All History articles
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PodcastBench-stable butyllithium & secrets of Pompeii’s limescale
In this episode, we discuss the latest formulations designed to make a set of fiery reagents safer, explore what limescale can tell us about ancient civilizations and hear the latest headlines.
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ResearchWas the ‘Baghdad battery’ really two cells?
A new study suggests it had an ‘outer’ cell that reacted with air to supply a higher voltage. But was it a battery at all?
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OpinionThree centuries of Roman limescale reveals a dirty secret about Pompeii’s public baths
Carbon isotope ratios suggest that pre-aqueduct, the water was often contaminated with human waste
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OpinionDemocratising science, one step at a time
Artifical intelligence is just the latest method to open up chemistry to more people
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OpinionLangmuir’s pump and the optimism of science
Creativity nurtured by an explorative environment
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ResearchRomans’ hot recipe for self-healing concrete unravelled in Pompeii
Discovery of building materials abandoned at construction site reveals secrets of ancient concrete that can set underwater
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OpinionLetraset’s transfers and placing precision back on the drawing board
Professional lettering with a few rubs of a ballpoint pen
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ResearchRoman-era ink reveals surprising chemical complexity
2000-year-old residue indicates the Romans wrote with iron-gall inks hundreds of years earlier than expected
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OpinionThe wide-ranging influence of the Bohr effect
While not a Nobel prize-winning discovery in itself, this challenge to the reductionist view of physiology has links to several other winners
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ResearchTraditional yoghurt recipe reveals ants’ fermentation power
Rebecca Trager meets a cross-disciplinary team investigating an ancient way to make yoghurt, which involved a trip to a tiny Bulgarian village
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OpinionOtto’s ozoniser and the value of nurturing inventors
Marius-Paul Otto (1870–1939) patently used his entrepreneurial spirit to clean up
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WebinarWalter Kohn: from kindertransport and internment to DFT and the Nobel prize
Explore the legacy of Walter Kohn, the 1998 joint winner of the Nobel prize in chemistry
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OpinionCoblentz’s infrared spectrometer and the overlooked power of vibrations
Vibrational spectroscopy’s intuitive insight into molecular structure was initially shunned by chemists
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Webinar200 years of benzene, the peculiar molecule that defied classification
Join us to celebrate benzene’s 200th birthday
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OpinionThe simple machine that visualised atomic orbitals
In 1931, Harvey Elliott White developed a device that traced out the shapes of electron clouds by approximating solutions to the Schrödinger equation
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WebinarFrom folklore to pharmacology: the chemical roots of witchcraft
Learn about the chemistry of witchcraft through the ages
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FeatureFrom flying ointments to healing herbs: the forgotten chemistry behind historical witchcraft practices
The unusual concoctions of village witches have historically been dismissed as nonsense hocus pocus – but is this the whole story? Victoria Atkinson investigates the chemistry behind the myth and whether there was more to witchcraft than ritual and superstition
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ResearchUnique Iron Age kohl from Iran differs from that of ancient Egypt
Eye makeup found to contain graphite and manganese but not organic ingredients