All RSC Education articles in Non-EiC content – Page 13

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On This Day - Apr 15 : de Marignac died

He was one of the first to suggest the existence of isotopes. He also discovered the element ytterbium (Yb) and co-discovered gadolinium (Gd). Related resources: Gadolinium - Element information Gadolinium podcast Ytterbium - Element information Ytterbium podcast
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On This Day - May 15 : Pierre Curie was born

Pierre Curie co-discovered polonium (Po) and radium (Ra) with his wife Marie Curie. He was also a pioneer in crystallography, magnetism and radioactivity.
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On This Day – Jul 15 : Albert Ghiorso was born

He co-discovered 12 elements while working at the University of California, Berkeley: americium (Am), curium (Cm), berkelium (Bk), californium (Cf), einsteinium (Es), fermium (Fm), mendelevium (Md), nobelium (No), lawrencium (Lr), rutherfordium (Rf), dubnium (Db) and seaborgium (Sg).
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On This Day – Sep 15 : Neil Bartlett was born

He was the first person to produce a compound containing a noble gas. Until Bartlett created xenon (Xe) hexafluoroplatinate in 1962, most scientists believed that the noble gases were too unreactive to form compounds. The discovery opened up a whole new area of study in inorganic chemistry.
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On This Day - Oct 15 : First contraceptive pill

The pill was a steroid hormone, norethindrone, developed by Carl Djerassi and co-workers at Syntex in Mexico City. Around 100 million women worldwide now take contraceptive pills, which are approximately 99% effective against pregnancy.
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On This Day - Dec 15 : Becquerel was born

He discovered radioactivity from uranium (U) salts and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1903 along with Pierre and Marie Curie.
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On This Day - Mar 16 : First liquid fuelled rocket

With a flight time of only 2.5 seconds and reaching a height of 12 metres, the demonstration by American physicist Robert H. Goddard was revolutionary at the time, leading to a new field of rocket propulsion.
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On This Day - Apr 16 : LSD effects discovered

Swiss scientist Albert Hofmann was the first to synthesise, taste and hence learn of the psychedelic effects of lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD).
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On This Day - May 16 : Nicolas-Louis Vauquelin was born

Vauquelin discovered the elements chromium (Cr) and beryllium (Be). Chromium is a hard, silvery metal used to make stainless steel. Beryllium is used in gears and cogs, particularly in aeroplanes.
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On This Day – Aug 16 : Robert Bunsen died

He famously developed the Bunsen burner, which was an improvement on the laboratory burners in use at the time and is still widely used today. He also investigated emission spectra of heated elements, and co-discovered the elements caesium (Cs) and rubidium (Rb).
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On This Day - Oct 16 : Ether as anaesthetic

After learning that inhaling ether causes unconsciousness, the American dentist William T. G. Morton experimented with it while extracting a tooth from a Boston merchant. Following this success, ether was used as an anaesthetic across the world.
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On This Day - Nov 16 : Americium discovered

This element is named after the Americas. Americium can be produced from intense neutron irradiation of pure plutonium (Pu). It is used in smoke detectors and as a portable source for gamma radiography.
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On This Day - Dec 16 : Johann Ritter was born

He established an explicit connection between galvanism and chemical reactivity. He was the first person to electrolyse water and is among the founders of electrochemistry.
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On This Day - Mar 17 : Carl Jacob Löwig was born

He discovered bromine (Br) while adding chlorine (Cl) and ether to spring water and found a red coloured substance. While Löwig investigated this substance, Antoine Balard published his independent discovery of bromine.
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On This Day - Apr 17 : Chemical naming established

This book presented a logical system for naming chemical substances. Proposed names were based on the origin or function of each element, and led to an international consensus for naming chemicals.
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On This Day - May 17 : Joseph Lockyer was born

While observing a spectrum of the sun during a solar eclipse in 1868, Lockyer noticed a prominent yellow line, which he identified as an unknown solar element. He named this helium (He) after the Greek word for sun.
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On This Day - Jun 17 : Donald James Cram died

He shared the 1987 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Jean-Marie Lehn and Charles Pedersen for their work on host-guest chemistry, where two or more molecules or ions bond in unique ways due to their structure. This has allowed the synthesis of molecules that mimic the action of enzymes.
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On This Day – Aug 17 : Aldrich Chemical Company

In 1975 Aldrich Chemical Company merged with Sigma Chemical Company to become Sigma-Aldrich Corporation. Today, Sigma-Aldrich operates in 40 countries and employs over 7,500 staff. Its products are used in scientific research, biotechnology, pharmaceuticals and disease diagnosis.
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On This Day – Sep 17 : Le Chatelier died

He is best known for developing Le Chatelier’s principle, which predicts the effect of changing conditions (temperature, pressure, and concentration of reaction components) on the equilibrium of a chemical reaction. His principle says that a system will shift the equilibrium to counteract the change.
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On This Day - Oct 17 : First nuclear power plant

The Calder Hall nuclear power plant in northwest England became the first nuclear power plant to supply commercial amounts of electricity to a public grid. Sellafield nuclear power station now stands on the same site.