By 1972 the hamlets and villages of southern Italy had not been transformed by the economic miracle of the 1950s and 60s. At the age of 11, I visited a town near Naples named San Mango, my dad's birthplace, and my cousin who had gone there six months earlier had warned me. When the cab had dropped his family off, he had taken one look at the medieval homes, and he had run back in the direction of the airport. But I had promised my parents that I would suck it up.

Since Breaking Bad became a hit in 2008, I'm sure many chemistry teachers across the continent have been asked by their students, "Sir, do you watch Breaking Bad? Because the character reminds me of you." It's not difficult to figure out why. Few popular TV programs feature as much chemistry as Breaking Bad, and most adolescents, have only had one chemistry teacher in their lives.

After finally getting around to watching the pilot and subsequent episodes of Season One, I admitted that I liked the drama but was confused over the supposed similarity between White and me.
"Do you really belieive that if I had terminal cancer, poor medical insurance and a pregnant wife, I would resort to making illegal drugs and killing dealers?" , I asked them, smiling.

If a chemist has never been in a lab accident, he has been lucky. Of course luck is more likely to come to those whose mentors have learned from bad experiences and to those who have taken preventive measures seriously, despite their anal nature. Chemical reactions create products with behaviors that differ from those of the ingredients. That's what makes them intriguing, and it's also what makes them potentially dangerous. No matter how simple and controllable a reaction seems on paper, when it's carried out in real life, the exact conditions determine its rate. And when gases or acids acquire too much kinetic energy, no one wants eyes, lungs and flesh in their way.

The Space Age began when the Russians launched Sputnik in October of 1957. Thanks in part to the film October Sky and the book Rocket Boys, even today's youth realizes that early achievements from the race to space inspired many students to choose careers in science and technology. The inspirational sighting of Sputnik led a West Virginian coal miner's son to rocket-building, which in turn led to science fairs, industrial engineering and a career with NASA. In fact, the competitive juices stirred by seeing the technological feat of the "enemy" led to the creation of the agency that put men on the moon, and it made Americans revamp their science educational programs. They created Chem Study, PSSC Physics and BSCS biology.