Like most chemists, I like to cook. After all, what is cooking but the appropriate mixing of chemicals? In the lab we use flasks and beakers, but how do we equip our kitchen? Tiffany's in New...
At one time it was used as an aftershave because of its sweet smell. It was even used to decaffeinate coffee. Oh my, how times change! Today we worry about a few parts per billion of benzene in...
The link between cigarette smoking and lung cancer is widely acknowledged. But not everyone who smokes gets lung cancer and not everyone who gets lung cancer is a smoker. How does one contract the...
That’s an interesting question. What else could medicine be based on if not on evidence? Well, it could be based on conjecture, hearsay, wishful thinking, anecdote or just plain flim-flam. Indeed,...
Oxygen is critical for life and that also makes is susceptible to chicanery. If oxygen is so essential that the brain is permanently injured after just four minutes of deprivation, then surely more...
To the surprise of many, however, cancer cells are defective at producing the very fuel they need to grow and spread, but manage to overcome the innate “disability” and out-compete normal healthy...
In 2001, a Belgian physician experienced two episodes of bitter, metallic taste that lasted for several days and noted that both had occurred after he had eaten pine nuts. He mentioned this to a...
Shadow puppetry can be beautiful to look at, but when it’s happening inside our eyeballs, it’s an annoyance. One of the banes of getting older is the appearance of apparitions in our vision. In...