Emmanuelle Charpentier (L) and Jennifer Doudna (R).
J.L. Cereijido/EPA
Emmanuelle Charpentier and Jennifer Doudna share the Nobel prize for chemistry for their CRISPR/Cas9 tool to rewrite the blueprint of life.
Breathing pure oxygen would be like fireworks exploding in your body. And that’s not always a good thing.
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You might think the more oxygen you breathe in the better. But too much oxygen can make you sick.
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Considering what we know about the key ingredients for life’s formation on Earth, here are three explanations for how this process may have occurred on our sister planet.
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Halide perovskites are cheap, versatile and remarkably efficient as both solar cells and light emitters.
Bricks could do double duty as building materials and supercapacitors.
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Bricks turn out to be useful for storing electricity thanks to their porousness and red pigment.
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For combustion to occur, oxygen must be present. Ammonium nitrate prills provide a much more concentrated supply of oxygen than the air around us.
Replacing carbon-emitting gas-powered cars with EVs requires whittling away EVs’ price premium, and that comes down to one thing: battery cost.
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EVs will have lower sticker prices than gas vehicles when batteries are cheaper. Getting there comes down to knowing where to cut costs.
Inside an illicit meth lab.
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A history of the drug crystal meth.
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Pepper spray uses a chemical called capsaicin. It’s the same compound that makes chillies hot, but in a more intense, weaponised form.
Police officers wearing riot gear push back demonstrators shooting tear gas next to St. John’s Episcopal Church outside of the White House, June 1, 2020 in Washington D.C., during a protest over the death of George Floyd.
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The chemical weapon, tear gas, was used in Washington DC, Los Angeles, Orlando and several other cities to control crowds protesting the death of George Floyd. But what is it? Does it cause harm?
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New manufacturing processes will revolutionise the way we take our medicines.
Cellulose triacetate 16 mm film with severe vinegar syndrome, dated 1968.
Ida Ahmad
Archives need to take action now.
A universe of chemical equations.
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The laws and principles of chemistry seem pretty set in stone. But as a chemist explains, the field is always evolving, including such fundamental principles as what is a chemical bond.
Are people reconnecting with the traditional household activities of their mothers and grandmothers under quarantine? The preparation of sourdough begins with a mix of flour, water and natural yeast.
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Home economics isn’t dead: We need it now more than ever. Founded by a pioneering chemist, it’s about the insight that a change in one part of a system affects all the other parts.
Her deep breath has to get to the baby.
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A fetus needs oxygen long before its lungs work and it’s exposed to the air. Some ingenious biochemistry explains how the mother’s blood delivers it.
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Even recycled plastics still end up in landfill with our current system.
Through the wonders of chemistry, molecules can be rearranged to completely transform color.
Erick Leite Bastos
A simple chemical reaction turns the red pigment of beets into a new, nontoxic blue dye.
Get in there…
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Three foods and some cool stuff you should know about them.
Pulsed extraction column (normally positioned vertically).
JCP Gabriel, CEA Marcoule DES/ISEC/DMRC
Electronic waste is accumulating and is a resource to be exploited. Microfluidic devices allow the development of recycling, including the recycling of rare earths – a precious resource.
PFAS are a class of about 5,000 compounds found in firefighting foam, flame retardants and non-stick cookware.
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Researchers continue to find PFAS-contaminated sites and waterways. Perhaps it is time to consider wider bans on these persistent chemicals.