Since World War I, the U.S. Armed Forces have routinely discarded conventional explosives, radiological waste and chemical weapons in the oceans. When this was publicly revealed by the Department...
Cleopatra supposedly took a daily bath in milk supplied by a herd of some 700 lactating donkeys. How she hit upon this idea isn’t known, but the legendary beauty may have been familiar Hippocrates’...
Asparagus is a wonderful vegetable. Both in taste and in its chemistry. One aspect of its chemistry has been apparent for a long time. A French book on food published in 1702 noted that asparagus...
Studies have shown that red is the colour that attracts attention. Its uses are timeless and endless. Since ancient times, the colour red has been involved in fashion, art, food and cosmetics. But...
Pope Francis’ recent statement at the Pontifical Academy of Science that evolution and the Big Bang model are not contrary to Catholic beliefs created quite a stir. Afterall, for many people the...
Marketing these days is often based not on what is in a product, but rather on what it doesn’t contain. Labels scream no cholesterol, no trans fats, no gluten, no BPA, no phthalates, no parabens...
Adolf Schlieper was a German textile manufacturer who had gained some chemical experience working in the laboratory of Justus von Liebig, one of the leading chemists of the era. Schlieper had...
During the first years of the twentieth century the demand for shellac outstripped the supply. People did not develop a sudden penchant for shiny furniture, but electricity was starting to take the...