Name: The surprising chemistry of plants and the building blocks of the Milky Way
Start: 2019-05-22T19:30:00
End: 2019-05-22T21:30:00
Location: Beelzebub's

Plants have a lot more to offer us than simply clean air and food. Dr. Louis Luk will introduce us to the hidden side of plants, and tell us all about the use of plant chemistry to develop drugs and “green” pesticides. Dr. Sarah Ragan will take us through some of the breakthroughs we made after discovering the Milky Way is not alone - only a century ago - resulting in studies of the building blocks of galaxies in amazing amounts of detail. Always wondered what you look like in the infrared? Take a look with our heat camera!

Chemistry Inspired by Plants

Dr Louis Luk (Research Fellow)

Being one of the kingdoms of life, plants play important roles on planet earth and affect different facuets of our lives. While most of us recognise that plants offer us clean air, food and energy, they are also a source of inspirations – from architectures(Sagrada Familia), technological development (Velcro) to drug discovery (anti-cancer vinblastine). This Pint of Science by Dr Louis Luk will give an overview on how the chemistry of plants has led us to create a novel class of “green” pesticides and drugs.

How to build a galaxy

Dr Sarah Ragan (Lecturer in Astrophysics)

Our place in the cosmos has captured humanity’s imagination throughout history. Just a century ago, the discovery that our Milky Way was just one of countless galaxies completely transformed our perception of the Universe. Since then, we have studied our own and nearby galaxies in increasing levels of detail, aiming to understand the fundamental building blocks of these star forming engines. We will explore some of the recent breakthroughs in studying our own Milky Way and its neighbours.

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