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Want to cuddle? Personality is likely to get you further than oxytocin.

10 Dec 2021

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...

Is it true that rubbing olive oil on a knife will lead to “tearless chopping?”

10 Dec 2021

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...

A Real “Breaking Bad” Story

3 Dec 2021

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...

Would the Lone Ranger’s silver bullets have tarnished?

26 Nov 2021

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...

From the Earth to the Moon

25 Nov 2021

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...

The Word “Cisgender” Has Scientific Roots

13 Nov 2021

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 Really Does Spoil the Barrel

21 Oct 2021

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....

Are You Left-Handed? Science Still Yearns to Know Why

17 Sep 2021

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,...

How do sparklers work?

17 Sep 2021

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...

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