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Wrinkles in Wrinkle Cream Reports

20 Mar 2017

So I’m sitting here, staring at a couple of close up pictures of some person’s eye area. I see crows’ feet in both. Are there fewer feet in the bottom picture? Maybe. If I look with a magnifying...

The Atom Bomb and the Age of Wine

20 Mar 2017

The purveyors of fake wines probably never dreamed that they could be caught by a carbon atom. A special kind of carbon atom. One that in addition to the six protons in its nucleus has eight...

The Chemistry of Self-Cleaning Windows

20 Mar 2017

Self-cleaning windows are here, thanks to recent developments in “photocatalysis” and “super-hydrophilicity.” Tongue-twisting terms, but well worth exploring. Titanium dioxide is a naturally...

Chemistry lesson for The Food Babe… and everyone else #21: There is no such thing as "chemical free!"

17 Mar 2017

If you buy a chemical-free product, you’re not getting a good deal. You’re buying nothing. A vacuum. What’s a vacuum? A space empty of all matter. And what is matter? Anything that has mass and...

Why do we kiss?

22 Feb 2017

What makes us exchange saliva, sebum, bits of food and millions of bacteria with each other? In other words, why do we kiss? This is not an innate activity. South Pacific islanders, for example,...

Lightbulbs Discolour With Age

21 Feb 2017

Have you ever wondered why tungsten light bulbs develop a black deposit as they age? This deposit is metallic tungsten, the same stuff that the filament is made of. A lightbulb produces heat and...

Lipstick Ingredients

20 Feb 2017

Lipsticks, (the waxy kind that come in the traditional tube), contain a variety of natural waxes, such as beeswax, carnauba wax, ozokerite, ceresin, or microcrystalline wax, which is derived from...

Why do onions make you cry when you cut them? And why are they sweet when you fry them?

20 Feb 2017

Onion chemistry is extremely fascinating and extremely complex! We’ve been intrigued by this vegetable ever since our prehistoric ancestors gathered and cooked wild onions. By the time of the First...

Chemistry lesson for The Food Babe… and everyone else #17: The Carnation Tragedy of the '30s

17 Feb 2017

Back in the 1930s a flower merchant with a greenhouse full of carnations got worried when the weather forecast called for extremely cold temperatures. So he placed a kerosene burner in the...

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