The chemical breakdown & Chemistry in its element

Microplastics, including polypropylene, are present in our oceans, on our beaches and even in bottled water. Ian Robertson from PerkinElmer investigates the scale and some solutions

Lay back in the chair and say 'Ahh', as Mike Freemantle introduces zinc polycarboxylate dental cement

The versatile gemstones that give scientists insights into the chemistry of the early Earth, introduced by Brian Clegg

Chemistry's tastiest bonds for an explosive anaesthetic that was as useful as it was dangerous

Ben Valsler introduces a class of hallucinogenic phenethylamines, explored by the 'godfather of psychedelics' Alexander Shulgin and sadly implicated in a tragedy at a 2017 music festival

The first drug approved in the US to treat Aids required a completely new approach to clinical trials – Frances Addison explores the history of azidothymidine

How the compound that ushered in a photographic revolution has taken to the skies to try to control the weather

Katrina Krämer investigates how one of the smallest small-molecule drugs around saved Jeanna Giese's life

Kat Arney investigates a potent chemical that might explain the brain-bending powers of bacteria

Mike Freemantle introduces amber – the valuable organic gemstone that invests unwary insects in a durable tomb

Brian Clegg examines the duality that makes beryllium oxide so valuable to the electronics industry

Jamie Durrani diverts his attention to the rise of Ritalin, a drug first identified as a way of improving tennis performance

Frances Addison takes a look at the discovery that brought horseshoe crabs to the heart of the pharmaceutical industry

Kit Chapman investigates the drug that has been one of the top five prescription medications in the UK every year for the last two decades

Inspired by a mention of arrowroot in Jane Austen's Emma , Mike Freemantle investigates how subtle differences in composition mean starch can be resistant dietary fibre or easily-digested nourishment.

How an early synthetic dye chemical came to play a role in a mysterious disease outbreak in 1980s Spain

Coating your naked body with powdered magnesium silicate may sound strange, but it's an important part of many bathtime rituals

Mike Freemantle discovers sea buckthorns, also called 'beauty berries' because of their high concentration of tocopherols and tocotrienols, collectively known as vitamin E.

If you've ever been unlucky enough to experience 'corked' wine, then 2,4,6-trichloroanisole, or TCA was likely the chemical culprit

Kat Arney unearths the story of a truly international effort to develop new drugs for cancer, and the female researcher whose key role went overlooked

Kit Chapman on the simple polymer that preserves and protects ancient artifacts, and saved a historical Swedish shipwreck from complete collapse

Mike Freemantle on the iron compound that has been turning oak gall extract into indelible ink for centuries, but is now eating though our ancient manuscripts and musical scores

The mysterious enzyme that can beat the world's biggest chemical process when it comes to breaking the dinitrogen triple bond

A brilliant rich blue rock, prized in antiquity as a gemstone and a prominent pigment, lazurite is the basis of lapis lazuli, the original ultramarine paint and – as Brian Clegg finds – it even adorns Tutankhamun's death mask.

Cases of sleeping sickness – human African trypanosomiasis – are in decline, dropping 86% in Africa between 2000 and 2014. Gege Li explores the role that this toxic, arsenic-based medication has to play.