Chemistry

Iso-Signatures: We Know Where You've Been Drinking

If you drink bottled water, soda (or pop, depending on whether you are from Philadelphia or Pittsburgh), or a micro brew-beer in Dallas, Denver or numerous other American cities, you may be carrying an 'iso-signature',  a natural chemical imprint ...

Article - News Staff - Jul 4 2010 - 7:01am

Among My Souvenirs (chem.)

I expect most of you have heard this song, with its sad words.  It’s full of letters sad and blue, a photograph or two, roses, tokens …. Not for me!  But as I am clearing out our chemical store, with materials being sent off for disposal prior to the closu ...

Blog Post - Robert H Olley - Jul 19 2010 - 2:53pm

Chemzymes Take Out Evil Toxins

A completely man-made chemical enzyme has successfully neutralized a toxin found naturally in fruits and vegetables.    Dr. Jeannette Bjerre at the University of Copenhagen showed how a novel 'chemzyme' was able to decompose glycoside esculin, a ...

Article - News Staff - Aug 26 2010 - 1:39pm

Bucket Chemistry!

One month to go before the Physics Department closes!  And I have the job of classifying and disposing of unwanted and waste chemicals.  This year, when “everything must go”, this is proving a mammoth task. How did I get this job?  Being the only practicin ...

Article - Robert H Olley - Sep 3 2010 - 12:09pm

Listening To Colors In Ancient Art, Thanks To Alexander Graham Bell

McGill chemists using a technique known as photoacoustic infrared spectroscopy say they can  identify the composition of pigments used in art decades or even centuries old. Pigments give artist's materials color and they emit sounds when light is sho ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 2 2010 - 11:58am

Analogy Watch: Hydrogen Bonding

A video posted on A Blog Around the Clock a few days ago discusses the mechanisms behind hydrogen bonding. The first half of the video is visually basic-- simple diagrams to illustrate the points in the narrator's lesson-- and includes things like di ...

Article - Lauren Rugani - Sep 3 2010 - 12:07pm

Making Phosphorus Go Green

Phosphorus is a critical ingredient in fertilizers, pesticides, detergents and various industrial and household chemicals but once phosphorus is mined from rocks, getting it into products is hazardous and expensive, so chemists have been trying to streamli ...

Article - News Staff - Sep 5 2010 - 1:17pm

Citric toilet

One of the things that I learnt from my father, who was a chemical engineer, is that halide ions are aggressive towards metals, and steels in particular.  Now bleaches contain a lot of chloride ions, and I have just looked at the bottle of limescale remove ...

Blog Post - Robert H Olley - Sep 4 2010 - 11:45am

Spider Webs And Sticky Oysters: What’s In Them For You!

Recently Scientists have figured that Malagasy spiders spin world’s toughest  biological material (link to the full article given below). There was another article on the secret of oysters sticking together (link is below). Silk, wool from sheep camel etc ...

Article - Raghuveer Ramacha... - Sep 23 2010 - 7:45pm

Weekend Science: How To Cook For A Whole Army

I am something of a historical repository for my family.   So I have some cool stuff from way back, like a photograph of my great-great-great grandfather, and then also more recent items, like one of my mother's 'ration' books (coupons still ...

Article - Hank Campbell - Sep 25 2010 - 2:33pm