The chemistry of papal smoke!

The guys at Periodic Videos are on it! Using the Vatican's recipe, they show us how the cardinals generate very white or very black smoke.

Chem taking a cue from bio

90% mineral material and flexible? Yes. Good materials science article here.

The Jedi Mind Trick

While it's not quite mind control of epic Jedi proportions, there's a new development in the civil war in Syria. Apparently there are reports that the Syrian government used a chemical weapon called BZ against rebels in the city of Homs. Like many chemical and conventional weapons being used these days, BZ was discovered during the Cold War and attempts to weaponize it were made by both the United States and Soviet Union. You can read the story about the Syrian use of BZ here and check out the chemistry of BZ here. The chemistry information is definitely worth a glance if for no other reason than it's a complex molecule and it looks cool.

Chemistry, Aquaman, and the US Military

Welcome back men! This article will make a little bit more sense when we start talking about gases and the rules they play by, but it's still pretty cool anyway. Actually, most stuff that comes out of DARPA is pretty cool. Read it here.

Lewis Structures

In chapter 6, we're going to be covering Lewis structures for both single and multiple covalent bonds. Check out this interactive tutorial for some great practice!

The Periodic Table and Sam Kean

The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean is a great book with lots of interesting stories about the elements such as:

• Superfluid helium that defies gravity
• Antimony pentafluoride - an acid with a pH of -31 (100,000 billion billion billion times stronger than HCl)
• The cobalt-60 dirty bomb that thankfully hasn't ever been built (as far as we know)
• How Linus Pauling figured out how chemistry works. Really.
• Cadmium-tainted rice in Japan
• Prontosil - the antibiotic that predates penicillin
• Acute beryllium disease
• How cigarettes can also kill you with radioactive polonium
• Why the Washington Monument is topped with a pyramid of aluminum
• Why lithium works as an antidepressant
• How Wilhelm Rontgen went out of his way to prove to himself that he really didn't discover x-rays. Even though he did.
• Ice X
• How drinking beer lead to the development of the modern particle collider
• "Tools of Ridiculous Precision

And much more! Read it! You can go here to preview most of the first chapter for free (click on the book cover)!

Periodic Trends

Go here for a very simple interactive diagram that describes trends in the periodic table with regards to atomic radius, ionization energy, electron affinity, and metallic character.