We’re heading out of this world for today’s post, to examine theatmospheric compositions of the other planets in the solar system, as well as our own. Practically every other planet in our solar system can be considered to have an atmosphere, apart from perhaps the extremely thin, transient ...

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That smoking causes cancer is a well known and scientifically proven fact. Everyone knows that nicotine is present in cigarettes, and causes addiction to smoking; however, what’s a little less well known is the range of chemicals contained within cigarette smoke that can lead to carcinogenic ...

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Boiling Point & Elevation

Water always boils at 100˚C, right? Wrong! Though it’s one of the basic facts you probably learnt pretty early on back in school science lessons, your elevation relative to sea level can affect the temperature at which water boils, due to differences in air pressure. Here, we take a look at the ...

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We’re venturing tentatively into the border region between chemistry & physics today, with a look at some of the different types of nuclear radiation. These types vary in their composition, characteristics, and uses, but here’s an attempt to sum up the most commonin one succinct graphic. One ...

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The Facts and the Fiction

Over the past week, you may well have seen a couple of graphics purporting to explain the effect that drinking a can of Coke or Diet Coke has on your body. They’ve been picked up by arange of online news and media sites, and as a result circulated widely. Unfortunately, althoughsome of the ...

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With blackberry season approaching, here’s a quick graphic looking at blackberry colour chemistry. Posts have been a bit few and far between over the last week or so as I was off at ACS Philadelphia (post on that to come shortly), but the pace will be picking back up again this week!

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in C&EN

With a week to go until Halloween, it’s time to get carving pumpkins! Before you do, check out this graphic on the chemistry of pumpkins I made for C&EN last year. Stay tuned for more Halloween-related chemistry over the coming week!

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Theories and Models

All matter is made up of atoms. This is something we now take as a given, and one of the things you learn right back at the beginning of high school or secondary school chemistry classes. Despite this, our ideas about what an atomisare surprisingly recent: as little as one hundred years ago, ...

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“The Other Carbon Dioxide Problem”

Ocean acidification is often referred to as ‘the other carbon dioxide problem’. We’re all quite rightly concerned about the effects that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels may have on climate, and the potential consequences of climate change are well documented: more frequent instances of ...

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Undeserved Reputation?

There’s no shortage of material when it comes to aspartame research – the FDA has described it as one of the most studied food additives currently approved. We’re talking a huge number of studies, more than 500, so you’d justifiably think that this is an issue that the research can weigh in on ...

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