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 […]
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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!” 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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 […]
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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!” 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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …
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 …