There are, as always, people leaving the group (Feli taking up a new job in Germany – congrats!), and new people joining! Yaozu just joined the group from China as Marie Curie fellow – welcome! More to follow soon!
Feli, Alex, Angel and Carl have spent the weekend hiking the Cheddar Gorge. This natural area is the home of the Cheddar man and the most popular cheese in the UK. This world famous site offers the chance to admire stunning landscapes and stalactite caverns. The guys have finished this sunny day with a delicious lunch at one of the local restaurants, where they haven’t missed the opportunity to enjoy a piece of the local cheddar cheese!
The gorge would have begun forming about one million years ago during the last Ice Age when water from melting glaciers formed a river, which over time started to carve into the limestone rock creating the steep cliffs you see today. The Cheddar Yeo River gradually made its way underground, creating the famous Cheddar Caves.
A great new blog has been launched by our Drs Natalie Fey and Jenny Slaughter. The idea is that “a picture can be worth a thousand words”. In this project they have combined interesting and striking photographs of familiar objects with representations of some of the molecules they contain, which contribute to their properties and uses.
It already contains some very interesting and exciting entries on plants, so please go ahead and take a look!
Graduation at the University of Bristol is one of the high points in the academic year. It is the opportunity for our students, alongside their families, friends and the University’s staff, to celebrate their achievement.
This time various members of the Faul research group were taking part in this important celebration. Chinwe was awarded her PhD degree in Chemistry, Lizzy and Carl are now Masters of Science in Chemistry, and Fraser was awarded with his Bachelor of Science in Chemistry.
Congratulations to all of them for this important achievement!!!
Best wishes to Zhonghua on his birthday!
Angel has been part of the Science Communication (SciComm) workshop held at Cumberland Lodge, in the Great Windsor Park. This course was specifically oriented towards dealing with the media – journalism, television and radio. The course involved plenty of practical work, including time in a BBC radio recording studio in Central London.
Tom’s paper, a collaborative efforts between the Briscoe and Faul research groups, appeared online at Soft Matter today!
The study, entitled “Oligo(aniline) nanofilms: from molecular architecture to microstructure” demonstrates that through a simple processing route the morphology of electroactive oligomer films can be tailored by molecular design. These findings from detailed GIXS studies are important to future applications where thin film structure is a crucial consideration for device function and performance. Congrats to Tom and all other colleagues involved!
Apart from being famous for its chemistry, Bristol is also famous for Wallace and Gromit, two characters created by Aardman Animations! For a short period you will be able to find 80 Gromit’s unleashed and dotted around Bristol and surrounds, all in support of Wallace & Gromit’s Grand Appeal, the fantastic Bristol Children’s Hospital Charity. With the sun shining in Bristol (!), Carl and Zhonghua have been out hunting down Gromit statues … here a few examples!
A detailed structural study by Tom of oligo(aniline) thin films using grazing incidence X-ray scattering has been accepted for publication in Soft Matter. This was a joint effort between the Faul and Briscoe research groups and other collaborators. More details to follow!
Faul Research Group 