Chemistry Blog

Mark

Author's details

Date registered: April 11, 2012

Biography

Mark Lorch has PhD in biochemist and is a lecture at the University of Hull, UK. As well as research, teaching and blogging he can sometimes be found 'science busking' on the streets of Yorkshire. Sometimes his favourite tricks end up in his blogs. Oh, and he tweets @sci_ents.

Latest posts

  1. Chemistry comes to Minecraft — February 22, 2018
  2. The Chemistry of Hair Relaxers — January 31, 2018
  3. Curiosity and distress — December 8, 2017
  4. The Secret Science of Superheroes — the origin story — October 5, 2017
  5. The Underground Map of the Elements – now with Nh, Mc, Ts & Og — December 3, 2016

Most commented posts

  1. A letter from a chemist to homeopaths — 55 comments
  2. Professor Anthony Russell Clarke  1959 – 2016 — 44 comments
  3. ‘Anonymous’ peer-review – a cautionary tale — 24 comments
  4. The Underground Map of the Elements — 21 comments
  5. Space dinosaurs, the saga continues — 15 comments

Author's posts listings

Feb 22

Chemistry comes to Minecraft

by |chemical education, Uncategorized | (43347 Views)

Categories:
minecraft_-education-edition-17_02_2018-15_05_21

Tweet Follow @mark_lorch There has been a spot of role reversal in my house of late. I’ve been at the Minecraft again and my kids are complaining. A while back Microsoft asked me and Joel Mills to work on the latest update of their amazingly popular game. And that update now includes a whole load of chemistry …

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Jan 31

The Chemistry of Hair Relaxers

by |general chemistry | (59857 Views)

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Tweet I run a science communication module for undergraduate students. One of the assessments involves writing a blog or news style article. This year’s students did a cracking job so I’d like to share some of them with you. So enough from me and over to Ola Odu, a 3rd Year biochemistry student at the University of …

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Dec 08

Curiosity and distress

by |opinion | (102065 Views)

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Tweet Follow @mark_lorch I had a particularly low period during my post-doc career, nothing seemed to be working.  The days of failed experiments stretched into weeks and then months, with no end is site. About that time I came across a quote (from the zoologist Marston Bates), that mirrored my mode Research is the process of …

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Oct 05

The Secret Science of Superheroes — the origin story

by |fun | (156166 Views)

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Tweet Follow @mark_lorch Remember that League of Extraordinary Scientists? You know, the one’s that wrote a book about superheroes in a weekend. Well their Herculean efforts have come to fruition. The Secret Science of Superheroes (published by the Royal Society of Chemistry) is out now and this is what it is where it came from … …

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2 comments

Dec 03

The Underground Map of the Elements – now with Nh, Mc, Ts & Og

by |fun | (414191 Views)

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Tweet Follow @mark_lorch What with the names of the four latest elements being confirmed I thought it time I updated the original Underground Map of the Elements. So here it is resplendent with nihomium, moscovium, organesson and tennessine! Enjoy Link to PDF version.

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7 comments

Nov 24

Does stainless steel really get rid of garlic smells? Round 2.

by |Uncategorized | (381644 Views)

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Follow @mark_lorch Follow @yorkshirechem Some time ago we put the old wives’ tale that stainless steel gets rid of garlic whiffs to the test. The results were inconclusive and with hindsight the control probably wasn’t ideal. So we are having another go, this time with the backing of the Royal Society of Chemistry and a consortium of chemistry …

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