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Why did Cleopatra supposedly bathe in sour donkey milk?

20 Mar 2017

To improve the appearance of her skin by reducing wrinkles. When milk sours, the milk sugar lactose is converted by bacteria into lactic acid. When alpha hydroxy acids, such as lactic acid, are...

Neil Armstrong and Coloured Trumpet Mouthpieces

20 Mar 2017

The helmet that Neil Armstrong wore when landing on the moon in 1969 and coloured trumpet mouthpieces are made of the same plastic, Lexan. In 1953 Daniel Fox at General Electric was looking for...

Chemistry at the Vatican

20 Mar 2017

The new Pope, Francis, we now learn, has a degree in Chemistry. He received a Master’s from the University of Buenos Aires.  It is interesting then to note that his selection was signaled through...

The Origins of Vitrol

20 Mar 2017

Sulphuric acid, which has the traditional name, “oil of vitriol.” It is a nasty, corrosive liquid, making “vitriolic” an apt term for virulent language. At first it may seem odd that the term ...

Would Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion have Passed an Emerald City Entrance Drug Test?

20 Mar 2017

Not if it tested for morphine, as long as we let L. Frank Baum get away with a little poetic license. In the 1939 movie classic The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West conjures up a poppy...

The Case of "Saltair Sally"

20 Mar 2017

In October 2000, while walking along the shores of the "Great Salt Lake" near Salt Lake City, two hunters made a gruesome discovery. In a plastic bag, they found a white sock, a shirt, a few bones...

Why do you never see a baby housefly?

20 Mar 2017

Because baby houseflies don’t exist. A little backgrounder on the flies’ reproductive cycle can clear up this seeming conundrum. Within a week of mating, a doggie-style activity lasting from a few...

The Strange Friendship Between Harry Houdini and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

20 Mar 2017

Doyle had become interested in spiritualism in the late 1800s and joined the British Society for Psychical Research (SPR). In 1894 he was one of the members of a committee sent to investigate a...

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