. The sensitivity of certain applications of ionic liquids to impurities are outlined.

Ionic liquids (ILs) can be formed from a combination of anions and cations, each with very distinct properties. However, there is no standard methodology for their synthesis. In this Primer, Koutsoukos et al. outline the considerations, advantages and disadvantages of various synthetic routes for ILs.

This PrimeView highlights the utility of glycoproteomic techniques for characterizing protein glycosylation.

Glycoproteomic techniques give information on the structure and location of glycan protein modifications. In this Primer, Bagdonaite et al. summarize these techniques, discuss best practices for their use and explore their applications, including identifying biomarkers of disease.

This PrimeView highlights the life cycle analysis and end-of-life considerations necessary for designing sustainable polymers.

Sustainable polymers are materials derived from renewable, recycle and waste sources that are themselves able to be recycled, biodegraded or composted. Mohanty et al. discuss the synthetic strategies for creating sustainable polymers and assessing their utility and end-of-life potential.