Chemistry in Current Events

Darya Y. Honors Chemistry period 5

[okspenco-blog]

Toothpaste has been a household item since the ancient Egyptians. People use it everyday to keep their mouths clean. Not only for hygiene, it is used to get that bright, shiny smile that catches everyone’s attention. Everyone uses it everyday but no one ever asks whatever it is that they are...

I hopefully know that everyone uses toothpaste everyday, but I have always wondered when was the first toothpaste made? Well according to this post toothpaste was first used when Egyptians mixed powdered pumice with vinegar and applied it to their teeth.

Although pumice can still be found in modern day paste, their ingredients has long since been changed. That is true, the first ingredient in toothpaste is not often pumice!

Most toothpaste we know today can get rid of staining from foods, prevent tooth decay, and get rid of plaque and bacteria. Which are all very important factors!

Modern day toothpaste contain mixtures of an abrasive, a detergent, a thickener, a humectant , water, and other ingredients. Flavoring agents, coloring, and sweeteners are also added to the paste to sell the product. Another chemical mixed in with it is fluoride, for the prevention of tooth decay. And of course there is often a bleaching agent in the toothpaste to make teeth whiter. I do not like so many chemicals in my toothpaste however because chemicals are not meant to be ingested!

Another paragraph I found disturbing is this one: Going back to the substances in this product, abrasives have been added to provide cleaning power to the tooth paste. They give toothpaste a slightly gritty texture designed to polish teeth and remove plaque, food remnants, and stains. Hydrated silica, calcium carbonate, aluminum oxides, and various phosphates of calcium, or aluminum are the commonly used abrasives that can be found in your toothpaste. If your paste is white it might be because their is some calcium carbonate in it. Calcium carbonate is the compound of which chalk is made. After I read this! I was like maybe I should change toothpaste to a more organic brand because I am a firm believer that extra chemicals are not needed in our everyday lives especially things as close to us as our mouths! We are told not to ingest chemicals all the time in class but what happens if you ingest toothpaste with the same amount of chemicals? This post made me think twice about whether using the brand name toothpaste or going with a more organic option! YIKES, chemicals

[okspenco-blog]

I love snowboarding in the winter months and when I saw the word sewage and snow in the same sentence it made me shiver. I fall so many times on snow and to think that it may have been sewage is just plainly not hygienic and disgusting!

According to this post a ski resort wanted to use sewage to make snow to make the whole process green and recycling waste (literally). After approval the Arizona Snowbowl resort was the first in the world to use treated sewage effluent to manufacture

(well I know where I am never going snowboarding lol)

Environmental groups and 13 Native American tribes were the people who disputed against the plans. The tribes considered the mountain to be sacred land.Yeah, who wants to have sewage on their sacred land? its like putting sewage on a church! 

Money however is a factor and it was said that making snow with sewage would be an economical way to stay in business for the resort. Regardless of the weather during the ski season the resort would be successful.

Some concerns for this sewage snow is the amount of chemicals found in the wastewater, including hormones, antidepressants, pharmaceuticals and steroids. Who knows what that can do to someones body and little kids ski too! 

The feds ignored the chemicals when evaluating the plan, but the EPA is studying them now. Environmentalists protesting the sewage snow worry that all those chemicals could destroy the mountain tundra and impact human health as well.

I would not ski or snowboard with a sewage covered mountain because it is not hygienic and the amount of chemicals found in wastewater are scary! I want to snow board not grow a third head!

[chemistryinreality]

  11/8/13

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Wouldn’t it be awesome if you would not have to worry about your brand new touch screen phones getting wet, crushed, or dropped and breaking? Well a phone made of rubber would fix all of these problems. The Material Science department at Penn’s School of Engineering and Applied Science are...

[chemistryinreality]

Everything that I own is touchscreen, including my computer and phone but I never knew why! Well this post cleared that all up for me :)! The material that is used to make them is Indium Tin Oxide (ITO), ITO is deposited within two layers of the phone's screen and when touched the resistance causes electricity to flow towards the area touched. 

Well this explains why when a phone's screen is cracked it is hard to have the touchscreen to properly work.

It would be cool to have a flexible screen but the issue with making a flexible touch screen as mentioned is that ITO is a rare and expensive material.  As if touch screens are expensive enough!

