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What ingredient in Ivory Soap makes it float?

20 Mar 2017

First, a little history is in order. Soap making is one of the oldest of all chemical processes. There is even a reference to soap in the Bible in Jeremiah 2:22. "For though thou wash thee with...

Why did Cleopatra supposedly bathe in sour donkey milk?

20 Mar 2017

To improve the appearance of her skin by reducing wrinkles. When milk sours, the milk sugar lactose is converted by bacteria into lactic acid. When alpha hydroxy acids, such as lactic acid, are...

Neil Armstrong and Coloured Trumpet Mouthpieces

20 Mar 2017

The helmet that Neil Armstrong wore when landing on the moon in 1969 and coloured trumpet mouthpieces are made of the same plastic, Lexan. In 1953 Daniel Fox at General Electric was looking for...

Chemistry at the Vatican

20 Mar 2017

The new Pope, we now learn, once worked as a chemist.聽It is interesting then to note that his selection was signaled through some nifty chemistry. The smoke signals used during the conclave are...

The Origins of Vitrol

20 Mar 2017

Sulphuric acid, which has the traditional name, 鈥渙il of vitriol.鈥 It is a nasty, corrosive liquid, making 鈥渧itriolic鈥 an apt term for virulent language. At first it may seem odd that the term ...

Would Dorothy and the Cowardly Lion have Passed an Emerald City Entrance Drug Test?

20 Mar 2017

Not if it tested for morphine, as long as we let L. Frank Baum get away with a little poetic license. In the 1939 movie classic The Wizard of Oz, the Wicked Witch of the West conjures up a poppy...

The Case of "Saltair Sally"

20 Mar 2017

In October 2000, while walking along the shores of the "Great Salt Lake" near Salt Lake City, two hunters made a gruesome discovery. In a plastic bag, they found a white sock, a shirt, a few bones...

Whales at a party?

20 Mar 2017

An 1861 Vanity Fair cartoon depicted whales celebrating at a party. Celebrating what, you may ask? The discovery of oil in Pennsylvania!

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