Access features, news and views from the latest issue and from our chemistry archives.

Past issue

By Dave Sammut and Chantelle Craig

Scientists worldwide have stepped up to challenges posed by COVID-19. In Australia, water researchers have a critical surveillance role: detection of viral fragments in wastewater.

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An inconvenient pH

By Ben Selinger
The control of the oceans’ pH is dominated by that most important buffer bicarbonate, which also controls the pH of your blood and saliva. pH in...

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Vegan-friendly wines

By Geoffrey R. Scollary
Over the last year, I have noticed an increase in the promotion of wines as ‘vegan friendly’ or ‘suitable for vegans’. In a recent tasting that I...

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Learning during lockdown

By Ian D. Rae
The lockdowns of 2020 and 2021 put libraries out of reach for weeks on end, and although my local library had a ‘mail out’ service, and the...

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Communication in a time of COVID

By Sally Woollett
Science communication is facing one of its biggest challenges. As I write, New South Wales is in lockdown, and several other states are moving...

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Borodin – Scientist and Sunday composer

By David Edmonds, Alf Larcher and Richard Thwaites

Although best known as a composer, Borodin first trained as a medical doctor and then became an eminent chemist, describing himself as a Sunday composer only: ‘Science is my work and music is my fun’.

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From 1901 to 2021 – NIST measurements then and now

By Mark Esser

A lot has changed at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the past 120 years. For one thing, we were known as the National Bureau of Standards for the first 87 years of our existence. Then, in 1988, we became the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), to reflect our agency’s expanding mission and a renewed emphasis on boosting the competitiveness of American industry. But as much as things change, they also stay the same. While much of our early work has been baked into the American economy, NIST continues to be a world leader in advancing measurement science. We still provide many of our original services, though the techniques and technologies have evolved.

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Book and software reviews

To offer your services as a book or software reviewer for Chemistry in Australia, please contact Damien Blackwell at damo34@internode.on.net