Today the new £1 coin is released in the UK. I threw a quick graphic together to take a look at what’s known about its composition and why it’s being introduced.
Acrylamide has been in the news this week, with the UK’s Food Standards Agency (FSA) warning that eating overcooked potatoes, crisps, or burnt toast could increase your risk of developing cancer. Does this mean you should be consigning your toaster to the trash and avoiding roast potatoes with your roast dinner? This graphic assesses the realities of the risks.
In the UK, school chemistry departments found themselves unexpectedly hitting the headlines last week due to a chemical used in A level chemistry practicals. The chemical involved was 2,4-dinitrophenylhydrazine (2,4-DNPH) – so what is it and why the sudden spate of concern? This post and graphic takes a look at the chemical facts behind the stories.
You probably already know that the beginning of this week heralded the arrival of NASA’s Juno probe at Jupiter, where it will be carrying out a range of observations on our solar system’s largest planet. It might also confirm some suspicions we have about Jupiter’s chemistry. So what do we already know about Jupiter from a chemical perspective?
IUPAC have announced the proposed names for the new elements in the periodic table, whose discoveries were confirmed at the turn of…
Over the weekend, the news of Sir Harry Kroto’s passing filtered slowly through the internet. Perhaps the best summary of his life and achievements was already written by Kroto himself, so here we take a brief look at his most acclaimed discovery: that of the amusingly named form of carbon, buckminsterfullerene.