Skip to main content

Bring on the Night

"Night Science (after the late François Jacob) is where we explore the unstructured realm of possible hypotheses, of ideas not yet fully fleshed out. In Day Science, we falsify hypotheses and observe which are left standing; in Night Science, we create them. The workings of Night Science are rarely discussed, as they seem abstract and less concrete compared to the logical description of the formal scientific method. Yet, we believe that there is a method to the madness, and that its conscious study may add an important dimension to our development as scientists."

Adopted from Night Science by Itai Yanai & Martin Lercher, Genome Biol. (2019)

Night Science Publications

Hydrogen-Producing Catalysts Based on Ferredoxin Scaffolds

Advanced Science 2025 (in print) https://doi.org/10.1002/advs.202501897


Infrared Spectroscopy Reveals Metal Independent Carbonic Anhydrase Activity in Crotonyl CoA Carboxylase/Reductase

Chemical Science 2024; 14: 4960–4968 https://doi.org/10.1039/D3SC04208A


The Catalytic Reaction of Cytochrome c Oxidase Probed by In Situ Gas Titrations and FTIR Difference Spectroscopy

BBA – Bioenergetics 2023; 1864: 149000 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbabio.2023.149000


Structural Basis for Energy Extraction from Atmospheric Hydrogen

Nature 2023; 615: 541–547 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-05781-7


Trapping an Oxidized and Protonated Intermediate of the [FeFe]-Hydrogenase Cofactor under Mildly Reducing Conditions

Inorganic Chemistry 2022; 61: 10036–10042 https://doi.org/10.1021/acs.inorgchem.2c00954


Electron inventory of the iron-sulfur scaffold complex HypCD essential in [NiFe]-hydrogenase cofactor assembly

Biochemical Journal 2021; 478: 3281–3295 https://doi.org/10.1042/BCJ20210224

Night Science Projects

t.b.a.