What do you do to relax after a hard day at work — trash TV? Hit the gym? Maybe fiddle around with a crossword puzzle if you’re feeling ambitious?

Well, one UBC scientist doesn’t just try and solve crosswords for entertainment; he creates them. And his work has been featured in some of the United States’ most prestigious publications, including the New York Times, LA Times and Wall Street Journal.

“I think the New York Times is the ultimate place to publish a crossword puzzle. It’s kind of like as a scientist publishing in Nature ,” Mark MacLachlan told Global News.

MacLachlan isn’t just a professor of chemistry researching supramolecular materials, a complex full-time job that involves developing new materials that mimic the structures of things like beetle shells and butterfly win

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