The other reason is that touch screens are very brittle and break easily.  Penn’s School suggests the use of a different material like thin flexible nanowires.  Nanowires are much cheaper and can be sprayed on to the layers as a liquid.  

The only problem with this is that nanowires are not as uniform and organized as ITO and may affect the touch screen function. Well that isnt good for most consumers because why pay for something that may not even work in a good way. This is a great idea but so many problems come from the flexibility of the phone.

[okspenco-blog]

Have you ever been sore or in pain from working out too much? Have you ever had a fever that caused you to ache all over? Well if you have, you probably had experience with the drug aspirin.

Aspirin is one of the most bought over-the-counter drug in the world. It is bought so much because it...

[chemistryinreality]

I have always seen the Bayer commercials and how they bring in heart attack victims and they tell us their story of how aspirin saved their life. Well I also take aspirin for my headaches which to me takes so long to help, but hey at least it relieves it, even if it is not as fast as I would like it to.

From this post I learned that the average aspirin tablet contains about 325 mg of acetylsalicylic acid. Whose main ingredient is salicylic acid. It was first discovered in the bark of a willow tree. Isn't it amazing what nature can do, it basically gives us medicine to help treat our pains. And who ever said that mother nature was a meanie.

I did not know that large amounts of aspirin can act as an anti-platelet effect which prevents heart attacks.In small doses it decreases minor pain and body pains. Salicylic acid, Aspirin’s main metabolite, is also integral to the metabolism of humans and animals. Wow all that in one little tablet

[chemistry2013-14]

Coloring is really fun. I remember when I was younger I would always color with crayons. There are so many different colors, too! Now that I am older, I realized there is more to crayons than just a utensil to color and draw! I wondered how they were made, and the answer was easy: chemistry!...

[chemistryinreality]

I love crayons! Even at 16 I always take a pack of crayons from my sister when she gets new ones for school. I remember when I had a box of crayons that had over 200 crayons in it and it came with a sharpener! I felt like a big shot, Good times (lol)! Well even now crayons are still the craz from crayon art to melting crayons to make pictures. The thing that made me think of other useful ways of using crayons was by the melting of the crayons. 

Since crayons are mainly made of paraffin wax which has the chemical formula of C25H52. And now think about what is a candle made from? Yeah! That's right WAX! Therefore, I thought why not use crayons as candles? When I run out of candles I can now use crayons during another Hurricane or disaster. Thanks Crayola for bringing me joy in childhood and safety in adulthood!

[okspenco-blog]

What is the one muscle we use everyday whenever we eat and even talk. Well its the tongue of course. The muscle in the body that allows us enjoy the wonderful tastes of food and gives us the ability to speak. Although this muscle is extremely important it is rendered useless in eating without...

[chemistryinreality]

Not going to lie, the first thing that caught my attention to this post was the picture (lol). Well from this post what I found out was quite interesting! It was without saliva we wouldn't be able to taste because it acts like a binder for the taste buds and the food in your mouth. And without this important liquid that we take for granted because we are all born with it and some more than most (get it)? no...okay.. well this post made me make connections to real life which made me realize why water tastes like nothing when swallowed when someone has a dry mouth (no saliva). Also when I eat dried fruit, I can not smell or taste the food until the saliva reaches it and allows my taste buds to identify the flavor that is given off by the food. This post to me was all around appealing from the picture to the article. Who knew that someone as simple as saliva is helping me enjoy the foods I love everyday such as pizza! YUM!

[okspenco-blog]

Have you ever woke up feeling like you cannot last through the day because you are tired from either studying or just watching youtube videos on your computer (not that I do that or anything…)? If you are a high school student then you definitely know what I am talking about. So how do most...

[chemistryinreality]

I loved this post because I drink coffee all the time! Not even kidding, at least one cup a day! However, I never knew that it was a drug and it could become addicting! Possibly the reason why I drink coffee so much, but back to the topic of caffeine. I heard that caffeine helps people to suppress hunger due to it slowing down cellular activity.Which we all know that needs food to supply for it energy, so gulping down coffee with caffeine can actually suppress your urge to eat! Also the caffeine increases heart rate which burns calories (hmm quick weight loss)?  

