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Newscripts

October 24, 2011

  • Chemists' Holiday, Indestructible Data. — Happy belated Mole Day! As Newscripts readers surely know, chemists across the world honor Avogadro's number...Read more

October 17, 2011

  • Arsenic Sells, Molecules Tickle The Funny Bone. — To grab hold of our ever-shrinking attention spans, the marketing world has often used clever turns of phrase that...Read more

October 10, 2011

  • The Real Tatooine, Manly Voices Spark Memories. — Early in the first "Star Wars" movie, Luke Skywalker contemplates a future on his home planet of Tatooine while watching two suns set...Read more

October 3, 2011

  • 2011 Ig Nobel Prizes. — Research dedicated to dizzy discus throwers, yawning tortoises, and spicy fire alarms all garnered top honors at this year's Ig Nobel prize ceremony...Read more

September 26, 2011

  • Fried Bubblegum, Poultry Plastic. — Last fall, when Newscripts covered the debut of fried beer at the State Fair of Texas we wondered what on Earth those groundbreaking Texans would try to fry next...Read more

September 19, 2011

  • Elemental Manhattan, Giant Rats Take East Africa. — Richard Pieper wants everyone to start spreadin' the news: He launched a project last month called Elemental Manhattan that's especially for chemistry aficionados...Read more

September 12, 2011

  • The Scoop On Airborne Bacteria, Reinventing The Toilet. — Last July, Cleveland felt snubbed—nay, backstabbed—when basketball star LeBron James decided to leave his hometown Cavaliers and "take his talents" elsewhere. This July, an ecology study sent Cleveland more bad news...Read more

September 5, 2011

  • Human Jell-O, Chemical Bananas, Iceberg Transport. — When Charlton Heston uttered the words "Soylent Green is people!" in the 1973 sci-fi film of the same name, viewers everywhere shuddered...Read more

August 29, 2011

  • Chemistry Goes Gaga, Campus Hosts Gotham. — It's not every day that the chemistry of tissue preservation makes news on MTV...Read more

August 22, 2011

  • High-Tech Crop Circles, Rutherford's Atomic Anniversary. — I knew I was in for a curious conversation when a recent interview was coming to a close and University of Oregon physicist Richard Taylor asked me, "Do you accept the premise that crop circles...Read more

August 15, 2011

  • Perfect Toast, A Tonic For The Skin, Titanium Sipping. —Making toast: It's the classic chemical transformation that takes place every morning in kitchens across the country. But as reactions go...Read more

August 8, 2011

  • Backyard Gas, Crafty Chemistry. —In 2009, Talisman Energy, a Canada-based natural gas company, created a cartoon dinosaur to address health and safety concerns...Read more

August 1, 2011

  • Chemistry-Inspired Art, Bite-Size Research. —Right now, inside the museum at the Chemical Heritage Foundation (CHF), in Philadelphia, two of the strangest eye charts in the world are...Read more

July 25, 2011

  • Glitches In Time, Navel Residents. —It's a chronically tardy person's dream: a clock that speeds up on its own accord. For instance, such a device could...Read more

July 18, 2011

  • Students Make Biodiesel, Padwa's Mobile Creations —This fall, James Pickett, an adjunct chemistry professor at Blackburn College, in Carlinville, Ill., will be putting his chemistry students to work producing biodiesel...Read more

July 11, 2011

  • Finishing 'Chemical-Free,' Fashionable MOFs —The pages of Newscripts are replete with examples of merchandise marketed with the nonsensical slogan "chemical-free."...Read more

July 4, 2011

  • Festival Of Fungi: From Spongelike To Dishwasher-Hardy —What does a scientist do when faced with the task of naming a newly discovered, spongelike orange fungus from a tropical rain forest in Malaysia...Read more

June 27, 2011

  • Café Au Chemistry, Virtual Sherlock Holmes —In Switzerland, where better to promote the International Year of Chemistry (IYC) than in a café?...Read more

June 20, 2011

  • Melon Mines, Bear Scare, Dog Days —The official first day of summer is finally here, and the Newscripts gang has been hankering for a hunk of juicy watermelon. But we recently learned...Read more

June 13, 2011

  • Last Year's Top 10 New Species —People have imagined some pretty strange creatures living on both real and fictional planets: for example, little green men from the Milky Way and tall, hairy Wookiees from a galaxy far, far away...Read more

June 6, 2011

  • Catalytic Earwax, The Cost Of Inflation —Coming in over the transom the other day was a letter, not an e-mail, from Charles V. Johnson of Lake Geneva, Wis...Read more

