Beyond What We Can See: The Science of Beauty, Brightness, and Structure

Have you ever wondered about the science of washing your hair? Why shampoo foams and conditioner doesn’t? Why 2-in-1 exists but you can’t just put shampoo and conditioner on at the same time? And why are people like me paid to shoot x-rays at them? Learn the science behind washing your hair, and how a technique called Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS) can tell us about the molecular structures within to drive innovation.

Humans started with fire. Now we design glowing molecules. This talk takes you on a journey from red-hot metal to ultra-thin OLED displays in your phone. Along the way, you’ll discover how we see colour, how electricity turns into light, and how we make things bright.

How do you ‘see’ individual molecules? Not easily. Enter macrocyclic compounds, capable of molecular recognition. They detect individual molecules and can answer the crucial question: Is my molecule in this sample?… well, sometimes. This talk will walk through the history of macrocyclic receptors, from their beginnings as purely organic compounds to the more recent and infinitely more interesting metal-based self-assembled macrocycles, which are taking over this field and learn how ruthenium may be the key to seeing better.