Today (19th March) marks the birthday of Sir Norman Haworth – who also died on the 19th March. Haworth won a Nobel Prize in 1937 for his work on carbohydrates and vitamin C. He also developed a way of drawing 3D sugar structures, known as Haworth projections.
Rosalind Franklin was born on this day in 1920. Her contributions to the discovery of the structure of DNA were key; she took photos of DNA’s structure using X-ray crystallography, and it was these photos that informed the work of Watson and Crick’s model of DNA’s structure. Sadly her contributions were not fully recognised until after her death, and she did not share in the award of the Nobel Prize for the discovery of DNA’s structure as the prize is not awarded posthumously.
Roses are the flower most closely associated with Valentine’s Day – and we’ve got chemistry to thank for both their colour and aroma! In this post we take a closer look at the chemical compounds involved.
The vibrancy of foxgloves belies their poisonous nature – ingesting even a small amount of the plant can cause unpleasant effects, and in some cases death. However, the same compounds that make it poisonous can also have medicinal uses. This graphic takes a look at them in detail.
In late May and early June, the winding pathways of the English countryside are festooned with the delicate white blooms of the elderflower. As the end of the summer eventually arrives, these blooms will have been transformed, and the bushes will be heaving under the weight of clusters of hundreds of small, purple-black berries. In this post, we take a look at the compounds behind the heady aroma of elderflower, as well as those behind that of elderflower, and also examine the claims of toxicity of elderberries.
Spring is in the air, and it’s likely that, in your local forest, so too is the distinctive scent of wild garlic. Also known as ‘ramsons’ or ‘bear’s garlic’, green carpets of wild garlic swell in the forest’s undergrowth at this time of year. Here we take a look at their chemistry, and why, if you’re out foraging for it, you want to be sure you know how to identify it!
