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Pyrex Wonders

20 Mar 2017

Glass is made by mixing and heating silica (sand), sodium carbonate (soda) and limestone (calcium carbonate).聽 But, as we know, glass breaks quite easily, especially when subjected to sudden...

Vitriolic Attacks

20 Mar 2017

In the Sherlock Holmes story, The Case of the Illustrious Client, a former paramour seeks revenge on the dastardly Baron Adelbert Gruner by splashing the Baron鈥檚 face with sulphuric acid, which at...

Why do I love cilantro but my husband hates it? (Except when it's cooked!)

20 Mar 2017

When it comes to food, everyone has likes and dislikes. Chocolate generally gets favourable comments, spinach less so. But no flavour seems to elicit the degree of polarizing comments as that of...

Jerusalem Artichokes

20 Mar 2017

"But in my judgement, which way soever they be drest and eaten they stir up and cause a filthie loathsome stinking winde with the bodie, thereby causing the belly to be much pained and tormented,...

What's the truth behind Gardasil?

20 Mar 2017

The more you get involved with science, especially when it comes to matters of health, the more you realize how hard it is to 鈥渒now鈥 anything. Basically we end up making educated guesses based on...

Goldenseal

20 Mar 2017

During the Civil War northern forces blocked a number of Confederate ports. One of the consequences of the blockade was a dire shortage of cinchona bark imported from South America. The bark was in...

Unexpected consequences are part and parcel of science

20 Mar 2017

Science is as a quest for knowledge. Sometimes it ends with a clear-cut result, often not. The Earth goes around the sun. Water is composed of hydrogen and oxygen. The speed of light is 299,792,458...

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...

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