Today, so many of us take blue for granted. And why not? Anywhere you go, you can find someone wearing blue denim jeans or, especially if one of their university's colors is blue, a blue T-shirt or sweatpants. Blue is a popular color and is well represented in the fashion industry. Long ago, like in Renaissance Europe (14th to 17th Centuries), blue was rare and whenever we could find it in nature - as in lapis lazuli, it was a difficult pigment to extract. It wasn't until a chemist in 1806 was able to determine the chemical nature of lapis lazuli - a complex sulfur-containing aluminum silicate. In 1826, the first synthetic pigments were successfully made in large quantities... and the rest is history! Read more on the science of color in Nature magazine. from the Youtube channel of Nature | Lapis Lazuli Image credit: Hannes Grobe |
posted by Suzie Chhouk
0 Comments
posted by Suzie Chhouk It would be naive to say that the advancement of chemistry - or any other scientific field, for that matter - has been mainly propelled by mere curiosity and for the sake of knowledge. Rather, funding has often come from geopolitical motives. April 22, 2015 is the 100th anniversary of the first large-scale use of chemical weapons in modern warfare. Many chemists at that time, including a Nobel Prize winner, were engaged in using science to develop new weapons of mass destruction. This week, the American Chemical Society takes a look at the chemistry behind the modern world’s first chemical weapons. from Reactions, American Chemical Society posted by Suzie Chhouk When scientists tell you something is thousands or millions of years old, how do they know? Surely they couldn't have witnessed its creation or birth themselves... And what does chemistry have to do with it? This area of science is called dating - not quite the romantic kind - but figuring out the approximate date of something's creation or birth. from SciShow posted by Suzie Chhouk Hank Green takes us through the history of atomic theory. He examines how scientists from thousands of years ago, hundreds of years ago, and decades ago, and months ago have built upon each previous theory to arrive at the modern definition of an atom we have today. Hank explains how we know what we know about the atom today and how we know that we're not quite done figuring it out. from CrashCourse posted by Suzie Chhouk Some of the most ground-breaking, paradigm-shifting discoveries happened by pleasant surprise - or serendipity. Our modern world has become so convenient and advanced, yet very few of us can explain why some pens are easier to write with than others or how raincoats keep us dry. Watch the video below to learn how coal, aspirin, mauve (purple dye), Teflon, and Gore-Tex are all serendipitously connected! from Reactions. English subtitles available. Read more to learn more about the chemicals discussed in the video. posted by Suzie Chhouk Chemical processes underlie all biological life. Follow along as John and Hank Green follow the science of the beginnings of life on Earth in this episode of Big History. from CrashCourse posted by Suzie Chhouk If you haven't recently, you should go hug your refrigerator. It has allowed for so many conveniences in our industrialized and post-industrial communities. Today, different refrigerants are used to keep our foods cool and fresh. The video below tells the history of some of the earliest of the modern refrigerators. from How Stuff Works posted by Suzie Chhouk Conservation Intern Nicola Crompton in protective gear, cleaning whale bones with ammonia (c) University of Oxford 2014 Chemistry does not only play a key role in uncovering the mysteries of our past, but is crucial in preserving the stories artifacts tell. A recent blog entry from the Science Blog of the University of Oxford featured Bethany Palumbo, Conservator for Life Collections in the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Read the excerpts below to learn how she and her team uses chemistry to restore centuries-old whale bones.
"Cleaning and preserving old bones is an intricate, technical task and each treatment must be tailored to the individual bone. Whale bones are especially challenging, as fatty oils slowly seep out over the years. ... posted by Suzie Chhouk Barometers (instruments used to measure pressure) are important in the chemical laboratory; many experiments require that we create a system of controlled pressure. Barometers are also important for us to measure what's going on in the atmosphere and to predict the weather. As part of the TEDEd series, Asaf Bar-Yosef explains the history and mechanics of the barometer. |
Archives
May 2015
Categories
All
|