Why has chemistry not finished surprising us?

Audio 48:30

Silica balls observed under a scanning electron microscope (SEM) with a magnification x 800. The photo is reprocessed and colored with artificial colors.

Studied for therapeutic purposes, porous silica nanoparticles allow the transport of drugs in the body.

© B.REBIERE / ICGM / CNRS Photo library

By: Caroline Lachowsky

50 mins

How far will chemistry take us - and not just for the worst?

To clean up soils, study cloud formation or reproduce organs in 3D: why has chemistry continued to amaze us? 

Publicity

Chemistry: the science of matter and its transformations, which we love to hate (well, it's 'chemical') and which nevertheless is omnipresent (and more than ever) in our daily lives.

For better or for worse, our future depends a lot on its necessarily ambivalent developments.

Because chemistry is everywhere and in Everything!

Since the appearance of the first bricks of life, the first molecules, on earth and to the bottom of the oceans but also in space!

Chemistry pollutes but it can also cleanse when you understand its mechanisms and chain reactions. Did you know that you do it yourself several times a day in your kitchen?

That we can also more poetically study the chemistry of clouds or even artistically unveil the secrets of the great painters of the past of forgotten perfumes or uncorked wines. There is definitely something for everyone and of all colors. 

With:

Claire-Marie Pradier,

Scientific Assistant Director at the CNRS Institute of Chemistry.

Olivier Parisel, 

researcher at the Laboratory of Theoretical Chemistry at Pierre and Marie Curie University

The collective work 

Astonishing chemistry, discoveries and promises of the 21st century

 published by Cnrs Editions 

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