Chemistry

Chemistry is often referred to as the central science, it is the study of the elements – their properties and the interactions that give matter its unique identity. It lays the foundations for many aspects of life, most of which you wouldn’t even think of! Hand sanitizer, electric cars, biodegradable plastics, the list goes on!! 

Boring Boron – Part 2: Electronic Boron

By Stuart Thompson Here, I discuss boron’s far from boring nuclear and electronic characteristics and their harmonious applications in pharmaceutical, energetic, materialistic and synthetic chemical industries. This article is part two in the ‘Boring Boron’ series and will be followed by the following parts found here: Part 1 – Nuclear Boron | Part 3 –…

Boring Boron – Part 1: Nuclear Boron

By Stuart Thompson Here, I discuss boron’s far from boring nuclear and electronic characteristics and their harmonious applications in pharmaceutical, energetic, materialistic and synthetic chemical industries. This article is part one in the ‘Boring Boron’ series and will be followed by the following parts found here: Part 2 – Electronic Boron | Part 3 –…

The Subject of Silicon

By Stuart Thompson It is a common misconception that extra-terrestrial life, at least similar to our very own, will be silicon based. From its very beginning, I discuss what we know of silicon’s nuclear and electronic chemistry and why silicon-based life would be very different to carbon-based life. Silicon’s Story: In ancient Egypt and China,…

Organic Synthesis – Time for Change?

Let’s start by posing a question. What do you think is the worst part of a day in the lab? Is it the constant washing of flasks and test tubes? Or the waiting whilst the reagents react, reflux or distil. Or is it having to dispose of the product you have spent up to 6…

Rice Water – Chemically Rich But Often Discarded

Rice is one of the most important food crops in the world, it constitutes 20% of the calorific intake of over 3.5 billion people.1 That’s a lot of rice wine, but some people want to eat rice as well. The process of cooking rice is simple and typically starts by washing the rice until the…

Ammonium Nitrate – The Chemical Behind The Beirut Explosion

By Saksham Vaidya My secondary school chemistry teacher was prone to going on rather long and entertaining tangents about his time in industry or chemistry stories he had been told; a lot of these tales tended to be the stuff of a safety inspector’s nightmares. Once he told us about an interesting fertiliser, ammonium nitrate. …

DNA-Templated Non-Ribosomal Peptide Synthesis

DISCLAIMER: This article was originally posted on The York Biology Forum, on September 24, 2018. It has been republished here to commemorate the hard work that has been put into it. To see all posts from that website and find out more about it please head to “The York Biology Forum’s Archive”. Thank you. About…