Plastic has been unbeaten for decades as the top packaging material. Plastic materials are lightweight, flexible and durable, and can easily undergo a plethora of recycling processes without being irreversibly damaged. Why then, do substantial amounts of unused plastic material end up going to waste? Plastic... click to read more

Lavishly decorated with brightly colored illustrations and ornaments, illuminated manuscripts from the Middle Ages are a feast for the eyes. To preserve these colors for future generations, our group combines methods from the humanities and the natural sciences. In fact, we want to mimic these... click to read more

The Scream, realized by Edvard Munch between 1893 and 1916, is one of the most famous series of artworks of the modern era, symbolizing anxiety and anguish. There are a number of versions of The Scream: two paintings, two pastels, several lithographic prints and a... click to read more

A seemingly simple question — Are two objects the same or different? — frequently has a complicated answer. For chemists the objects are molecules, and over the years we have refined our ability to make same/different distinctions as we learn more about molecular structures. Molecules... click to read more

Enzymes are molecular machines that produce specific molecules with exquisite efficiency and near perfect control of the end product. Chemists have long sought to employ enzymes in laboratory settings, but are often limited to the specific reactions each enzyme evolved to execute. The efficiency and... click to read more