RSC Blog

As reported already by the Sun and the Daily Mail, the RSC has once more stepped into the kitchen with a chemistry-based recipe for the perfect gravy.

This follows the success of last year’s ideal Yorkshire puddings (popovers to our American friends) – and the decree that they cannot be named so unless they rise to four inches or higher. Chemist, author and roast dinner expert John Emsley has issued a new recipe for nutrionally-balanced, chemically-perfect and extremely tasty gravy in the tradional fashion… sort of.

It combines some traditional elements with some chemistry magic – most controversial is the inclusion of soya sauce, normally associated with Eastern cuisine but here included in the quintessential Englishman’s Sunday roast.

Here’s John’s recipe:

Ingredients

The juices from a roast joint of meat, preferably beef
Flour
Vegetable water (cabbage)
Iodised salt
Teaspoon of dark soya sauce.
Pepper
Gravy browning if you prefer a darker gravy.

Method

The joint should be cooked on a bed of halved onions, carrots and celery on to which juices from the meat will slowly trickle. When the meat is cooked, remove it from the roasting tin along with the vegetables. Sprinkle a small amount of plain flour over the meat juices and fat. Stir to form a dough (roux) gradually adding the water in which vegetables have been cooked, preferably cabbage water. Ensure all the meat juices and Marmite-like deposits on the bottom of the roasting dish have dissolved. Then add iodised salt to taste and a teaspoon of dark soya sauce (rather than gravy browning) or a little red wine . Simmer to reduce the volume of liquid to the right consistency, stirring occasionally.

Chemical and nutritional composition of gravy

Protein from the collagen of the meat.
Vitamins, and especially B1, B6, folic acid, riboflavin and nicotinic acid.
Carbohydrate from the flour and gravy browning. Gravy browning is caramelised sugar and can be bought, or it can be made using the recipe in Mrs Beeton’s Book of Household Management published in 1859. This says to heat sugar until it caramelises but does not become too dark.
Minerals such as sodium and iodine.
Monosodium glutamate (MSG) from the soya sauce which brings out the meaty (umami) flavour.

What do you think? Share your own best gravy recipes in the comments…

As a high-minded learned society and professional body, with the patronage of Her Majesty herself, we are duty- and honour-bound to promote chemistry and make it accessible to the public.

So when flooded with queries from the public and RSC staff regarding the efficacy of conkers as a spider repellent, we shook ourselves dry and led the charge on a public scientific endeavour – to prove or dismiss the old wives’ tale that spiders really do hate conkers. For the best evidence (one way or the other) we’re offering a prize of £300.

We hypothesise that if it works there must be some chemistry in it. So the call went out to the public, through the illustrious pages of the Daily Telegraph, The Times and Daily Mail, various radio stations, and BBC Breakfast – and the public have responded with eyewitness accounts, photos, videos and even scientific experiments!

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I’ve had a very productive morning. I worked out that, under reasonable conditions, an entire Association Football-approved pitch worth of lunar soil would need to be processed every 16 hours to provide enough water for one person to live relatively comfortably. Water-wise, that is.

The media has happily announced the scientific community’s plans to colonise the Moon, with the recent discovery of significant quantities of water hidden away in Moondust (or whatever it’s called).

A refuelling station, or a full-blown colony for lunar settlers, seems almost within grasp… sort of.

Mark Henderson wrote a great piece in today’s Times titled “Water, water everywhere, but the Moon is still drier than a desert.” I read this as I was putting the finishing touches to my incredibly nerdy spreadsheet, and it verified my own calculations that colonising the Moon is still further away than we’d all hope.

Given that water is contained only within the top few millimetres of soil on the Moon’s surface (source: The Times), that there is a litre or so of water in each metre cubed of soil (source: Science) and that the average colonist would need roughly 4 litres per day to survive in relative comfort (source: a Battlestar Galactica discussion forum), I came up with the following rather arresting stats:

• For each “colonist”, a football pitch’s worth of soil would need to be processed every 16 hours
• This is 12 metric tons of soil
• For a year this is 6510 metric tons, or 545 football pitches
• After this time, at maximum walking speed on the Moon and assuming you worked outwards from your initial location, it would take you 13.4 minutes to walk the two-thirds of a mile to the edge so you could brush your teeth that morning
• It would take 10 million years for that person to use all the water on the Moon
• By this time he would be very lonely and probably not smell very fresh

This is all based on many variables pulled from all over the net, and some I’ve just made up – for example it’s based on 75% extraction efficiency. Who knows if that’s entirely over- or under-estimating what would be realistic?

