While large firework displays have become even more more popular over the past ten years or so, most of the chemistry behind these exuberant displays has been known for centuries. Marrying this with modern…
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
Articles on Chemistry
Displaying 301 - 320 of 348 articles
Everything around you is made of elements that scientists have studied in quite some detail over the last 200 years. But all that understanding breaks down when these elements are subjected to high pressure…
A few centuries ago, there were just a few widely used materials: wood, brick, iron, copper, gold and silver. Today’s material diversity is astounding. A chip in your smartphone, for instance, contains…
How life came about from inanimate sets of chemicals is still a mystery. While we may never be certain which chemicals existed on prebiotic Earth, we can study the biomolecules we have today to give us…
New research shows that a catalyst made from gelatin, the same protein used to make jelly desserts, helps fuel cells be more efficient. This may offer a cheap alternative to the expensive metal-based fuel…
In a rare double, another Nobel Prize has gone to scientists who build models. The 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded to Martin Karplus, Michael Levitt and Arieh Warshel for their work that enables…
Legal highs that are novel psychoactive substances (NPS) have flooded Britain over the past few years and their use has increased drastically. NPS are cleverly constructed designer drugs often structurally…
Packaged green salad items, such as lettuce, coleslaw, or spinach sold ready to toss in the salad bowl, are now a frequent item in supermarket trolleys. With the ongoing popularity of such convenience…
No one knows how life began on Earth. But for it to happen, some simple chemical building blocks would have been needed. Many scientists argue the Earth’s violent past, with its massive volcanoes and regular…
This year’s Ig Nobel prizes were awarded on September 12 at a meeting of nerds at Harvard University. The prizes are given for genuine scientific research that “first makes people laugh and then makes…
Imagine a future where packaging is made entirely from waste material and biodegrades to harmless by-products. Or where your home’s cavity wall insulation foam is made from captured CO2 emissions. Or where…
NASA has a rover called Curiosity, currently scurrying around the surface of Mars, exploring the geology with the aim of better understanding whether or not life could, at one time, have existed on the…
It would take a hard-hearted person not to have been moved to tears by the images on our television screens of Syria over the last week - of infants struggling to breathe while their parents looked on…
Depression and anxiety disorders affect a great many people and though we have antidepressants to treat symptoms, we actually know little about how the chemistry behind them works. For example, we have…
Researchers in Uppsala, Sweden accidentally left a reaction running over the weekend and ended up resolving a century-old chemistry problem. Their work has led to the development of a new material, dubbed…
Scientific fraud has raised its ugly head once more. In a note to chemists in the journal Organic Letters, Amos Smith, the editor-in-chief, has announced that an analysis of data submitted to the journal…
Brian Kobilka won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2012 for his work on G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs), which are main targets for making new drugs. Akshat Rathi, science and technology editor, and…
The ultimate dream of nanotechnology is to be able to manipulate matter atom by atom. To do that, we first need to know what they look like. In what could be a major step in that direction, researchers…
There was chaos on the streets of Halajba in March 1988. In this corner of Iraq, at the time Iraqi Kurdistan, people had suddenly started experiencing cold-like symptoms – tight chest and nasal congestion…
At least 14 people – including a number of emergency services crew – died in an massive explosion on Wednesday night at a fertiliser plant in the small town of West near Waco, Texas. So what made the blaze…
Top contributors
-
Professor of Science Communication and Chemistry, University of Hull
-
Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, University of Birmingham
-
Senior Lecturer in Chemistry, University of Tasmania
-
Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Richmond
-
Postdoctoral research associate, University of Oxford
-
Associate Professor of Chemistry, University of Richmond
-
Lead for Evidence-Based Medicine and Nutrition, Aston Medical School, Aston University
-
Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Austin College
-
Professor in Food Science and Human Nutrition, University of Canberra
-
Associate professor, Monash University
-
Professor, The University of Queensland
-
CBRN defence scientist, Charles Darwin University
-
Materials Chemist and Science Communicator, University of Sheffield
-
Assistant Professor of Chemistry, Dartmouth College
-
PhD Candidate, University of Nottingham
