chemicals
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At Last, We Understand What Turns Fruit Flies On
We’ve been breeding the fly Drosophila melanogaster in the lab for decades. We’ve tinkered with their genes — giving them extra legs, curly wings, or odd coloured eyes — in pursuit of understanding genetic inheritance and how tissues develop. But until now we didn’t know which chemical made them start to mate.
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Fireball Whisky Contains An Antifreeze Ingredient
Fireball is a ragingly popular, sickly sweet elixir that’s taken America by storm. Fireball is also made with propylene glycol, a common ingredient in some antifreezes. That’s an unsettling fact, so unsettling that Norway, Sweden and Finland just recalled the booze. But it’s not necessarily as unsettling as it sounds.
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What’s The Ink In A Standard Rollerball Pen Made Of?
You probably have no idea where the ink in your pen comes from, much less whether it’s a simple factory process or demanding of more expertise. Josh Velson, a chemical engineering consultant for bio and petrochemicals, has your answer.
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Colour-Changing Gloves Alert Lab Workers To Invisible Toxins
The trickiest part of avoiding exposure to toxic substances is that they’re often invisible, odourless and undetectable to our five senses. And as an alternative to expensive detectors and other electronic sensors, researchers at the Fraunhofer Research Institution for Modular Solid State Technologies EMFT in Regensburg have created a simple pair of gloves that turn…