Aurora Walshe
As a child, I loved science. I still do. However, I didn’t develop my particular fondness for chemistry until secondary school, when we made honeycomb in the lab…
I started writing for Chemistry World in 2015 while working at the Royal Society of Chemistry as a publishing editor. I joined the RSC after finishing a PhD in uranium chemistry – I had had a great time playing with glove boxes and synchrotrons and spectrometers but ultimately I decided that the lab wasn’t for me. I was very happy to have a job that kept me up to date with cutting edge research from across the breadth of the chemical sciences and I love getting to write for Chemistry World.
I’m a huge nerd and a serial crafter and I spend my spare time reading or watching movies or making things out of paper or wood or metal. In an alternate life I think I would have been a blacksmith or a glassblower – the most important person in any chemistry department!
PodcastHer Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict – Book club
The full story of the discovery of DNA’s double helix
ReviewHollywood Wants to Kill You: The Peculiar Science of Death in the Movies
Your favourite disaster movies turned into case studies for the various ways in which all we are all doomed
ReviewWhen the Dogs Don’t Bark: A Forensic Scientist’s Search for the Truth
Forensic scientist Angela Gallop shares the evolution of her career and of forensic science itself
ReviewInventing Ourselves: The Secret Life of the Teenage Brain
Teenage Kicks - a cognitive neuroscientist explains why teenagers are the way they are
ResearchTriply crosslinked hydrogel withstands weight of a car
Hydrogel with three types of physical crosslinks shows remarkable self-recovery properties
ResearchNew rationale for 15-element wide f block
Scientists seek to settle periodic table layout debate
![[Th(III)]–[Al] complex [Cp‡2Th(m-H3)AlC(SiMe3)3 (left) and [Cp‡2U(m-H3)AlC(SiMe3)3 (right)](https://d2cbg94ubxgsnp.cloudfront.net/Pictures/100x67/7/3/7/136737_c8sc01260a-f2.jpg)
ResearchFirst actinide–metal complexes with dative bonds
5f and 6d orbitals in low-valent actinides exhibit unprecedented charge transfer in actinide–metal complexes
ReviewMore molecules of murder
Aurora Walshe reviews a book that walks the line between morbid and fascinating
ReviewThe secret science of superheroes
Aurora Walshe reviews a book that will make you laugh like an evil genius
ReviewThe genome factor: what the social genomics revolution reveals about ourselves, our history and the future
Exploring the use of genetics in social policy
ReviewSex, lies, and brain scans: how fMRI reveals what really goes on in our minds
Can neuroscientists can use functional magnetic resonance imaging to read minds?
ResearchElemental imaging could authenticate Ming brushstrokes
New insight into royal painting techniques
ReviewA tale of seven scientists and a new philosophy of science
Eric Scerri proposes that science has evolved like a biological organism rather than in small steps or giant leaps
ResearchFirst +5 praseodymium compound with PrN triple bond made
The second ever praseodymium compound with a +5 oxidation state paves the way for pentavalent lanthanide chemistry
ResearchTomography keeps its cool to analyse ice cream
First in-depth study of the multiphase 3D structure of ice cream possible with new experimental design
ResearchFirst uranium–rhodium bond shows that shorter is not stronger
Complex with one of the shortest uranium–transition metal bonds ever reported is unstable in solution
ResearchModel predicts graphene to melt at 6000K
Monolayer graphene could survive on the surface of the sun