With an axe hanging over many chemistry departments, embittered chemists often point the finger of blame at "dumbed down" media studies courses that get so many bums on their cheap seats. But they should watch whose backs they are stabbing. At the House of Commons science and technology committee session on the research assessment exercise this week, while the scientists shuffled their papers, it was Natalie Fenton, senior lecturer in communications and media studies at Loughborough University, who hammered home the plight of chemistry and demanded that action be taken.