Better Looking, Better Living, Better Loving

Dr John Emsley will discuss the often unacknowledged role of chemistry in the products that improve our lives, as well as some of the exciting new directions the science has taken and the challenges of ensuring its benefits can be produced from sustainable resources.

Amongst the topics covered will be how chemists put an end to a life-long mental condition that once blighted millions and devised new building materials that generate and save energy.

The talk will also deal with very recent discoveries, including new drugs to treat skin diseases, the latest treatments for baldness, and novel materials for turning sunlight into electricity.

In a section of the talk entitled Better Loving, Dr Emsley will focus on the role of chemistry in sex – and what it can do when things go wrong.

Finally his talk will look at a new career path for young chemists, in museums and art galleries. Their skills can be applied in the analysis and restoration of great works of art and in the detection and prevention of forgery.

The lecture will commemorate the life of Dr Alex Hopkins, a much-loved teaching officer in inorganic chemistry, based at Churchill and Fitzwilliam Colleges as well as the Chemistry Department, who died in 2006. His father, John Hopkins, has generously provided funds for an annual lecture in his memory, in the field of chemistry but accessible to non-chemists.

Dr Emsley became a full-time science writer in 1990, having spent 22 years as lecturer and reader in chemistry at King’s College London, producing more than 100 original research papers.

He has been science writer in residence at Imperial College, London and Cambridge University, as well as writing a column for The Independent and appearing on numerous television and radio programmes.

In 1995 he won the Science Book Prize for The Consumer’s Good Chemical Guide and more recently was awarded the first Science Communications Award from the Society of Chemical Industry.

His numerous popular science books include a history of poisons, The Elements of Murder and a guide to the discovery, uses and properties of the chemical elements, Nature’s Building Blocks. His most recent book, Better Looking, Better Living, Better Loving was published in 2007.

“Better Looking, Better Living, Better Loving: what's chemistry got to do with it?” is free and open to all. It will take place at 4pm on Friday 7 March in the Bristol-Myers-Squibbs Lecture Theatre at the Department of Chemistry, Lensfield Road.