Chemistry

What did J.P. Morgan's library smell like in 1906?

Nosy Researchers Are Sniffing a Vintage Library

It’s all an effort to recreate an olfactory landscape of yore

Check out those chompers.

If We Can Get Past the Ickiness, Hagfish Slime May Actually Be Useful to Us

The gelatinous glop could be the key to everything from bio-inspired kevlar to shark defense for divers

This animal hair toothbrush (horse hair, to be exact) is said to have belonged to Napoleon Bonaparte.

You Can Still Buy Pig-Hair Toothbrushes

There's an argument for it, given all the environmental destruction causes by plastic ones

Science Is Falling Woefully Behind in Testing New Chemicals

Over 10 million new chemicals are synthesized each year, but with little funding science can't keep up

A view into Flint drinking water pipes, showing various types of iron corrosion and rust.

Scientists Now Know Exactly How Lead Got Into Flint's Water

New report points blames corrosion and warns that fixing lead poisoning nationwide will require more work than we hoped

Part of a 1949 ad for Scotch tape, which was billed as a "thrifty" way to make repairs around the home.

Scotch Tape Can Create X-Rays, and More You Didn't Know About The Sticky Stuff

People have used it to repair everything from curtains to ceilings

For British food scientists, toast color is no longer a matter of personal preference—it's a matter of health.

Why Food Experts Are Warning Not to Burn Your Toast

Is it time to bid brown toast farewell?

This Strad's wood is different from modern-day maple.

Mineral Baths May Have Given Stradivari Their Signature Sound

Turns out the famous violins really are different from modern instruments

There's more to H20 than meets the eye.

Scientists Find That Water Might Exist in a Whole New State

Think water comes in just liquid, ice and gas? Think again

Iron-thiocyanate complex, droplet on surface

Time-Lapse Photos Reveal the Beauty of Metal Crystals Growing

Photographer Emanuele Fornasier spends hours capturing the intricacy of chemical reactions

Your breath might be bad, but it's also amazing.

Your Breath Does More Than Repulse—It Can Also Tell Doctors Whether You Have Cancer

An artificial “nose” could be the next tool for diagnosing illnesses from cancer to Crohn's disease

Barbara Sherwood Lollar sampling dissolved hydrogen and sulfate found in the oldest-known pool of water.

Scientists Discover the Oldest-known Pool of Water

But you wouldn’t want to drink from it

A bonfire of elephant ivory burns in Kenya's Nairobi National Park in July 1989.

Wondering What a Bonfire Does to Your Lungs? We Answer Your Burning Questions

Setting large piles of stuff aflame can have significant environmental and human health impacts

Besides exceptional facial hair, what could these two gentlemen have in common?

The Hidden Connections Between Darwin and the Physicist Who Championed Entropy

These magnificently bearded men both introduced a dose of randomness and irreversibility into the universe

How Chemicals Left Behind on Your Phone Could Identify You

Mass spectrometry is finding a new role in forensic science

The Nobel Prize, named after the repentant creator of dynamite, has been awarded nearly every year since 1901.

What Does It Take to Win a Nobel Prize? Four Winners, in Their Own Words

Some answers: Messiness, ignorance and puzzles

Tamara Schwent and Kevin Curtis, PhD from Sirenas bringing in samples from the deep sea. This was a joint expedition with Chapman Expeditions and the Carmabi Research Station.

Will the Next Big Cancer Drug Come From the Ocean?

A California startup “bioprospects” for sponges, algae and other organisms whose chemistry may be useful to the world of medicine

Radiocarbon dating has been used to determine of the ages of ancient mummies, in some cases going back more than 9000 years.

Thanks to Fossil Fuels, Carbon Dating Is in Jeopardy. One Scientist May Have an Easy Fix

If only there were such an easy fix for climate change

Ahead of her time: Foote first identified the greenhouse effect, now a seminal concept in climate science.

This Suffrage-Supporting Scientist Defined the Greenhouse Effect But Didn’t Get the Credit, Because Sexism

Eunice Foote’s career highlights the subtle forms of discrimination that have kept women on the sidelines of science

How does a bear catch a break around here?

Decades-Old Chemicals May Be Threatening Polar Bear Fertility, As If They Didn’t Have Enough to Worry About

A new study sheds light on how today's pollutants could become tomorrow's threats to wildlife and humans

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