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...
We are having some major issues here in the Office for Science & Society. The issue? Ants. That’s right. Those itsy bitsy teeny weeny insects that somehow make their way through every nook,...
Everything in the world, except perhaps a vampire, has a mirror image. But mirror images are curious things. Imagine that you place a ping-pong ball in front of a mirror. If you could somehow pick...
They are all composed only of carbon. What determines the properties of any substance? Simple. The properties of any substance depend on the type and number of atoms they are composed of, and of...
Ancient Romans, for example, used urine and goat milk to whiten their teeth. This concoction is not as far-fetched as it might first appear. Urine, contains ammonia which is a cleaning agent found...
If it isn’t illegal, it must be legal. That’s why benzylpiperazine pills, under names such as Purepillz, Peaq, The Good Stuff, Frenzy and Pure Rush can be sold in Canada. And what are these pills? ...
Fluere is the Latin word for flow and provides the root for the name of the element we know as fluorine. One of the common naturally occurring sources of fluorine is the mineral calcium fluoride,...
Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. The ultimate natural recycling process. Bury a body and after a while only the skeleton remains. What has happened to the rest? Well, the flesh served as a feast for a...
When it comes to health matters, scientists rarely make statements that do not begin with “may.” But here is one. Excessive exposure to sunlight causes skin cancer! There’s no “may” about it....