Strange Ice

On the evening of Thursday 27 March 2025, the section welcomed Professor Andrea Sella of University College London back to Belgium to give us his 'Strange Ice' talk. The talk was a highly personal journey into the world of the strange solid that all of us know and love and yet which conceals deep mysteries and dark prophecies about our shared future. 

Andrea's presentation took us from a glass of water to the skies above our heads, from the Alps to the winters of Poland and up to the Arctic, stopping to look at a variety of other ices, both crystalline and amorphous, and asking questions about chemistry, physics, psychology, climate change, disinformation and politics. Ice speaks. Can we learn to listen?

The talk was highly informative, entertaining and thought provoking and initiated a wide-ranging discussion that continued into the post-talk networking. 

A video of the proceedings was recorded and will be available soon on the RSC Belgium YouTube channel and is also embedded below.

[VIDEO TBC]

 About Andrea

Andrea Sella is a chemist and broadcaster based at University College London where he is a Professor of Inorganic Chemistry. His main research is on rare-earth metals and he collaborates with several research groups on hydrogen storage, carbonitrides, and nanotube insertion chemistry. He has been involved in numerous television documentaries, including the 2010 BBC documentary “Chemistry: A Volatile History”, which was nominated for the 2010 British Academy Television Awards. In 2014 he presented "My Family and other Ibex" and "Urine Trouble: What's in our Water" on BBC Radio 4. He has been a guest on Melvyn Bragg's “In Our Time” and appeared regularly on radio programmes like Start the Week, Weekend, Newshour, the Today Programme and the Infinite Monkey Cage. He has been consultant and contributor for the BBC World Service's series "Elemental Economics" presented by Justin Rowlatt.

Andrea had previously presented our 2010 demonstration lectures, as part of the annual ‘Printemps des Sciences’ festival in March at Louvain-la-Neuve. On that occasion (pre blog) he gave us a fascinating exposition on oscillating reactions somewhat confusingly called ‘How the Zebra got its Stripes’ - and had delivered one of the lectures in French.