Mike Sutton
Michael Alfred (Mike) Sutton: born London 1942; married, with two children and three grandchildren
Education: BA Hons (Chemistry) Oxford 1964; D Phil (History of Science) Oxford 1972
Employment: Research Assistant, The British Museum 1964-5; Assistant Lecturer, Oxford College of Further Education 1965-70; Lecturer/Senior Lecturer, Newcastle upon Tyne Polytechnic/Northumbria University 1970 – 2004 (Visiting Fellow there 2004-16)
Publications: Over 50 articles on history of science, history of ideas and folklore studies 1971 – 2016; Hon. Editor Ambix 1982-91
Other: involved since 1960 in traditional music, song and dance; member of team representing Britain at UNESCO International Folkloriada, Tokyo 2000
FeatureOne hundred years of insulin
Mike Sutton looks at the journey the diabetes treatment took from the Toronto miracle to mass-production – via a controversial trip to Stockholm
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Barbara Low, penicillin and the protein pi helix
Mike Sutton celebrates the remarkable career of a female crystallographer, once mistaken for the tea-lady
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The birth of the polymer age
Mike Sutton unravels Hermann Staudinger’s long hunt to understand macromolecules, which began 100 years ago
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What is the moon made of?
Mike Sutton looks at what we’ve learned about the moon’s chemistry in the 50 years since Apollo 11
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The father of the periodic table
Mike Sutton looks at how Mendeleev’s patience revealed periodicity in the elements
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Hahn, Meitner and the discovery of nuclear fission
80 years ago, Otto Hahn and Lise Meitner made a discovery that led to nuclear weapons – yet Meitner was never given the recognition she deserved
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Derek Barton and shape-shifting molecules
It’s 100 years since Derek Barton was born. Mike Sutton looks at his work developing conformational analysis
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Marie Curie, the migrant chemist
150 years after Marie Curie’s birth, Mike Sutton delves into her life and research
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200 years of Gmelin’s handbook
2017 marks 200 years since Leopold Gmelin first published his influential handbook – and it’s still going strong, as Mike Sutton discovers
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The chemist with x-ray vision
Mike Sutton tells the tale of John Kendrew and his work on the structure of myoglobin
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History of noble gases
Mike Sutton tells the story of William Ramsay’s hunt for the noble gases
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Sulfate aerosols and the summer that wasn’t
After the Mount Tambora megavolcano erupted in 1815, the years that followed had weather that changed the world, as Mike Sutton explains
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The bonds that bind
Mike Sutton plots the journey of the scientists who solved the riddle of chemical bonding
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Snakes, sausages and structural formulae
Mike Sutton tells the story of how August Kekulé dreamt up the structure of benzene
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Is all matter made of just one element?
William Prout’s answer to this perennial question launched two centuries of controversy. Mike Sutton reports
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The green molecule
From the observation that plants replenish oxygen in the air to artificial photosynthesis for making liquid fuel, Mike Sutton tells the story of the chemists fascinated by chlorophyll
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Chemists at war
The first world war saw chemistry play a vital role – and in more than just poison gas. Mike Sutton looks back
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Ordering the elements
From the law of octaves to the periodic table as we know it, Mike Sutton traces how chemists put their house in order
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Paving the way to polythene
It is 50 years since Karl Ziegler and Giulio Natta won the Nobel prize for their work on polymers
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Alfred Werner: the well-coordinated chemist
Alfred Werner’s careful experiments led to the discovery of what came to be known as coordination bonds. Mike Sutton looks at how he pointed the way to chemistry’s complex future
