Chemistry

  • Just Like Chocolate
    Recycling plastics for a greener future By: Molly Sun Every day, I cook up something new – fresh biscuits, fettuccine, and even soft-serve ice cream. But none of my creations are edible. The fluffy biscuits are buttery-yellow polyurethane foam, deceptively warm and soft. The fettuccine noodles are long, brittle strands of polyurethane film with a […]
  • DEAR LAB NOTEBOOK …
    As a graduate student getting my PhD in chemistry, I’m expected to keep a laboratory notebook. It’s where I document what I do each day: the aim of the experiment, the conditions I use and the outcome. My lab notebook serves as a memory aid, allowing me to …
  • A COLORFUL JOB
    As I stand in an emerald green room beneath a windmill in Zaanse Schans, Netherlands, wearing a canvas smock and disposable gloves, I am front-row to a demonstration of how artists traditionally made oil paints. The craftsman dumps a mound of ultramarine blue …
  • UNCOVERING A HIDDEN PICASSO
    It’s a Friday morning in the painting conservation offices at the Art Institute of Chicago. I’m ushered through security and brought to a staging room. It’s cavernous. I tilt my head up: Towering black matte walls meet a black ceiling somewhere out of sight, and I can …
  • WARNING, MAY CAUSE SIDE-EFFECTS: NANOPARTICLES IN THE ENVIRONMENT
    If you watch television at all, you’ve seen advertisements suggesting that some new medicine is the best remedy for a particular disease. In stark contrast to a montage of agile women practicing yoga in a field of flowers and a pain-free granddad tossing a football to …
  • MISS MUFFET, MICROBES & MOZZARELLA
    As of now, I’m two-thirds of the way toward one of my life goals: making (and eating) an entirely homegrown Caprese. Popular in Italian-American eateries, Caprese (cuh-pray-say) salad – affectionately known as “tomato-mozz” in my family – is actually devoid of any true …
  • MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL, WHO’S THE BLUEST OF THEM ALL?
    I recently helped polish silver for a fancy dinner party. While I rubbed purple-gray paste over the tines of the forks, feeling a little like a maid in Downton Abbey, I pondered silver’s chemistry. After all, I research the chemistry of silver released into the …
  • DON’T FORGET THE SUNSCREEN
    “Don’t forget the sunscreen!” The imperative cried before a trip to the beach is an important one, with the pasty white lotion saving many a sunbather from sunburns and damage from the sun’s UV rays, which can lead to skin cancer. Many of these lotions use small …
  • BIOLUMINESCENCE IN THE NATURAL WORLD
    For my nephew’s birthday, I got him a kit of experiments based on the science of glowing. He loved it and I think his mother was probably happy I opted for this one over the “gross science” kit (complete with toilet bowl shaped mixing device) that would have …
  • TAKE A WHIFF OF CHEMISTRY
    You just got home after a long day of work and you slip off your shoes, contemplating the options for dinner. But before you can even make it to the kitchen, a sudden odor sweeps over the room—something akin to sour milk and fertilizer. Your warm, moist socks, and …
  • THIS IS YOUR BRAIN ON CAPSAICIN
    When it comes to food, there are two types of people in this world: those who EAT TO LIVE and those who LIVE TO EAT. I, unapologetically, belong to the second group. I am a foodie through and through! If I hadn’t become a scientist, I would have …
  • WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING?
    My apple didn’t fall far from the tree, but it ended up on the wrong side of the fence. My family is filled with chemists. My mother has a BS in Chemistry, while my father and stepfather both have PhDs in Chemistry. My step-grandfather is an emeritus professor of …
  • THE SUPERPOWERS OF SUPERCONDUCTORS
    Superconductors—special metals that can conduct electrical current with no loss of energy—could one day have a monumental impact on the efficient transmission of power in the United States and around the world. They could also lead to great innovations in medical …
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