General Science

“Electric Feel”: A Guide to How Touchscreens Work

Eva Kellner B.A.Sc. — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

I love the beach. What I don’t love is when I try to use my phone after taking a dip. One droplet of water hits my phone and somehow opens an app I didn’t know I had. Unfortunately for me, this is not an experience isolated from the beach. Whether it's sweat dripping on my phone while I’m uploading a run to my Strava, or answering a text fresh out of the shower, the water always seems to make my phone do the opposite of what I want it to do.

Why Can’t I Tell if Something is Wet or Cold?

Ada McVean M.Sc. — Fri, 26 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Approximately half of the homes in the UK do not have a tumble dryer. My flat is lucky enough to have a 2-in-1 that washes poorly and dries worse, so we mostly hang wet clothes from a drying rack in the living room (it’s also too small to afford us a more convenient drying location than the middle of our living space, but I digress). Because we also don’t turn the heat on very often, I’m often faced with trying to decipher if a hanging shirt is wet or cold or both.

You Probably Didn’t Know That…

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 29 Aug 2025 09:32:19 +0000

When Tea Changes Hues Out of the Blue

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 17:57:08 +0000

This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.

So there I was, ready with a tea bag in one hand, a slice of lemon in the other and a couple of grandkids collared into being the audience. I said we were going to do a chemical experiment. They were not too excited. After all, they had seen tea being made before.

Lise Meitner: The Forgotten Mother of Nuclear Fission

Eva Kellner B.A.Sc. — Fri, 08 Aug 2025 10:00:00 +0000

Science is the story of discoveries but sometimes credit isn’t given when it is due. How many women discoverers can you name? Discoveries such as DNA’s double helix structure and the greenhouse effect are tainted by their unjust past. Rosalind Franklin and Eunice ��Ƭ��֦��Ƶton Foote, respectively, are two women whose work led to each of these discoveries, and both were snubbed by male researchers.

Liquid Nitrogen Tattoos

Angelina Lapalme — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 18:18:29 +0000

Body modifications have been around for a very long time. Tattoos and piercings were found on a frozen mummy dating back to 3000 B.C.E. In many countries, these modifications have cultural significance, yet they have also been introduced in western culture as a form of self-expression. But sometimes, we can get carried away.

Say Cheese!

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 23 Jul 2025 17:27:26 +0000

It was the 1960’s and cheese producers were cheesed off. People were just not eating enough veal. Slaughterhouses were running short of calf stomachs and the cheese industry was feeling the pinch. There was not enough rennet to meet the demands of turophiles (that's "cheese lovers" from the Greek “turo” for cheese) around the world.

What Wild Animals Can Teach Us About Cancer

Lysanne Desharnais PhD — Fri, 18 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000

In a lab in Rochester, ��Ƭ��֦��Ƶ York, a group of scientists were trying to grow cells taken from a naked mole rat. Instead, they ended up with a petri dish full of goo. The cells had secreted a thick, viscous substance, unlike anything typically seen in standard lab cultures. The scientists discovered that the goo contained hyaluronan, a molecule that helps keep the mole rat’s skin elastic as it navigates its cramped underground tunnels. But it may also do something far more remarkable: prevent tumours from forming.

See the Rainbow - How Skittles Led me to Chromatography

Angelina Lapalme — Fri, 04 Jul 2025 14:04:30 +0000

As a kid, I always played with my food. After a trip to the grocery store, where my mom allowed me to select one candy to bring home, playing turned into experimentation. The candy I chose? Skittles! I had seen several YouTube videos of people taking these colourful candies and placing them in water, causing the vibrant colours to bleed out. Prompted by these videos, I grabbed a shallow dish, filled it with a bit of water and began placing my Skittles around the perimeter.

For the Love of Carbs

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 06 Jun 2025 18:58:50 +0000

This article was first published in The Montreal Gazette.

What Is a Molecule?

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 21 May 2025 17:15:41 +0000

Surveys reveal that only 50 percent of people questioned know that the Earth goes around the sun once a year, and only 40 percent realize that electrons are smaller than atoms. That’s sad enough, but it is frightening that a mere 10 percent of the population understands what a molecule is. This is distressing, because everything in the physical world depends upon molecular action.

Gutta Percha-From Golf Balls to Root Canals

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 14 May 2025 13:57:24 +0000

Gutta percha is the hardened latex of the Palaquium gutta tree, originally native to Malaysia. This is a natural “thermoplastic” substance, meaning it can be softened with heat and shaped into a form that is retained on cooling. Gutta percha was introduced to Europe in 1842 by Dr. William Montgomerie, a surgeon serving with the British army in the East Indies who had originally come across the substance in Singapore where it was being used to make handles for machetes. He thought the substance would be useful to produce handles for medical devices as well as splints for fractures.

Confronting Nefarious Nitrosamines

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Fri, 09 May 2025 20:44:53 +0000

“Boil the nipples!” was the advice given in 1984 by the Food and Drug Administration in the U.S. to parents who were bottle feeding their infants or calming them with pacifiers. The presence of nitrosamines, compounds that had been found to cause cancer in animals, had been recently detected in rubber products and the concern was that they could be transferred to babies.

Butyric Acid is an Enemy in the Fridge but a Friend in the Gut

Joe Schwarcz PhD — Wed, 07 May 2025 15:22:14 +0000

Smells are caused by volatile compounds that stimulate receptors in our nose. There is a large variety of such compounds with a great diversity of molecular structures. But many of the smells encountered in the fridge are due to volatile fatty acids. For example, when butter goes rancid, it releases butyric acid, a particularly foul smelling compound that is also a component of foot odour, vomit, and curiously, parmesan cheese. It is also the notorious ingredient in stink bombs.

Conned by Logarithms - How Our Minds Misread Risk

Ben Selinger FRACI, CChem — Fri, 02 May 2025 17:14:26 +0000

History

John Napier is credited with discovering/inventing logarithms but nature had already beaten him to it. Our bodies had already figured it out. Our senses—sight, hearing, taste and touch— use a logarithmic transform to cope with the enormous range of the signals our senses need to handle.