Richard Evershed facts for kids

Richard Evershed is a British scientist who studies how living things and the Earth interact. He is a Professor of Biogeochemistry and a Fellow of the Royal Society. Being a Fellow of the Royal Society is a very high honor for scientists in the United Kingdom.

Becoming a Scientist

Richard Evershed went to St Ivo School when he was younger. He then studied Applied Chemistry at Nottingham Trent University, finishing in 1978. After that, he earned his PhD at the University of Keele. For his PhD, he studied chemicals called pheromones that social insects use to communicate.

Early Research Work

After getting his PhD, Dr. Evershed worked at the University of Bristol. There, he helped develop special methods like GC/MS and HPLC. These methods are used to study chemicals found in crude oil and rocks. In 1984, he moved to the University of Liverpool to manage a lab that studied biological chemicals.

Professor at Bristol University

In 1993, Dr. Evershed returned to the University of Bristol as a lecturer. He became a Reader in 1996 and a full Professor of Biochemistry in 2000. Today, he leads the Bristol Biogeochemistry Research Centre. He also helps run a special facility that uses advanced tools to study life sciences. In 2010, he was chosen as a Fellow of the Royal Society.

What Richard Evershed Studies

Dr. Evershed's research combines many different science areas. He uses chemistry to answer questions about ancient times, fossils, and how chemicals move through the Earth. He is very interested in how biological materials change and break down once they are in the ground.

Studying Ancient Materials

He has created new ways to analyze old objects found by archaeologists. For example, he developed a method to find traces of fats and oils in ancient pottery. This helps scientists understand what foods people cooked and stored thousands of years ago. His work has shown how humans used plants and animals in the past. It has helped us learn about the first times people started dairying (using milk from animals) and even the earliest uses of beeswax.

His research also looks at ancient diets and farming using special chemical clues. He studies old soils and ancient sticky substances like tars and resins. When studying fossils, he uses similar methods to understand how they changed over millions of years.

Understanding Soil and Climate

In biogeochemistry, Dr. Evershed focuses on what happens to organic matter in soil. Organic matter is made from dead plants and animals. He uses special chemical and isotope methods to understand how tiny living things in the soil affect how organic matter cycles. This research helps create better models for how nutrients move through the environment. This is important for understanding climate change and how farming affects the Earth. He also uses his studies of organic matter to learn about past environments and climates. He does this by examining old sediments from oceans and peat bogs.

Milk and Human History

One of his interesting research areas is about how people used milk in prehistoric times. He also studies how this relates to why some people can digest milk as adults (called lactase persistence). His research suggests that people in Europe were processing milk in pots as early as the 7th millennium BC. This was long before the ability to digest milk as an adult became common. From 2013 to 2018, Dr. Evershed led a big project called "Neo-Milk." This project, supported by the European Research Council, explored when, where, and why dairying began in ancient Europe.

Awards and Recognition

Dr. Evershed has received several important awards for his scientific work:

• In 2003, he won the Royal Society of Chemistry’s Interdisciplinary Award.
• In 2010, he received the Aston Medal from the British Mass Spectrometry Society.
• In 2016, he was awarded the Royal Society of Chemistry's Robert Boyle Prize for Analytical Science.
• In 2002, he was given the Royal Society of Chemistry Theophilus Redwood Lectureship.

Selected Publications

• With Nicola Temple, he wrote a book called Sorting the beef from the bull. This book is about using science to detect food fraud.
• Lloyd, C, Michaelides, K, Chadwick, D, Dungait, J & Evershed, R, 2011, "Tracing the flow-driven vertical transport of livestock-derived organic matter through soil using biomarkers". Organic Geochemistry, pp. 56 – 66
• Styring, A, Sealy, J & Evershed, R, 2010, "Resolving the bulk δ15N values of ancient human and animal bone collagen via compound-specific nitrogen isotope analysis of constituent amino acids". Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta, vol 74., pp. 241 – 251
• Outram, A, Stear, N, Bendrey, R, Olsen, S, Kasparov, A, Zaibert, V, Thorpe, N & Evershed, R, 2009, Earliest horse harnessing and milking. Science, vol 323., pp. 1332 – 1335
• Bull, I, Berstan, R, Vass, A & Evershed, R, 2009, "Identification of a disinterred grave by molecular and stable isotope analysis*. Science and Justice, vol 49., pp. 142 – 149