May 30, 2011

  • Rogue Robot, Energetic Picnicking, Fire Walking In Sync —The ceremonial opening pitch of a Major League Baseball game is often the scene of disaster...Read more

May 23, 2011

  • Keeping Beer Bearable, More On Chemistry Kits, Tobacco Fun —I raise my glass high and toast the scientists at the Technical University of Munich who have pointed the way to keeping beer tasting fresher longer....Read more

May 16, 2011

  • Pity The Poor Mosquito, Sunscreen Bug Repellant —I vividly remember reading Franz Kafka's novella "Metamorphosis" many years ago and being struck by the story of Gregor Samsa, a man who wakes one day to discover that he has become a large insect...Read more

May 9, 2011

  • Fresher Urinals, Cancer-Sniffing Dog —It's hard to walk into a public restroom today without being greeted by a wide variety of automatic, "no touch" devices...Read more

May 2, 2011

  • Llama Antibodies, Arsenic Sea Monkeys —For Els Pardon, a postdoctoral researcher in Brussels, it takes about an hour's drive through the Belgian countryside to visit one of her most important collaborators...Read more

April 25, 2011

  • Inefficient Engineering, Dragon Economics —Watering a plant is usually a simple task: Fill a container with water, hold it over the thirsty specimen, and pour. The process doesn't typically involve pulleys, toy train tracks, and waterwheels...Read more

April 18, 2011

  • Intoxicated Metals, Hangover Relief, Prehistoric Reptile Skin —In what appears to be an attempt to give new meaning to the word "buzzed," Japanese researchers have determined that alcoholic beverages can actually...Read more

April 11, 2011

  • The Daring World Of Old-School Science —I recently bought a book at a yard sale on Staten Island for 50 cents that I'm pretty sure MacGyver read as a kid...Read more

April 4, 2011

  • Chocolate For Turquoise, Wiping Away Bacteria —A decent bar of chocolate will set you back a few bucks these days, but a thousand years ago the treat...Read more

March 28, 2011

  • R. B. Woodward Caught On Film, Album Cover —You never know what treasures an old filing cabinet holds. When Walter Lwowski, a longtime faculty member at New Mexico State University, passed away last April...Read more

March 21, 2011

  • Zombie Fungi, Full Bladders —Zombie humans are all the rage on the big and small screens today. But in tropical rain forests across the globe, you're more likely to bump into zombie ants...Read more

March 14, 2011

  • Commemorative Chemistry Stamps —The International Year of Chemistry (IYC) is being feted in various ways, and issuing stamps celebrating the event is popular in countries around the globe...Read more

March 7, 2011

  • Portman's Prowess, 'Star Trek' Chemistry, Cell Phone Signals —As if it weren't enough to win the 2011 Academy Award for Best Actress for her portrayal of a ballerina coming unhinged in "Black Swan,"...Read more

February 28, 2011

  • Chemistry Kit Chemophobia, Goof-Proof Golf Balls —In this glorious age of chemophobia, chalk up another victory for mass hysteria: Now you can buy...Read more

February 21, 2011

  • Dehydrated Water, Disaster-Relief Drinks —Newscripts reader Fred Jacobson, a principal scientist at Genentech in San Francisco, recently wrote to point out a new miracle product...Read more

February 14, 2011

  • Valentine's Day Potpourri —Just when you thought chocolate-covered strawberries couldn't get any better, two international teams of scientists have sequenced...Read more

February 7, 2011

  • A Historical Tribute To The Unhistoric —Science enthusiasts have long enjoyed traveling to our nation's capital to visit the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History...Read more

January 31, 2011

  • Too Much Tequila, How Chickens 'Cross The Road' —The waxing and waning popularity of tequila has led to an overproduction of Agave tequilana, or blue agave...Read more

January 24, 2011

  • How Cats Lap, Periodic Table On A Hair —A team of engineers watching a bunch of cats drinking has determined that felines take full advantage of the laws of physics...Read more

January 17, 2011

  • Desert Downpours, Swimming Giraffes, Chemical-Free Smells —Attention criminal masterminds, your evil plot to control the weather might be closer to becoming a reality, provided you can snag one of the giant ionizers...Read more

January 10, 2011

  • Fondue, Fruit Flies, Frustration And Felicity —Cheese fondue is a customary meal at many a holiday party...Read more

January 3, 2011

  • 17th-century Weight Loss, Bread Phobia, Boozy Footbaths —After a few too many indulgences this holiday season, you might join the throngs of people grimly resolving to trim their waistlines in 2011...Read more