Nature's Amazing Chemistry: Reflections on Its Complexity and Diversity

by Michael Freemantle

Overview

Nature’s amazing chemistry has been producing all the raw materials essential for life on Earth for billions of years. The chemistry is, however, diverse and often complex and challenging. It has unfathomable depths that chemists and other scientists around the world are still attempting to probe and understand. Chapters in this book reflect Michael Freemantle’s fascination with nature’s chemistry not only of humans and other animals, but also of plants and minerals. You will discover:

• the chemistry of fruit flies, lobsters and beavers;
• the chemistry of snowdrops, wild cabbages and Himalayan blue poppies;
• the chemistry of minerals containing cobalt and other elements, the mining of which has in some cases led to environmental degradation and human rights abuses.

Michael Freemantle is a science writer who has written numerous books and articles on chemistry, the history of science and related topics. They include The Chemists’ War: 1914–1918 published by the Royal Society of Chemistry.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781837674749
Publisher:	RSC
Publication date:	08/19/2025
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.95(d)

About the Author

Michael Freemantle is a science writer and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC). After a post-doctoral research fellowship at Oxford University(1967-1969), he worked in the chemical industry for two years. From 1971 to 1985, he taught chemistry at various levels both in the UK and abroad. In 1985, he was appointed Information Officer for IUPAC (International Union of Pure & Applied Chemistry). His duties included editing the IUPAC news magazine Chemistry International. From 1994 to 2007 he was European Science Editor/Senior Correspondent for Chemical & Engineering News - the weekly news magazine of the American Chemical Society. He was then appointed Science Writer in Residence, a part-time post, at Queen's UniversityBelfast and Queens UniversityIonic Liquid Laboratories for three years until 2010.

Freemantle has written numerous news reports and articles on chemistry, the history of chemistry, and related topics. He is the author, co-author, or editor of more than ten books on chemistry and related subjects including Chemistry and the Environment - the IUPAC Programme (editor), IUPAC, 1990; An Introduction to Ionic Liquids, RSC Publishing, 2009; and Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! How Chemistry Changed the First World War, The History Press, 2012.

Table of Contents

• Nature’s Chemical Treasure Trove
• The Scent of Beavers
• The Shepherd and the Draper
• Snakes and Hypertension
• Exotic Lobsters and Scarlet Ibises
• Toxic African Beetle Larvae
• Mediterranean Rock Snails and the Colour Purple
• Sleeping Beauties
• Keeping Time Day and Night
• Puddling in Mud
• Pigs and Pannage
• Dumb Cane
• Lady’s Bedstraw
• The Common Snowdrop
• Himalayan Blue Poppies and Autumn Leaves
• An Ancient Blue Dye
• The First True Drug
• The World’s Most Abundant Polymer
• Old Harry and Wild Cabbage
• Fixing Nitrogen
• Cobalt in Cornwall and the Congo
• Not Just a Nasty Gas
• The Rise and Fall of Mercury
• Blue John
• Dark Oxygen and Manganese Nodules
• The Secrets of Soil