Since the early 20th century, X-ray diffraction has been used to study how atoms are arranged in matter.

Professor Polly Arnold has recently been made a member of the board of directors for the Edinburgh International Science Festival. The festival is one of the oldest and largest science festivals in the world.

This year's festival will run from the 5-20 April.

Professor Colin Pulham explored how chemistry is key to developments such as green energy and better healthcare. His talk was entitled ???Chemistry: Our life, Our Future.???

He managed to bring chemistry to the Museum Lates crowd by linking the history of alchemy and chemistry with present day research and current challenges. Lots of excellent demonstrations, bangs and explosions kept everyone on the edge of their seat and he even made beer appear magically before our eyes.

Georg will be giving a Chemistry Christmas Lecture at the George Square Theatre on the 10th of December. All welcome.

Here are a few photos from the night:

Dr Alison Hulme and PhD students from the chemistry department joined a host of other scientists this weekend at the Sciennes Science Fair.

The science fair covered a wide range of subject areas; the keynote speaker was Dr Andrew Murray, an extreme athlete, who spoke about his experience running from John O???Groats to the Sahara. Classrooms were taken over by different sciences including neuroscience who were building cells, physics who were looking at bubbles and geosciences who were making edible earths.

During May and June we have been celebrating research within the College of Science and Engineering that is linked to light as part of our International Year of Light 2015 events.

We were lucky to have a fantastic programme of talks, covering topics such as the future of solar power in Scotland to the mathematics of black holes! Each Wednesday evening at 6.30pm in the Red Lecture Theatre at Summerhall our specialists enlightened us with their topic of research.

From the 9^th of April to the 13^th of April, the School of Chemistry was part of the University of Edinburgh drop-in activities at the National Museum of Scotland. To celebrate the International Year of Light we looked at how light is used in chemistry!

We had a really fantastic team of enthusiastic chemistry PhD students to explain about fluorescence, phosphorescence, spectroscopy and light in chemistry.

During the festival we ran a dance and light movement workshop all about light! This workshop was for 8 to 13 year olds to learn about light and its properties.

They got to dance with ???photons??? and create different movements for the different wavelengths of light. Roberta Beakbane and PhD students in the School of Chemistry developed and delivered the workshop. We held workshops at both the Scottish Parliament and the National Museums of Scotland.

Professor Polly Arnold will appear on BBC Radio Scotland's Brainwaves programme today.

The programme speaks to key scientists working in Scotland and this week is at the Edinburgh International Science Festival. The episode will be exploring male and female brains.