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Blog posts

Is my own hand rub still safe to use? 8 August 2018

One of the topics covered in Option D: Medicinal chemistry is antibiotic resistance. This occurs when micro-organisms become resistant to antibacterials. There is considerable concern in many parts of... more

AI deduces the periodic table 26 June 2018

There is an interesting report from Professor Shoucheng Zhang, a professor of physics at Stanford University which claims that he has used artificial intelligence to recreate the periodic table. more

When were elements discovered? 12 April 2018

There are many links on the IB chemistry syllabus that relate to when elements were discovered. Probably the most important one is Topic 3.1 The periodic table. One of the reasons why Mendeleyev was able... more

Update and a problem to solve 31 JIB Docs (2) Teamary 2018

Quiz questions and galleries for all the sub-topics of Option B : Biochemistry and Option C : Energy for both SL and HL and all the SL sub-topics for Option D : Medicinal chemistry have now been completed.... more

What are universities looking for? 8 December 2017

An interesting report commissioned by ACS International Schools in partnership with the IB and IBSCA was published earlier this month. It asked university admissions officers what skills they wanted to... more

Chemistry question bank now live 18 October 2017

The Chemistry question bank (qBank) is now up and running on this site.Information on how to access it can be found in Using student access. It contains brand new multiple choice type questions and also... more

How precious metals were first formed 16 October 2017

In the week when the price of the precious metal palladium reached $1000 per ounce it was interesting to see that the problem as to how precious metals such as gold, silver, platinum and palladium were... more

"Diamonds Are Forever" 1 August 2017

Chemistry sometimes takes some strange twists and turns. Recently I learned of a rather bizarre connection between the part of sub-topic 4.3 that includes the allotropes of carbon and Option B: Human... more

Great timing! 28 May 2017

Last month, on the 21st. April 2017 to be precise, the UK experienced the first day since 1882 when all the electricity generated in the country was produced without the use of any coal. This was reported... more

Drinking water from sea-water 8 April 2017

Back in 2010 I wrote a blog, “Sticky tape and a pencil”, about the award of the Nobel Prize (for Physics) to scientists at Manchester University in the UK for their discovery of graphene. The structure... more