Chemistry

Fire tornadoes are terrifying forces of nature. They're rare, but as wildfires become bigger and more frequent, they may grow more common.

Read more about the phenomena, here.

Indigenous artists in what’s now British Columbia created pigments by cooking aquatic bacteria. Christopher Intagliata reports. 

Journalist and author Beth Gardiner talks about her new book Choked: Life and Breath in the Age of Air Pollution. And CRISPR pioneer Jennifer Doudna talks about gene editing.  

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Archaeologists working in the ancient city of Hierakonpolis discovered five ceramic vats containing residues consistent with brewing beer.

Findings fuel hopes for improved food-crop efficiency

Musings on a symphony in C

Synthetic repellents such as DEET seem to mask the scent of our “human perfume”—making us less obvious targets for mosquitoes. Christopher Intagliata reports. 

The Dsup protein protects DNA under conditions that create caustic free radical chemicals.

John B. Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino share the 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry “for the development of lithium-ion batteries” that have led to portable electronic devices that are rechargeable virtually anywhere on the planet.

The power packs drive mobile phones, laptops, electric cars and solar panels

The 2019 Nobel Prize in Chemistry goes to John Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino “for the development of lithium-ion batteries.”