Chemistry

Chemistry

Here’s a clue to how this tube worm’s slime can glow blue for days

Mucus oozed by a marine tube worm can glow for up to 72 hours. New results suggest that the light may sustain itself through some clever chemistry.

Chemistry

Astronauts may be able to make cement using their own pee

Lunar dust and a compound found in urine could be used to build future dwellings on the moon, a new study finds.

Chemistry

Moisture, not light, explains why Munch’s ‘The Scream’ is deteriorating

Edvard Munch’s 1910 “The Scream” is famous for its loud colors. New insight into paint preservation could keep those pigments from fading out.

Chemistry

Ancient recipes led scientists to a long-lost natural blue

Led by medieval texts, scientists hunted down a plant and extracted from its tiny fruits a blue watercolor whose origins had long been a mystery.

Physics

Here’s how the periodic table gets new elements

Today’s scientists keep adding to the periodic table. But an element has to earn its spot.

Chemistry

Beets bleed red but a chemistry tweak can create a blue hue

A new blue dye derived from beet juice might prove an alternative to synthetic blue dyes in foods, cosmetics or fabrics.

Health & Medicine

You can help fight the coronavirus. All you need is a computer

With Folding@home, people can donate computing time on their home computers to the search for a chemical Achilles’ heel in the coronavirus.

Chemistry

Thirdhand smoke wafting off moviegoers hurts air quality in theaters

Nonsmoking theaters can still get exposed to cigarette-related pollutants carried in on audience members’ bodies and clothing.

Chemistry

Evaporating mixtures of two liquids create hypnotic designs

Through the magic of surface tension, mixtures of two liquids form fingerlike protrusions and other patterns as droplets evaporate.

Materials Science

The containers the U.S. plans to use for nuclear waste storage may corrode

The different components of a nuclear waste storage unit start to corrode each other when wet, new lab experiments show.

Chemistry

How to brew a better espresso, according to science

To make more consistent and affordable espresso shots, use fewer beans and grind them more coarsely, a new study says.

Space

Phosphorus, a key ingredient of life, has been found in a newborn star system

Astrochemists map phosphorus-bearing molecules in a star-forming cloud, giving clues to how this vital element may have arrived on Earth.