I wonder why caffeine keeps us awake? Is it because of the increase of heart rate? I believe that this may be the reason because when playing sports for example no one feels like they are going to fall asleep possibly because of the increase of heart rate. Also after your done with coffee I have felt tired and then going back to get more to stay awake. So maybe caffeine is a quick way of staying awake but not a long term solution. 

[aneesachemistry]

It’s not surprising that your concealer you put on daily maybe the reason why your skin condition is bad.

If you look deeper,dozens of harsh synthesized chemicals have made their way to approval through loopholes in US’s Federal Law and FDA.

Most of these chemicals are known to be great risk...

[chemistryinreality]

As a typical teenage girl I use makeup on an almost daily basis, now I don't use concealer but I certainly use face wash but I never knew that face wash strips a layer of skin off my face! ouch! I have heard that some lipstick contains lead and other harmful chemicals. Just imagine you put lipstick on your lips and you eat, drink and bite on your lips everyday. Every time you eat, drink or bite something a bit of that lipstick which harmful chemicals enter your body and who knows what they change! As everyone knows our skin has pores and makeup can get into those pores causing pimples and even worse pores are ways that things enter our bodies. Such as makeup and with makeup containing harmful chemicals these chemicals have a straight path into our bodies and many of the chemicals found in makeup are known to cause cancer. So really beauty does have a price, but is the price of looking pretty really worth it when your life and health are in the question? There are natural alternatives for makeup, but they do not last as long and are not as cheap as the drug store makeup. Life >>> makeup 

[aneesachemistry]

Poor you. Your iPhone screen shattered when you dropped it. It costs a good $100 USD to just get it replaced. But how much does it cost to replace the cracked glass panel in NYC’s flagship Apple Store Cube?

Fortunes. Really. $450,000 almost, reports the 9to5Mac.

When I first heard the news on...

[chemistryinreality]

WOAH! The cost of replacing the glass panel in NYC's flagship Apple Store Cube is just astonishing! That's basically the cost of a house! ( I wouldn't be the one that pays for that damage). Well I have always wondered if glass cracked because of the cold since if a glass cup was left in the freezer it often cracks. Well due to this post I found out that glass does not crack because of the cold but it can melt in conditions such as 2600- 2900 degrees Fahrenheit. That's really hot, I wonder how they can possibly recycle glass then! Well as I was saying before if a glass cup with water was left in a freezer most likely the glass would break because as we learned in chemistry that hydrogen bonds break when the temperature decreases which causes the expansion of the water molecules and this pressure causes the glass to break since glass is a solid (when its in cup form) and a solid has a distinct shape and volume so when the frozen water tries to expand it presses against the glass causing it to break. 

[slazieh]

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2014/02/140214075405.htm

Fetal Alcohol Syndrome is a disease that children suffer with if they had a mother who drank while pregnant. Almost everyone knows that a pregnant woman cannot drink because of the possibility of having a child with this syndrome,...

[chemistryinreality]

I loved this post! I found it so interesting and shows that both a mother's and father's choices change a fetus. The main thing that I got from this post was that not only should woman not drink when pregnant that father's before conception should not drink excessively or not at all in order to insure the health of the unborn child. We all know that alcohol causes detrimental issues on the fetus such as retarded intellect, stunted growth, nervous system problems, social problems and isolation. This can be related to chemistry that we do in school because a small factor can change an experiment's results and just as if a father drinks excessively or drinks before conception his sperm may change the fetus' healthy outcome. 

[aneesachemistry]

With all these chemical names, it’s really hard to keep up with what goes in your stomach - or what you wear on your feet.

With the latest scandal, it’s both. And it’s horrendous name is azodicarbonamide.

An online petition caught the attention of thousands, as it stated that this chemical is...

[chemistryinreality]

When I read this post from Aneesa's blog I was shocked that a cancer causing agent ( azodicarbonamide ) is found in many processed foods. As Americans, our diets are mostly consisted of processed foods. We have all heard that processed foods hold harmful chemicals and that it causes trouble in people's bodies. However, the thing that stood out the most to me after reading this post was that we can look at the label of our beloved processed foods in order to see if we can see any harmful elements in a material in that products name. For example, azodicarbonamide contains carbon, as Aneesa said, and that large amounts of it in our body can cause serious problems. Since, we have learned in class the naming process, it can help us in everyday life by identifying dangerous elements in big chemical names and therefore possibly saving our bodies from unpleasant consequences by ingesting these chemicals. Thanks Chemistry!