It also completely ignores other uses for that water, as suggested by the media, such as being electrolysed for use as rocket fuel.

The spreadsheet is on Google Docs so anyone can have a go. Please feel free to fiddle about, and let me know if any of it’s completely wrong or you have better ideas. Any better estimations of the variables would be welcome, but one thing’s for sure: we aren’t going to have self-sustaining colonies up there any time soon.

link to the Google Docs Spreadsheet

After some hilarious, some forthright, some insightful, and some ridiculous suggestions, we’ve picked a winner of our Scottish science competition. Full details can be found here, but the aim was to tweet or text us a solid reason why Scotland has produced so many eminent scientists. Thanks to all for the many entries we received.

A few of the favourites:

“It’s the water. The abundance of rain keeps people in and the best drinking water in the world keeps their minds refreshed and alert.” (via text).

“Scotland produces eminent scientists because claymores tend to discourage competition.” (via Twitter, @agoldson)

“Most came from working class. Learning was a commitment. Dedication & survival meant succeeding in ur chosen field.” (via text)

Praising the stoicism, intelligence or dedication of the Scottish people was a common theme. Also there were frequent references to the inclement weather – a heartfelt response from many Scots entering the competition.

So it’s only fitting that the winning entry is from a Scottish chemist, who had this to say:

“The weather keeps them in the lab during the day, whilst the whisky provides the inspiration at night.”

A poetic, succinct and quite possibly accurate submission from @littleghoti, who will soon be the proud owner of a black iPhone 3GS on O₂ Pay & Go.

O₂ is of course a chemist’s favourite mobile operator. Except maybe methyl Orange.

The first couple of days of the IUPAC congress have flown by, with some fantastic events and speakers really making this conference one to remember.

Monday afternoon’s plenary lecture was given by Prof. Dame Louise Johnson, who after her talk was awarded an honourary fellowship of the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Professor Dame Louise Johnson receives her Royal Society of Chemistry honourary fellowship from RSC President Dave Garner

In the evening Harry Kroto led a great Café Scientifique, talking about what he calls the “GooYouWiki World”, and a lot else besides! The house was full (sorry to those we had to turn away!) and everyone was up for questions and debate in the relaxed atmosphere of the Tron Theatre.

Café Scientifique at the Tron Theatre, Glasgow, with Harry Kroto

We talked a lot about education, particularly in the context of getting the best teaching resources to the teachers that need them most. Harry was keen to explain the benefits of the GeoSet project, too, where students can upload videos and synchronised presentations. “I’ve revolutionised marking,” Harry proudly proclaimed. “While other teachers have a huge stack of essays or papers to mark, I’m sitting at my table with a coffee watching the students on my laptop.”

Harry Kroto at the Tron Theatre

The 42nd IUPAC Congress got off to a great start yesterday, with the opening ceremony and civic reception going down extremely well. Opening remarks from the IUPAC Secretary General Chris Black, IUPAC President Jung-Il Jin, Royal Society of Chemistry President Dave Garner, Chair of the 42nd IUPAC Congress Paul O’Brien and  were well received. The Clyde Auditorium looked stunning, by the way:

42nd IUPAC Congress Opening Ceremony, The Clyde Auditorium, SECC

Awards were made, by President Jin, to the winners of the IUPAC Prizes for Young Chemists from 2008 and 2009. Congratulations to Emilie Banide, Christopher Thomas Rodgers, Akinori Saeki, Andrea Rae Tao and Scott Warren (2008), and to Faisal Aldaye, Christopher Bettinger, Xinliang Feng, Xing Yi Ling and Shengqian Ma (2009).

The 2008 and 2009 winners of the IUPAC Prizes for Young Chemists

The bit that really stole the show, however, was when we were asked to follow the piper to the reception. Baffled looks abound, but the unmistakable sound came hauntingly through the curtains, and out stepped a kilted piper to lead us to the Glasgow Science Centre.

