Think all chemicals are bad? From our food to your phone, modern life relies on them

By Timothy Schmidt, Professor of Chemistry, UNSW Sydney
Jason Dutton, Professor of Chemistry, La Trobe University

The icebreaker of many a barbeque conversation is something like “what do you do for a crust?”

“I teach chemistry at university,” is what we usually reply. Then silence. Our new friend will usually go on to say they either hated or did terribly in chemistry at school.

Or, depending on what’s been in the news lately, they might start talking about parabens in shampoo, or BPA in plastic poisoning…

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