Hello and welcome to Backchat, Nature's Monthly Digest of the Best of the Newsroom.

Now, the news reporters move very fast and it's hard to track them down and get to grips with them.

So if you like, you can consider them as you might a shell of electrons.

What does that make me?

Answers on a postcard, please.

We are here to discuss the science we've been thinking about and reporting on during April

and some of the stuff that's been reported elsewhere.

I'm Kerry Smith and I'm joined by three of by now nature's usual suspects, David A Castilevechi.

Hello, I write about physical sciences and mathematics.

We also have Dan Crassie.

Hi, I'm going to be talking this week about the thorny issue of animal research.

And finally, we're joined by

Richard Van Norton. Hi, I'm editing lots of this news now and I'll be whinging about batteries.

We can't wait. Now, coming up, we have the periodic table. It might look pretty solid,

but scientists find it's a bit wobbly around the edges, plus lots of coverage elsewhere on a new type of battery, as Richard mentioned.

We'll be finding out how charged up he feels about that.

Oh, no laughter.

No love for that part.

Fair enough.

And Dan will be discussing, as he mentioned, the nuances of reporting on animal research.

Now, first to some basic chemistry.

Davida, you've written a story about a thing

...