Spark up your Dates with Chemistry

Light is all around us: it wakes us in the morning, guides us in the night, and we use is to decorate our homes to generate a warm atmosphere. We can tune it into different colors, pack it into small LEDs, carry it with us, and switch it on and off whenever and wherever we want. The same tunability and packability into different colors, is the reason why scientists have chosen light as elected stimulus in a wide range of applications. For the length of a pint, we’re going to have a look at three of them: making pretty images of cells, generating new molecules, and moving matter and objects.

Can I flirt with my date and still talk about my science? Oh sure, I communicate my research well enough to publish scientific articles, present at international conferences, and secure funding for future projects. But can I ever get a second date?!? Discussions with other scientists about my research are often easy compared to chats about my work with a romantic interest. Join me as we explore how a topic like chemical chirality can be shared with a non-scientist in a more fun and attractive way, while carefully navigating the bad forms of scientific communication.