General Science

For the Love of Carbs

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 18:58:50 +0000

This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.

What Is a Molecule?

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 21 May 2025 17:15:41 +0000

Surveys reveal that only 50 percent of people questioned know that the Earth goes around the sun once a year, and only 40 percent realize that electrons are smaller than atoms. That’s sad enough, but it is frightening that a mere 10 percent of the population understands what a molecule is. This is distressing, because everything in the physical world depends upon molecular action.

Gutta Percha-From Golf Balls to Root Canals

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 14 May 2025 13:57:24 +0000

Gutta percha is the hardened latex of the Palaquium gutta tree, originally native to Malaysia. This is a natural “thermoplastic” substance, meaning it can be softened with heat and shaped into a form that is retained on cooling. Gutta percha was introduced to Europe in 1842 by Dr. William Montgomerie, a surgeon serving with the British army in the East Indies who had originally come across the substance in Singapore where it was being used to make handles for machetes. He thought the substance would be useful to produce handles for medical devices as well as splints for fractures.

Confronting Nefarious Nitrosamines

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 09 May 2025 20:44:53 +0000

“Boil the nipples!” was the advice given in 1984 by the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. to parents who were bottle feeding their infants or calming them with pacifiers. The presence of nitrosamines, compounds that had been found to cause cancer in animals, had been recently detected in rubber products and the concern was that they could be transferred to babies.

Butyric Acid is an Enemy in the Fridge but a Friend in the Gut

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 07 May 2025 15:22:14 +0000

Smells are caused by volatile compounds that stimulate receptors in our nose. There is a large variety of such compounds with a great diversity of molecular structures. But many of the smells encountered in the fridge are due to volatile fatty acids. For example, when butter goes rancid, it releases butyric acid, a particularly foul smelling compound that is also a component of foot odour, vomit, and curiously, parmesan cheese. It is also the notorious ingredient in stink bombs.

Conned by Logarithms - How Our Minds Misread Risk

Ben Selinger FRACI, CChem — Fri, 02 May 2025 17:14:26 +0000

History

John Napier is credited with discovering/inventing logarithms but nature had already beaten him to it. Our bodies had already figured it out. Our senses—sight, hearing, taste and touch— use a logarithmic transform to cope with the enormous range of the signals our senses need to handle.

Sabine Hossenfelder Asks If Science Is Dying. It’s Not.

Jonathan Jarry M.Sc. — Fri, 18 Apr 2025 15:30:19 +0000

Physics is dying. It’s mathematical fiction. Science is failing. Most of academic research that your taxes pay for is almost certainly bullshit. I don’t trust scientists.

Would you believe me if I told you these statements came from a popular science communicator?

It’s a Gas!

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Thu, 17 Apr 2025 05:35:42 +0000

There were no Guinness Records back in 1772, but if there were, Joseph Priestley would certainly have been awarded one for discovering eight new gases in a single year. That is a record that will never be broken! Priestley, though, didn’t call them gases. To him they were different “airs,” with the most famous one being “dephlogisticated air” which we know today as oxygen.

The Powder of Sympathy

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 14:41:49 +0000

Four hundred years ago, Belgian physician Johann Baptist Van Helmont was persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church for promoting the use of the “Powder of Sympathy.” The idea had been originally introduced by “natural philosopher” Sir Kenelm Digby who claimed that a powder produced with the help of astrological guidance could heal injuries by being applied not to the injured part of the body but on whatever had caused the injury. Digby’s book on this mythical salve went through 29 editions!

RECCO Reflectors Echo Safety Signals

Cat Wang, B.Sc. — Fri, 14 Mar 2025 20:56:48 +0000

A goal of mine in 2025 was to tackle a new outdoor sport: backcountry skiing. With the promise of untracked snow and uncrowded runs, venturing off-piste was enticing. But with that also came the need to ensure safety — I geared up with an avalanche kit, most of which was intuitive: Shovel? Check. GPS? Check. But one thing that kept coming up was the RECCO tag on all sorts of gear. As I read the logo time and time again, I wondered — what was this technology?

I’ve Been Wearing Sunscreen Wrong

Ada McVean M.Sc. — Fri, 07 Mar 2025 03:54:38 +0000

This article was first published in The Skeptical Inquirer.

A Little Hairy Chemistry

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 05 Mar 2025 04:56:10 +0000

Hair is composed of a type of protein called keratin that is formed within the hair follicle, a cavity in the skin surrounded by cells that provide the amino acids and other components needed for protein formation. Genetics dictates the specific fashion in which the follicle assembles these components into the three-dimensional structure proteins, and it is this structure that then determines if an individual’s hair will be curly or straight.

Roger Bacon, Gunpowder and Virgins

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 18:01:46 +0000

In the 1960's the Dupont Company adopted the slogan: "Better Living Through Chemistry." The catchy motto quickly caught on in an era when science reigned supreme. The space race had captured everyone's imagination and people reveled in the new plastics and fibers produced by a proud chemical industry. Environmental concerns were not yet on the agenda.

It’s Hermetically Sealed!

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 19 Feb 2025 21:43:40 +0000

According to Greek mythology, Hermes moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and the divine and it was his job to conduct souls into the afterlife. He was quick and cunning, often outwitting other gods for his own satisfaction or for the sake of humankind.

How Celluloid Produced Great Billiard Balls of Fire

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 31 Jan 2025 20:25:04 +0000

This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.

I have a set of billiard balls sitting on my desk in a box with a partially torn label on which the words “Hyatt” and “Billiard Ball Company” are clearly visible. That makes these balls, purchased years ago in Warrensburg, N.Y., at what is reputed to be the largest garage sale in the world, a historic item. However, I wasn’t sure exactly how historic. And that started me on an interesting exploratory journey.