Browsing: Chemistry

The next generation of dating algorithms will use real-life interactions.

“Mother Nature can be a handful when she wants to be,” says John Conkling, the former technical director of the American Pyrotechnics Association and a professor emeritus of chemistry at Washington College. Except he used a stronger, more colorful word than “handful.” When it comes to fireworks, “she just doesn’t want to give you that […]

From steam to ice, water continues to mystify.

You’re dead meat without special molecules that kill rotten proteins.

Anxious distillers are trying to make bourbon old before its time.

Suspended animation is becoming a life-saving medical procedure.

14-year-old creates eco-battery with aluminum foil, old guitar strings, and club soda.

While a strong trend in the culinary arts has been to let individual, natural ingredients shine through, one food has quietly come to dominate the retail market by merging a group of incongruous ingredients together. Mayonnaise, that familiar white goop hiding in your sandwich and coleslaw, is officially the most valuable condiment in the nation. […]

Keeping Father Time at bay is more than a question of chemistry.

Dad was back. He played a little with the children, rubbed a few heads with his own, clawed at a wooden post, and then, standing erect with tail straight up, he backed towards a tree, sprayed, and left. The kids scampered over. They stood on their hind legs and carefully examined the spray—the family smell. […]