In my last blog post, I talked about Frances Arnold’s work on the directed evolution of enzymes, which won her half of the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2018. The other half of the prize went to George Smith and Sir Gregory Winter for the ...
“Some people breed cats and dogs. I breed molecules.” – Frances Arnold, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 2018 Last week, it was announced that the 2018 Nobel Prize in Chemistry had been awarded to three scientists: Frances Arnold, for the ...
Cells are really important: all living things are made of them. They are often one of the first things you learn about when you start secondary school, and feature prominently at GCSE and A-Level too. And they are fascinating – and ...
Yesterday morning, much of the UK woke up to snow. It was all very exciting, and much fun was had by all; the cats hated it; we built a comely snow wench. But where does snow come from? Why don’t we get more of it when it’s cold? And ...
I like December. I like the changing weather, and the cold and frost (weird, I know – I just like being able to wrap up warm and go outside!), and the anticipation of Christmas. I like excuses to stay inside curled up with the cats. ...
As anyone who knows me will tell you, I like food and I like cooking. I especially like being creative with flavours, textures, and presentation, particularly making things look something else / not food / similar. (The time I made ...
Inspired by my trip to the Superbugs exhibition at London’s Science Museum, last week I wrote about the Rise of the Superbug and how they came to be. Obviously we want to do our best to prevent any more developing, but that still ...
This year, antibiotics were voted Britain’s greatest invention by the public in a TV collaboration between the BBC and the Science Museum. And it’s true: antibiotics really have changed the world. Antibiotic use has its downsides ...
This weekend will see bonfires and fireworks across the country, remembering and celebrating the gunpowder plot (or rather, the foiling there of) in 1605. But what is the science of gunpowder, key to the original gunpowder plot and ...
On Friday night last week, I set out with the express intention of staying up late to watch the Orionids. I was disappointed. We had thick cloud cover and heavy rain. The sky might have been beautifully dark, but I couldn’t see a ...