[chemistryinreality]

What are tennis ball made out of?

As most people know I play tennis, all year round I see these little green balls and I wonder what are they made out of? Well they are composed of a rubber core, a felt cover, and a cement filling that holds the felt cover together. The core of the ball is made from natural rubber which is not biodegradable, meaning that it does not decompose. As well, the cement and the felt are not biodegradable, therefore a tennis ball can theoretically survive longer than us! Well with the tennis balls not being able to decompose this produces waste roughly about 32.3 million pounds of waste!!! The tennis balls that sit in the landfills produce methane (CH4) which is a  greenhouse that remains in the atmosphere for about 9-15 years. Methane is 20 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide (Co2) resulting in being a major factor in global warming! OH NO I USE SO MANY TENNIS BALLS A YEAR!!!! The reason why I personally go through so many tennis balls a year is because they simply just lose their bounce. The reason for this is because of the combination of gravity and energy. Gravity pulls the ball down to the Earth’s center and as it hits the ground all the energy gained by the ball has to go somewhere. The energy theoretically gets pushed back into the ball and this causes it to bounce. The core is made out of rubber which is a porous material, the air particle try to create equilibrium, which means that the particles from the inside the tennis ball tries to come out to create the same pressure both inside and outside the ball. The particles try to squeeze out of the ball and since the rubber is porous the particles squeeze out and over time the ball loses enough air for it to not bounce properly. When a tennis ball doesn't bounce properly anymore it is referred to a dead ball in the tennis world. Who knew that science actually comes together with tennis!

[chemistryinreality]

Why the Fizz?

When watching tv with my sister I saw a character build a baking soda and vinegar volcano as their science project. A stereotypical elementary school science fair project that basically everyone knows about. However, this reaction also occurred when we were doing our lab the other day. Connecting these two events together I began to wonder, why does baking soda and vinegar cause fizz? The reaction between sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) and dilute acetic acid (vinegar) produces carbon dioxide gas. The reaction between baking soda and vinegar actually occurs in two steps baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) + vinegar (acetic acid) = carbon dioxide + water + sodium ion + acetate ion.

The chemical formula is:

NaHCO3 + CH3COOH = CO2 + H2O+ Na + CH3COO or  NaHCO3 + HC2H3O2 → NaC2H3O2 + H2O + CO2

As I mentioned before the chemical reaction between these two materials occurs in two steps. First off there is a double displacement reaction in which acetic acid in vinegar reacts with sodium bicarbonate to form sodium acetate and carbonic acid:NaHCO3 + HC2H3O2 → NaC2H3O2 + H2CO3

Carbonic acid is not stable and a decomposition reaction to produce the carbon dioxide gas: H2CO3 → H2O + CO2

The carbon dioxide needs to escape therefore it escapes in the form of bubbles. The bubbles that are produced are heavier than air, so the carbon dioxide collects at the surface or overflows the structure that it is in. in the baking soda volcano we know about usually detergent is added to collect the gas and form bubbles that flow down the volcano (almost like lava) A dilute sodium acetate solution remains after the reaction. Woah, a seemingly simple reaction actually has many different components to it relating chemistry. As a child it seemed so simple but now I can appreciate the amount of chemistry that is in a baking soda and vinegar reaction. http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemicalreactions/f/What-Is-The-Equation-For-The-Reaction-Between-Baking-Soda-And-Vinegar.htm

[chemistryinreality]

You are what your mother ate?

