Reactions

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and today instead of going on about good turkey is, we're going to do our vegetarian friends a solid: let's talk about what could possibly replace it in the future. That's right folks, we're on a new horizon of creating fake meats that taste and feel just like the real thing. So while some of you carnivores out there might cringe over the sight of a Thanksgiving tofurkey, just remember that just a little bit down the line the artificial replacement could be just as good as the real thing (and way better for the environment).

You’ve seen them in late night commercials and at your local pharmacy—little pills that claim to cure your cold, help you wake up or maybe help you lose weight. Vitamin and mineral supplements are everywhere and generate billions of dollars in revenue in the U.S. each year. But do they really work?

It’s a big week for gamers now that the long-anticipated Fallout 4 video game is out. The series takes place in a world decades after nuclear war has destroyed most of civilization. Only those who hid in fallout shelters survived. While this idea works in a fictional game universe, could humans really survive for years or even decades in such a shelter? This week, Reactions looks at the basics of survival in a world riddled with radiation.

Consider this a chemical ode to one of the finest comfort foods ever created, the grilled cheese sandwich. Cheese making is an incredibly complex chemical process, and at a certain point, you may have learned the hard way that some cheeses simply don’t make the grill grade. Why is it that some cheeses melt perfectly while others crumble into a nasty, oily mess? Today we’re going answer that question for you, and while we’re at it, we wanted to offer you some scientific advice on how to optimize your ingredients for the perfect grilled cheese experience.

This one goes out to all of our slasher flick fans out there. We love horror films here at Reactions, so in honor of all of those chased by monsters, villains, and zombies out there, we decided to take a closer look at what happens chemically in your brain and body right before you die. After you watch the video, do us a huge favor and post your favorite slasher flick down in the comments. Happy Halloween!

Go to any paint store or nail-polish shelf and you’ll see a dozen or so variations of the color black. Even inside a crayon box, there are a lot of shades. But what is the blackest black out there? This week, in honor of the 2015 National Chemistry Week theme of “Chemistry Colors Our World,” Reactions looks for the blackest black material.

Nanomachines – including nano-sized motors, rockets and even cars – are many orders of magnitude smaller than a human cell, but they have huge promise. In the future, they could deliver drugs anywhere in the body, clean up oil spills and might even be used as artificial muscle cells.

You might not believe it, but there was a time when urine, yes urine, was prized by chemists. Pee played a part in some of the most significant discoveries in science, and it helped shape the modern world. This week, Reactions looks at the reasons why pee was once the “number one” material in chemistry.

Chocolate chip cookies are nearly universally adored. People like them in all sorts of textures, sizes and tastes. So how can you make your perfect cookie? Using science, of course. October 1 is National Homemade Cookies Day, so for this week’s Reactions episode, we partnered with Science News magazine’s Bethany Brookshire (@scicurious) to take a bite out of baking with the scientific method.

If there is one thing everyone on Earth has in common, it's that we all absolutely stink. Luckily we have deodorants and antiperspirants to help us get over that fact, but chemically speaking, how do these products actually work? This week on reactions, we're taking a look at body odors, and how we drape a tarp over them with chemistry.