Chemistry

Discussion of the periodic table of elements often ends with simply invoking Dmitri Mendeleev, the Russian chemist who formulated the Periodic Law and used it to correct the properties of some already discovered elements, not to mention predicting the properties of eight elements yet to be discovered. But instead of being foundational, it would have been just a quaint paper in a mining journal. had its development ended there. Mendeleev had been appointed him professor of general chemistry in 1867 and was required to lecture on inorganic chemistry. Lacking a good Russian textbook, he…

Supplement distributor USA LESS has been forced to recall all of its LEOPARD Miracle Honey, which touts itself as "an instant source of energy and enhancement of male vitality", from stores because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration discovered why it works for male vitality. It's not their bogus mixture of rainforest herbs such as Tongkat Ali root, Ginseng root, Carob and Cinnamon, it's the presence of actual Sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra. Sildenafil is FDA approved drug for male erectile dysfunction but that doesn't mean hucksters can just throw it into their supplement…

Friends of the Earth, the kooky offshoot of Sierra Club that hates science even more, is dumping its advertising budget into a claim it commissioned from a Maharishi Institute scholar who runs what is apparently an uncredentialed lab claiming they were able to detect a weedkiller in common food. And journalists have repeated it everywhere. Any scientist could have told them that and saved their money. Wait, scientists knew? Of course. In the modern era we can detect a chemical 1,000,000,000 times better in water than we could in the 1950s, so we can literally detect anything in anything at…

A product like Zicam, which claims it can make colds shorter, shields itself from truth in advertising claims by admitting on the label its product is not actual medicine, it is homeopathy, a pretend drug for people who want to believe. If they were required to show it works, the way pharmaceutical products must, they'd be out of business. If they could pass a double-blind clinical trial, or any homeopathic product could, they'd spend the money in a second, because every supplement that wants to be legitimized yearns for U.S. Food and Drug Administration legitimacy. FDA may have flaws, like…

Plenty of us have been there: waking up after a night out with a thumping headache, feeling sick and swearing never to touch alcohol again. If only there were a way to prevent these terrible hangovers. It isn’t uncommon for us to mix our drinks, maybe a beer in the pub before moving on to wine. Folk wisdom has something to say about this: “Beer before wine and you’ll feel fine; wine before beer and you’ll feel queer.” This idea is very prevalent and versions of it occur in many languages. In my native country, Germany, for example, we say: “Wein auf Bier, das rat’ ich Dir—Bier auf Wein, das…

Patients taking selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, the most common form of antidepressant, who are given the most widely prescribed opioid, hydrocodone (Vicodin) experience less pain relief, a finding whch could help combat the opioid epidemic, as poorly managed pain may lead to eventual illegal and dangerous opioid use.  Up to 15 percent of Americans take an antidepressant while hydrocodone and codeine are often prescribed to patients who have recently undergone surgery. If they are taking an antidepressant and it leads to greater pain, they may want to increase their dosage…

"Bud Light", a lower carbohydrate beer produced by  Anheuser–Busch InBev of Belgium, made waves at the Super Bowl, among beer experts and competitors at least, by assuring their customers they did not use corn syrup. So corn syrup is bad? Well, no, they didn't say that, they just said they didn't have it, but such "nocebo" tactics - the opposite of placebo, making people feel healthier about a product they don't have - have been tried and true for 50 years.(1)  Beer experts were baffled at the claim because corn is simply a choice for a sugar primer to feed the yeast that will…

During the Super Bowl, you can predict there will be a lot of beer commercials. As a non-drinker, this always puzzles me - haven't fans already bought their beer? - but advertising is a trillion dollar industry and I instead run a small non-profit so I am certainly not going to debunk capitalism. However, I am going to debunk junk science and their suggestion that because they use one type of sugar to help yeast and their competitor uses another theirs is superior. The Bud Light advertisement chides Coors Light for using corn syrup. If you are not aware of it, a lot of sugar is from corn,…

Brrr … it’s cold out there! Children are flocking to the television in hopes of hearing there will be a snow day; the bread and milk aisles at grocery stores are empty because of an impending snow storm; and utility trucks are out spraying salt or salt water on the roads. We all know why the first two happen – kids are excited for a day off of school filled with hot chocolate and snowmen. Adults are stocking up on necessities. But what’s up with those trucks? They’re working to protect drivers from slippery conditions by spraying rock salt or a solution of salt water to prevent ice formation…

Rembrandt van Rijn was a master of light and shadow and a characteristic plasticity generated by a technique called impasto. A new study shows he was also something of a chemist. An analysis of impasto layers in some of Rembrandt's paintings show they contain a very rare lead mineral called plumbonacrite, which means Rembrandt used a unique paint recipe. Plumbonacrite is extremely rare in historic paint layers. The only other notable occurrence was linked to degradation of the red lead (minimum) pigment in a Van Gogh painting. It was already known that impastos used lead white pigment,…