Burning leaded gasoline releases toxic lead into the environment, and for 100 years people around the world have been dealing with the health effects. How did a century of toxic fuel come to be?
Early Earth on the left, had seas infused with life-enhancing iron, whereas Earth today, seen on the right, does not.
Credit: Image courtesy of Mark A. Garlick / markgarlick.com
Life doesn’t just need water and oxygen to thrive, it also needs iron.
When water and boiling oil mix, the result can be explosive, as seen in this demonstration.
U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Travis Alston/Released via Flickr
Deep-fried turkeys are delicious, but making one can be dangerous. The scientific reason for fiery Thanksgiving mishaps? A difference in the densities of ice, water and oil.
Flouride is created by Wolf–Rayet stars, here seen in the Milky Way by the Hubble Space Telescope.
Nasa/Judy Schmidt
Indigenous artists have been engraving rock shelters for millennia - long before the Kimberley’s celebrated rock art paintings. Now the rocks’ natural coatings are yielding clues to the engravings’ creation.
Science teaches you many skills. Even if you don’t plan for a science related career, including a science subject in your senior years can provide a good balance. But only if you’re interested.
One potential way to make opioids less addictive is to make them target injured tissue rather than the healthy brain.
PM Images/Photodisk via Getty Images
While the COVID-19 pandemic raged on, the opioid epidemic got worse as drug overdose deaths soared. New research proposes a way to chemically modify opioids to reduce the risk of addiction.
Fool’s gold, or pyrite, is made of worthless iron disulfide, but can contain tiny amounts of the real thing. Using an ‘atom probe’, research has uncovered a new way gold atoms can hide in pyrite crystals.
The heat and pressure generated by a nuclear explosion can produce unusual chemical curiosities.
United States Department of Energy/wikimedia
Sauerkraut, sourdough, beer…and chocolate? They’re all fermented foods that rely on microbes of various types to transform the flavor of their raw ingredients into something totally different.
Albert Einstein photographed on a trip to America in the wake of his Nobel prize-winning discoveries.
Harris & Ewing/PICRYL
Thousands of chemical compounds in wildfire smoke are interacting with each other and sunlight as the smoke travels. For people downwind, it can become more toxic over time.
Infrared sensors make it possible to measure a person’s body temperature without touching the person’s body.
AP Photo/LM Otero