Chemistry
- Chemistry
Big rock candy science
Instructions for making your own rock candy say to dip your stick or string in sugar before putting it in your sugar solution. Does that matter?
- Chemistry
Shell shocked: Emerging impacts of our acidifying seas
As Earth’s climate changes, the oceans are becoming more acidic. Here’s how oysters and reefs are responding to their acidifying bath.
- Plants
This houseplant can clean indoor air
Houseplants may be able to help clean up polluted indoor air. Scientists gave this one a boost by givng it a gene from a rabbit.
- Materials Science
Scientists Say: Zirconium
Zirconium is a metal that knows the meaning of tough. It’s so heat resistant that it’s used for molds to shape melted metals, and so radiation resistant that it coats nuclear reactors.
- Chemistry
This rewritable paper depends on disappearing ink
Scientists have made a new rewritable paper that can hold text and images for at least six months. It also can be reused more than 100 times.
- Materials Science
Some plastics learn to repair themselves
A new material can fix its own scratches and small cracks. One day, it also may make self-healing paints and plastics possible.
- Environment
Six things that shouldn’t pollute your drinking water
These are why drinking untreated water can be harmful. But keep in mind, today’s water-treatment plants still won’t remove all of these.
- Earth
Explainer: How is water cleaned up for drinking
Unless you’re drinking well water, city folks typically get drinking water that has been treated in a water-treatment plant. Here’s what that means.
- Tech
Super-water-repellent surfaces can generate energy
Scientists knew they could get power by running salt water over an electrically charged surface. But making that surface super-water-repellent boosts that energy production, new data show.
- Environment
Don’t flush your contact lenses
One in five people who wear contact lenses flush their used eyewear down the sink or toilet. That plastic pollutes the environment and can harm wildlife.
- Chemistry
Three take home chemistry Nobel for harnessing protein ‘evolution’
New ways to create customized proteins for use in biofuels and medicines earned three researchers the 2018 Nobel Prize in chemistry.
- Physics
Scientists Say: Kelvin
Kelvin is a temperature scale. It’s based around the concept of “absolute zero,” a temperature so cold that molecules stop moving.
