Why do people cuddle? According to a slew of media reports, that answer lies in oxytocin, dubbed either the “cuddle chemical” or the “love hormone.” English pharmacologist and neurophysiologist Sir...
Not having carried out a proper scientific investigation in the kitchen, I can’s safe for sure, but I would doubt it makes a difference. Let’s delve into a little onion chemistry which will of...
As a chemistry professor, I find it particularly appalling when a member of the profession goes astray. That is just what Professor Bradley Allen Rowland did at Henderson State University in...
We do get some interesting questions. The Lone Ranger was a television series that ran from 1949 to 1957 and recounted the adventures of a former Texas Ranger who with his companion, the Native...
No, this story is not about space travel. It is about the naming of elements, specifically, selenium, discovered by the Swedish chemist Jons Jacob Berzelius in 1817. He named it after Selene, the...
In 2015, the Oxford English Dictionary added the word “cisgender” to its ever-evolving listing. It defines the adjective as “designating a person whose sense of personal identity and gender...
A rotten apple spoils the whole barrel. That’s not just an old adage. It’s a scientific fact. And it all has to do with ethylene, a gas produced internally by the fruit to stimulate ripening....
Being left-handed can be devilishly hard. In 1937, an educational psychologist whose work was later discredited wrote of many left-handers that “they squint, they stammer, they shuffle and shamble,...
You stick them into a birthday cake, stand back and revel in the brilliant shower of sparks. What you are witnessing are glowing metal particles, usually aluminum, but iron titanium, zinc or...