All History articles – Page 5
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Feature
The discovery of mass spectrometry
Mike Sutton traces how Francis Aston’s mass spectrograph shook up chemistry
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Research
Explaining the mysterious purple gold at Spain's Alhambra
Chemical corrosion converts gold leaf into purple nanospheres
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Research
Controversy over ancient Chinese bronze chemistry
Study suggests bronze was made from alloys rather than pure metals, but experts remain unconvinced
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Opinion
Period of discovery
Chemical space contained sufficient information to formulate the periodic system 25 years before Mendeleev
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Opinion
Forgotten women in chemistry
There’s much more to do to fully understand and celebrate the historical contributions of female chemists
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Opinion
Betty Wright Harris’s explosive career
Hayley Bennett tells the story of a Black chemist who studied energetic materials – and ways to detect them
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Opinion
Lessons in meaning from surface science
Do the measurements we take in vacuum mean anything in real-life situations?
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Opinion
Callendar’s platinum thermometer
Solving the hot topic of accurate and reproducible temperature measurement
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News
Botanists, chemists and historians come together to recreate ancient alchemy of making mercury
Fourth century BC alchemical methods for obtaining metallic mercury from the mineral cinnabar revisited
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Opinion
Masataka Ogawa and the search for nipponium
Could a Japanese scientist, whose claim to have discovered an element was dismissed, been right all along? Kit Chapman investigates
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Opinion
From prebiotic soup to fine-grained RNA world
Theories about how life emerged need to be closely attuned to conditions on the early Earth
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News
Curie family holiday home to become a place for ‘women’s Nobel’ prizes
Polish billionaire bought French mansion once owned by Marie Skłodowska–Curie and Pierre Curie, and has plans to convert it into a space for women
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Opinion
Elizabeth Fulhame, the 18th century chemistry pioneer who faded from history
More than 200 years ago, a female chemist introduced the concept of catalysis and made early steps towards photography. Rachel Brazil develops her story
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Opinion
Sheldrick’s SHELX
From code on a Titan to becoming the titan of crystal structure determination
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Opinion
Outdated practical techniques still have lessons to teach
Understanding old methods provides valuable insights into the new
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Opinion
William Knox, the only Black supervisor in the Manhattan Project
The story of the Knox family is one of education overcoming adversity, finds Kit Chapman
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Opinion
Margaret Melhase Fuchs and the radioactive isotope
Rebecca Trager tells the story of a brilliant female undergraduate who discovered caesium-137 in 1941 but was blocked from pursuing a PhD