Chemistry

Phthalates are chemicals that increase the softness and flexibility of plastic.  Due to concerns about potential health problems, the US government has permanently banned three types of…

Do consumers make different choices based on the fragrance surrounding them?  If they do not, a billion dollar advertising segment would disappear. Studies have found, for example, that lavender…

It's become a fad for nutritionists to claim that oranges are better than orange juice, and they list numerous reasons - from added sugar in juice to better uptake of carotenoids, flavonoids and…

By Ian Musgrave, Senior lecturer in Pharmacology at University of Adelaide. A paper has just been released that will raise health concerns about Bisphenol A again. The paper, “Low-dose exposure to…

Some alternative 'milk' products are startlingly low on nutrition and many are packed with additives despite their 'natural' tag. Iryna Yeroshko/, CC BY-SA By Suzie Ferrie, University of Sydney There…

Bisphenol A, known as BPA, is in the middle of an environmental culture war and a hurriedly-rushed replacement, Bisphenol S (BPS), is just as big a concern. We need plastic, food items are covered in…

Image: Jeff Kubina via flickr, CC BY  BY Jyoti Madhusoodanan, Inside Science  (Inside Science) -- Showers fall to Earth’s surface as rain, snow, sleet or hail. But high in the clouds,…

A new study finds that fructose is bad.  Biologists who fed mice sugar in doses proportional to what many people eat found that the ratio of fructose and glucose in high-fructose corn syrup was…

Current carbon capture schemes are not really ready for prime time, plagued by toxicity, corrosiveness and inefficiency, but a team of chemists have invented low-toxicity, highly effective…

When looked at the right way, even cement can be beautiful. This is the crystal structure of tricalcium aluminate, a vital mineral in cement. By Helen Maynard-Casely, Australian Nuclear Science and…