Excuse the slight off (chemistry) topic post, but I wanted to let folks know about a crowdfunded science anthology I’ve launched via Unbound. You don’t need a PhD in horology to know that there are piles of great popular science books out there and not enough time to read them all. So I’ve collected a bunch of the best established and emerging science writers – people working at the cutting edge of their own particular disciplines – and asked them to distil their passions into just one chapter each. The result is Great Explanations, an anthology of the most pressing, fascinating and some ..read more

Tweet Follow @mark_lorch Chemistry built the modern world, from the materials that make up the everyday objects around us, the batteries in our devices and cleaning products that help to maintain sanitation. All this and much more besides are examples of chemistry in everyday life. To illustrate this and have a bit of fun along the way we (Phil Bell-Young, the Salter’s Institute for Chemistry and I) put together a demonstration packed show called ‘The Periodic Dinner Table’. It is a cross between demo lecture, comedy sketch and a game of bingo played on a periodic table. Just watch the video ..read more

Tweet Follow @mark_lorch My new book – Biochemistry – A Very Short Introduction is available for pre-order now! A here’s a sneak preview… From the simplest bacteria to humans, all living things are composed of cells of one type or another. Amazingly, no matter where on the evolutionary tree they perch, those organisms all have fundamentally the same chemistry. This chemistry must provide mechanisms that allow cells to interact with the external world, a means to power the cell, machinery to carry out all the varied processes, a structure within which everything runs, and of course some sort o ..read more

Transitioning to home working had its challenges for us all, but when your job involves researching biological applications for nanotechnology, those trials are a little more complicated than juggling the household’s broadband usage. So barred from his lab, you might reasonably expect the research by organic chemist Vittorio Saggiomo, from the Bionanotechnology group at Wageningen University & Research in the Netherlands, to have come to a grinding halt. But Saggiomo is a creative, imaginative type, and so he began to wonder if he could turn common household appliances to good use in the f ..read more

Tweet Follow @mark_lorch For the last couple of years I’ve put together home escape rooms to entertain the kids over the festive period. This year’s effort has a chemistry feel, and so I thought I’d share it in case anyone wants some inspiration for their own home-escape room. You might need to adapt things a bit depending on what you have to hand (mine includes a 3D printer!) The Scenario: The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have succeeded in creating Unbibium, element 122! And it’s smack in the middle of the Island of Stability! Scientists are amazed by the fact it has a staggeringly l ..read more