All articles by Mike Sutton
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FeatureFifty years since the ferrocene furore
Only two of the discoverers of the sandwich compounds that revolutionised organometallic chemistry received the Nobel prize, leaving one very big name feeling left out. Mike Sutton traces the controversy
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FeatureCelebrating Louis Pasteur’s bicentenary
Mike Sutton reflects on the dramatic discoveries of Louis Pasteur, born 200 years ago
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FeatureThe discovery of mass spectrometry
Mike Sutton traces how Francis Aston’s mass spectrograph shook up chemistry
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FeatureThomas Midgley and the toxic legacy of leaded fuel
Leaded petrol was around for 100 years, and the campaign against it for almost as long. Mike Sutton reveals its history
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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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OpinionBarbara 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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FeatureThe 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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FeatureWhat 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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FeatureThe father of the periodic table
Mike Sutton looks at how Mendeleev’s patience revealed periodicity in the elements
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FeatureHahn, 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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FeatureDerek 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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FeatureMarie Curie, the migrant chemist
150 years after Marie Curie’s birth, Mike Sutton delves into her life and research
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Feature200 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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FeatureThe 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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FeatureHistory of noble gases
Mike Sutton tells the story of William Ramsay’s hunt for the noble gases
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FeatureSulfate 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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FeatureThe bonds that bind
Mike Sutton plots the journey of the scientists who solved the riddle of chemical bonding
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FeatureSnakes, sausages and structural formulae
Mike Sutton tells the story of how August Kekulé dreamt up the structure of benzene
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FeatureIs 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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FeatureThe 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