Today (19th April) marks the birthday of Glenn Seaborg. At the University of California, Berkeley, Seaborg and his colleagues discovered ten of the transuranium elements (elements after uranium in the Periodic Table).
Tag: history
On this day back in 2005, the world’s first legally-binding climate change agreement came into force. The Kyoto protocol, to which 192 countries are a party, aimed to reduce emissions of six greenhouse gases by 5.2% by 2012, relative to 1990. This graphic gives a brief overview of the agreement and the outcome of its […]
In the history of the Nobel Prize, only one person has won a prize in two different sciences. That person was Marie Skłodowska Curie, born on 7th November 1867.
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 which informed the work of Watson and Crick’s model of DNA’s structure. Sadly her contributions were not fully recognised until […]
Today, February 28, marks the birthday of Linus Pauling. For chemists Pauling likely needs no introduction; he’s famed for his work on the nature of chemical bonds and also on the structures of biological molecules. Here we take a brief look at one aspect of his work to which he lent his name: the Pauling electronegativity […]
Mummies are, perhaps, the easiest go-to costume for Halloween: grab some bandages, drape yourself in them, and job done. However, there’s a little more behind the traditional embalming process used in Ancient Egypt, as well as a surprising amount of chemistry. Here we take a look at the chemicals used in the process, and how […]