Mar 122013
 

The Big Bang Fair is a free educational event open to visiting school groups that happens in March every year moving round the country. It works with partner organisations across business and industry, government and academia to try and give a flavour of the real scale of engineering and science in the UK, aimed at showing young people (primarily aged 7-19) just how many exciting and rewarding opportunities there are out there for them with the right experience and qualifications.

This year the Big Bang Fair is being held in the London, ExCeL Arena, 14th-17th March. Since 2013 is the Bragg centenary, STFC have very kindly funded a stand at this year’s fair, which will be totally dedicated to crystallography. The BCA, Diamond Light Source, ISIS and STFC have worked together to develop the stand designed to tell everyone how great crystallography is through the medium of hands on activities, lasers, and sweets. The fair is expecting 75,000 people (mostly children) through the doors over the course of four days, so Andrew Cairns, Josh Hill, Nick Funnell, Mike Glazer, George Pidgeon, Karim Sutton and Amber Thompson are all going along from Oxford to help out. Here are some photos of the first day.

Lego Beamline

Two crystallographers check the interlocks on the Lego Beamline

You are never too young to learn about packing...

You are never too young to learn about packing…

...especially when there's sweets involved!

…especially when there’s sweets involved!

Teaching physicists chemistry

Teaching physicists chemistry

George demonstrates the Lego Beamline

George demonstrates the Lego Beamline

Smelly molecules

Smelly molecules

Demonstrating Fourier transforms takes concentration

Demonstrating Fourier transforms takes concentration

Growing a crystal, one marble at a time

Growing a crystal, one marble at a time

Protein crystals ar

Protein crystals are beautiful

The Crystallography stand at the Big Bang

The Crystallography stand at the Big Bang

 

The Big Bang Logo

Sep 012012
 

The second meeting of the Red Kite network will be held on Tuesday 18th September, 2012 at ISIS.  Attendance will be free of charge and there will be a transport from Oxford and a drinks reception thanks to generous sponsorship from ISIS. There will also be a tour of the ISIS facility, followed by a microsymposium, comprising a number of short talks by local speakers, focussed on the use of neutrons in structural science and ending with a drinks reception and poster session.

Please check out the program for more details and email Amber L. Thompson (amber.thompson @ chem.ox.ac.uk) or Marek Jura (marek.jura @ stfc.ac.uk) BY MONDAY 10TH SEPTEMBER, if you want to come on the bus, otherwise we need a complete list of names by FRIDAY 14TH SEPTEMBER to arrange security clearance for the tours of ISIS.

ISIS experimental hall

ISIS experimental hall

Sep 012011
 

Presented by:  Andrew B. Cairns & Dr. Amber L. Thompson
Research Leader:  Dr. Andrew L. Goodwin
Published:  Journal of the American Chemical Society (cover article)

Negative Linear Compressibility (NLC) is where a material unusually expands in one direction under increasing pressure.  Potassium manganese dicyanoargentate exhibits the largest NLC over an extended range of any known material: ‑12.0(8) TPa–1.  The structural features are both beautiful and unique to cause this effect.  [MnN6] octahedra are connected via almost linear ‘floppy’ NC–Ag–CN units, with K+ ions positioned above and below alternating Ag3 Kagome triangles (top). The lattice framework is made up of three independent interpenetrated a-Polonium nets (bottom right), with only weak argentophilic interactions between the nets. Variable temperature SCXRD was carried out in Oxford and the variable pressure work was the first pressure experiment carried out on WISH at ISIS.

Structure of the Month - September 2011

Structure of the Month – September 2011