Jennifer Newton
As the daughter of a chemistry teacher, chemistry has always been in my blood. Teaching science for 5 weeks in Ghana when I was 16 confirmed my suspicions that I didn’t also want to be a teacher.
I studied natural sciences at the University Bath, doing a little bit of everything, mainly chemistry and pharmacology but no physics. My degree included a year-long industrial placement at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, part of the Ministry of Defence – although if I told you what I did there, I’d have to kill you.
I joined the Royal Society of Chemistry in September 2008, collecting over 4 years of experience in journals publishing, before moving to Chemistry World in April of 2013. Cooking and gardening dominate when I'm not at work.
OpinionOnly boring elements get bored
Prizes for best, most boring and most overlooked element up for grabs
OpinionMargaret Brimble: 'Spiroketals are my favourite molecules'
The New Zealand chemist on careers, creativity and why everything just has to be blue
OpinionThe third degree on actinide covalency
The often ignored elements are attracting chemists’ attention again
OpinionRighting history
Archaeology can offer unique perspectives on our place in the world, but the field has some challenges to overcome along the way
ReviewHumble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors
Matt Parker’s book shows just how serious the consequences of mathematical mistakes can be
Opinion‘I taught my local restaurant how to make noodles’
Organic chemistry maestro Jin-Quan Yu on football, food and cleaving the C–H bond
OpinionChiral curiosities
The challenges posed by asymmetry go hand in hand with fascinating insights into developmental biology
ReviewGene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome
Venki Ramakrishnan tells the story of his journey from physics student to chemistry Nobel laureate
ResearchCluster fundamentals
Stefanie Dehnen discusses the exotic structures of inorganic chemistry’s middle ground
ReviewLosing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science’s Highest Honor
Is the Nobel prize advancing or hampering scientific progress?
OpinionThe potential of promiscuity
Nobel recognition for a concept whose benefit to humankind is far from being truly realised
ReviewChernobyl: History of a Tragedy
What went wrong on the 26 April 1986 disaster and what continued to go wrong in the days, weeks and years that followed
ResearchPlant machinery functions inside synthetic protocell
Self-assembling microdroplets filled with chloroplasts show photosynthetic potential
Careers'My co-author is based in North Korea'
The challenges of working with scientists in the world’s most secretive state
ResearchGermanium analogue of cyclobutadiene isolated
Polar Jahn–Teller distortion stabilises unusual molecule
ReviewMaking the monster: the science behind Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein
A book that delves into the backstory of a sci-fi horror classic