A traditionally-dressed piper leads the chemist congregation from the Clyde Auditorium

That was yesterday… this morning we had the pleasure and honour of being addressed by the inimitable Sir Harry Kroto. His enthusiastic, heartfelt talks are always a highlight, and today he discussed (among much else) his concept of “three senses”: common sense, uncommon sense (science) and nonsense (too common). And as he said himself: “common sense has been replaced by common NONsense – what we need is UNcommon sense, ie science!”

Sir Harry greets the adoring crowd

The scientific legacy of Scotland is awe-inspiring. As I hurtle down the East Coast line to the 42nd IUPAC Congress in Glasgow, which is being hosted by the RSC from today until Friday, I’m taking time to acquaint myself with a few of the many great scientists, engineers and inventors the country has produced. I may fling out a few Scottish science facts throughout the week on the official IUPAC Twitter stream, twitter.com/IUPAC2009.

We’re so taken with the prodigious scientific output of Scotland that we want to celebrate it by giving away a new Apple iPhone 3GS – the latest and greatest incarnation of Alexander Graham Bell’s telephone. He’s Scottish too. All you have to do is tell us (in 140 chars or fewer, naturally) the reason Scotland produces so many great scientists (via email, blog comment or preferably Tweet). More on Scottish scientists and full competweetion rules later in the post. (more…)

Limonene: natural and organic

An enlightening cutting from Tuesday’s London Lite just hit my desk: a review of “six of the best chemical-free deodorants.” Oh ho ho, I thought to myself. More chemical-free myths to debunk on the blog, trying to explain that, while natural and organic, limonene smells the same whether you get it from a citrus fruit or a separating funnel. For the record its molecular structure is to the left. Looks like a chemical to me, but what do I know?

So in this list there are a few of the standard “all-natural, 100% chemical-free” deodorants – the ones with ingredients lists like this. My favourite of the non-chemicals on this particular list is eugenol, which has the delightful alternative name eugenic acid.

But, even better than the chemical-containing 100%-chemical-free deodorants of a standard body-spray nature, there are two that really made me laugh – and think. (more…)

50 years ago Alfred Hitchcock shot a film that would go down in history: Psycho. Starring Anthony Perkins and Janet Leigh, one scene in particular has become universally recognisable.

As Marion (Leigh) showers, a shadowy figure is seen through the shower curtain. The curtain is thrown back by the faceless figure, knife poised to strike, and Marion lets rip that famous bloodcurdling scream, as her attacker repeatedly stabs her to the backdrop of the now infamous orchestral stings.

It’s been recreated and parodied many times, but for some reason no-one has focused on the most important issue: such an indulgent shower is wasting a lot of water and setting a bad example.

Research we conducted previously with Ipsos MORI said that Britons (especially women) were among the most negligent showerers in Europe, with our French, German and Spanish neighbours being far more concerned about the amount of water wasted and composition of various soaps and gels we wash down the plughole.

So to draw attention to the plight, and attempt to remedy it, we’re looking for someone to fill the shoes… err… the role of Janet Leigh, and take part in a tasteful remake of the scene, to be titled Shower Murder.

The film will be a sixty-second video showing how one can shower effectively in one minute without wasting water. If you feel you’re the one for the role, send an email with a passport photo to elliotts at rsc dot org.

Put down that Sudoku and try a real challenge from the East. We’ve managed to get hold of and translate two entrance exams, in chemistry and maths, for Beijing City Senior High Schools, and we’d like you to give them a try.

These exams are for all students wishing to enter the high school. I must admit the translation isn’t perfect, but the aim of each question is clear. And quite revealing.

As reported by The Daily Telegraph this morning (story here), Dr Richard Pike, RSC’s chief executive, said: “In Britain most of the questions with some sort of mathematics or problem solving are very straight forward. With the Chinese ones you’ve got to think a little bit further, you can’t just stick down the answer.”

While a similar gradation of questions – from an easy start to difficult finish – can be seen in the new GCSEs, the curve is much steeper for the Chinese exams. Many of the longer answers require much critical thinking and problem-solving skill; compare this with the hand-holding a student gets in GCSE exam questions and you’ll see clearly the different levels of understanding required.

At the same time there are many topically-relevant questions, such as questions about the 2008 Olympics (although these are often quite heavily politicised.)

So why not have a look yourselves? Here are download links to the papers:

Download the chemistry paper here

Download the maths paper here

We’ll post the answers next week. If you have any opinions please do leave your thoughts in the comments below. If you can’t see the comments box, click here.