A new study shows that ursolic acid, a natural substance found in apple peel, can partially protect mice from obesity and some of its harmful effects. Obviously ursolic acid, a lipophilic…

What do diamonds and chocolate have in common?  Well, urban legend says girls love them both.  Maybe we can add volcanoes if we are using correlational woo. A previously unrecognized…

If you're an anti-science hippie obsessed with the notion that 'natural' is always superior to whatever 'inorganic' means to people who know nothing about science or medicine or food or generally…

In my ever-continuing quest to become an actual adult, I have recently begun to cook. I use a real oven and everything! In my usual encounter with the oven it takes just a few minutes of pre-heating…

Perfluorinated Polar Bears!   No, this is not an exasperated exclamation by Captain Haddock, but might well be a shout of surprise at learning that Canadians have been searching for compounds…

Champagne, unlike other wines, undergoes a second fermentation in the bottle to trap carbon dioxide gas, which dissolves into the wine and forms the fabled bubbles in the bubbly. More than 600…

Glow-in-the-dark stickers are nothing new; they emit visible light after being exposed to sunlight.  A paper just published in Nature Materials emits a long-lasting, near-infrared glow after a…

Researchers have discovered how Golden orb web spiders (Nephila antipodiana) add a chemical to their web silk to repel invading ants, which means spider silk is even more awesome than it was before;…

Insects who can scale walls are able to do so because of the thousands of tiny hairs that cover their feet and legs. The hairs have flattened tips that can splay out to maximize contact, even on…

Ice cream is big business in America.  Sales of ice cream and frozen desserts top $20 billion annually, according to the International Dairy Food Association, which is about 1.6 billion gallons…