Chemistry
Sewage Epidemiology Not Just a Pipe Dream
Scientists are beginning to analyze sewage to track the use of illegal drugs
June 21, 2011 |
By Erin Wayman
Meet the New Elements
It’s official: Elements 114 and 116 do exist and belong on the periodic table
June 07, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Hydrothermal Vents Fertilize Oceans With Fool's Gold
Deep in the oceans, hydrothermal vents spew superheated water full of dissolved minerals. The vents spawn diverse communities of unique creatures that not only withstand the extreme temperatures and acidity but even depend on the chemicals in the water to live. New research in Nature Geoscience sho...
May 11, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
What's Blocking Your Drain?
If you put something down a drain you shouldn't have and the drain gets blocked, it's usually not much more than annoying. But for the people who manage the sewers, blockages in the pipes that go from our homes and businesses to treatment facilities cause bigger problems---sewage spills called "san...
April 25, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
An Arctic Ozone Hole?
When you hear the term "ozone hole" you think about the ozone depletion over Antarctica, and how people in the far south of the Southern Hemisphere have to protect themselves from the Sun. It's why my friends have to buy hats for their little girl and slather her with sunblock every time she goes o...
April 06, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Secret Behind Van Gogh's Fading Sunflowers
One of the features of Vincent Van Gogh's art that set him apart was his use of bright colors, made possible by the invention of industrial pigments such as chrome yellow. But in the century since, many of these colors, including the bright yellows of his famous sunflowers, have faded, turning brow...
February 16, 2011 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Looking Forward to the International Year of Chemistry
The United Nations has dubbed 2011 the International Year of Chemistry, with the unifying theme "Chemistry—our life, our future."The goals of IYC2011 are to increase the public appreciation of chemistry in meeting world needs, to encourage interest in chemistry among young people, and to generate...
December 30, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Year in Science: A List of Lists
It's the end of the year, so you know what that means—it's time for the parade of "year in review" articles. Start with Smithsonian.com's Top 10 Stories of 2010, which features lots of science, and then move on to these others:* Discover magazine picked the top 100 stories of 2010 (and my brother w...
December 29, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
How to Keep the Needles on Your Christmas Tree
Putting up a live Christmas tree can be a lot of work. You have to make sure that the tree has plenty of water, sometimes having to crawl beneath the branches while trying not to dislodge any of the breakable ornaments. And then there's the clean-up. No matter what you do, the tree is going to shed...
December 23, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Rare Earth Elements Not Rare, Just Playing Hard to Get
Given their name, rare earth elements, and the fact that China controls 96 percent of REE production, you might think the Chinese had won some geologic lottery. But these metallic substances—elements 57 to 71 on the periodic table, plus scandium and yttrium—are not all that rare. It's been economic...
November 18, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Oil and Water Do Mix
After tackling the phrase "comparing apples and oranges" a couple weeks ago, a co-worker suggested I take a look at "mixing like oil and water." O.K. Here goes:The phrase, as we know, is applied to any two things that don't get along together. And it's not a bad analogy; oil and water won't immedia...
November 17, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Ten Natural Products That Kill
I have to laugh anytime I see a product label claiming that something is "all natural," as if everything that is man-made is dangerous and all that is not is perfectly safe. Not that I'm claiming there are no synthetic evils, but there's plenty of deadly natural items out in the world. Let's start ...
November 09, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
The Science of Shrinky Dinks
Introduced in 1973, Shrinky Dinks had kids (and crafty adults) creating artwork on flexible sheets of plastic that, when popped in the oven, would magically shrink down to approximately 1/3 their original size. You were then supposed to play with whatever it was you made, but frankly, the entertain...
October 14, 2010 |
By Jesse Rhodes
The Many Faces of Carbon
Yesterday the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences announced that this year's Nobel Prize in Physics will go to Andre Geim and Konstantin Novoselov "for groundbreaking experiments regarding the two-dimensional material graphene." Graphene is one of many allotropes, or forms, of the element carbon. Car...
October 06, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Julia Child and the Primordial Soup
Scientists don't yet know how life began here on Earth. Mineralogist Bob Hazen, who is profiled in the October issue of Smithsonian, thinks that rocks were key to the development of life. Reporter Helen Fields wrote:It’s the complexity of the hydrothermal vent environment—gushing hot water mixing w...
September 22, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Science Expressed in Dance
Graduate students spend years researching sometimes obscure topics, writing page after page of text, and then bundling it into a huge dissertation before they can receive a Ph.D. And then someone asks them to express all that work and discovery in dance.Science has asked that three times now, and t...
September 20, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Spain's Mercury Fountain
Grrlscientist posted this video, of a mercury fountain that can be found at the Fundació Joan Miró museum in Barcelona, last week and said "I think this is supposed to be art, but it’s kinda scary art, if you ask me."Humans have long been fascinated by this liquid metal, but it wasn't until 1866 th...
August 23, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Catnip's Effect on Big (and Little) Cats
Though we may call catnip "kitty crack," the herb is non-addictive and isn't even a drug (so it's perfectly safe to give to your kitty, big or small). But how does it work? And why doesn't it have any effect on humans?Catnip comes from plants of the Nepeta genus. These plants are a type of mint and...
August 19, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
Invisible Engineering
Chemist Angela Belcher looks to manufacture high technology out of viruses
August 2010 |
By Michael Rosenwald
The Disappearing Spoon: True Tales from the Periodic Table
Most of the time we don't think about the periodic table. Individual elements are always important—gold, oxygen, aluminum—but we rarely consider the table as a whole. It just hangs on the wall where it will be consulted from time to time (or perhaps admired for its aesthetics, like the one that han...
July 20, 2010 |
By Sarah Zielinski