Many people think that if a mother ate healthy while she was pregnant the baby would be born healthy as well and vice versa. Reading this article about how a mother’s diet can affect the child’s genes relates to this topic because what the mother eats may tweak the genomic recipe of the baby,this is what epigenetics is all about (altering the activity of genes without changing their underlying DNA sequence). The food that we consume contain organic compounds called methyl groups that attach themselves to our unborn baby’s genes and change their behavior, especially early in development. Adding methyl groups turns gene expression down (methylate) and removing them turns it up (demethylate). An example conducted at Duke University and Baylor College of Medicine, mice were experimented on to see if the hypothesis of if what a mother eats can change their baby. The mice were as genetically similar as identical twins (Their DNAs had the exact same code). The only difference between the two is that two weeks before conception and throughout pregnancy and lactation, one mouse ate chow supplemented with chemicals that donate methyl groups to genes—in this case, B-complex vitamins such as vitamin B12, folic acid, choline, and betaine.Early in the embryonic development of the brown mouse in the experiment, methyl groups attached themselves near the sites of genes that normally promote yellow pigment and obesity (linked to diabetes and cancer) in agouti mice and silenced them.The result was astonishing! The mice whose predisposition to obesity, diabetes, cancer, and yellow fur was overcome by maternal diet alone. The mother was fed only three times as many supplements as found in normal mouse chow—the human equivalent of an extra dose of vitamins. Foods that contain these nutrients are meat, liver, shellfish, milk ( for vitamin B12), leafy veggies, sunflower seeds, baker’s yeast ( for folic acid), egg yolk, liver, soy ( for vitamin B6 and choline), and beets, wheat, spinach, and shellfish ( for betaine). Through this experiment there is a coloration between what a mother eats while pregnant and the result of her child.

[chemistryinreality]

Pits of Danger?

We all use antiperspirants everyday (hopefully), but have you ever wondered what is in an antiperspirant and how do they work? The active ingredient in almost all antiperspirants aluminum chloride ( AlCl3) As a pure metal aluminum still isn't good for you, but as a salt in antiperspirants it is better-able to participate in biochemical reactions. Aluminum acts as a neurotoxin and has been implicated in a number of health issues. Ingredients such as propylene glycol and disodium EDTA help the aluminum chloride to travel deeper into the skin, making the antiperspirant more effective. While penetration enhancers are not often toxic, they increase your exposure to the other chemicals in the product. An antibacterial agent , Triclosan, is absorbed through the skin into the body. Antibacterial antiperspirants are usually what people look for since bacteria produce odor, you probably don't want the negative health effects associated with Triclosan exposure, plus the antibacterial agent promotes the development of resistant strains of bacteria. A preservative that has been associated with nervous system effects is BHT, including other health concerns. This chemical is not found in all antiperspirants, so it is easier to avoid than aluminum or penetration enhancers. Mostly all deodorants come in smells and most fragrances are potentially toxic synthetic chemicals. Fragrance in the products are not disclosed often times, therefore you don't even know what the ingredients are. Fragrances may cause headaches and allergic reactions in sensitive individuals. If you do not want to risk it you can seek antiperspirants which contain fewer of the offending chemicals such as  unscented or without antibacterials. Therefore under your pits theres is chemistry going on!

[chemistryinreality]

Acetone, how does it work?

After a nice manicure, how do you take off the polish that is on your nails? Well you use acetone, but how does it work?Nail polish has colored molecules that are attached to resin molecules which only dissolve in acetone. The colored resins are dissolved in acetone and go on your fingernails, and the acetone evaporates.The reason is that molecules have more or less static electricity at the end, and certain kinds fit together while others just bounce off. Aldehydes and ketones are more polar than hydrocarbons. The aldehyde group is polar. Oxygen, more electronegative than carbon, pulls the electrons in the carbon-oxygen bond towards itself, creating an electron deficiency at the carbon atom. A ketone is either the functional group characterized by a carbonyl group linked to two other carbon atoms or a chemical compound that contains this functional group. A carbonyl group is polar. This makes ketones polar compounds. The carbonyl groups interact with water by hydrogen bonding, and ketones are soluble in water. It is a hydrogen-bond acceptor, but not a hydrogen-bond donator, and cannot hydrogen-bond to itself. This makes ketones more volatile than alcohols and carboxylic acids of similar molecular weight. Hydrogen bonding is involved in aldehydes and ketones, while hydrocarbons have covalent bonding. Relative strengths for hydrogen bonding is 12-16 kcal and covalent bonding is 400 kcal. Thus, hydrocarbons have stronger intermolecular forces than aldehydes and ketones. Woah so much chemistry goes into one little cotton pad of acetone to wipe away the nail polish on our fingernails.

[chemistryinreality]

Pretty nails, quicker

Quick-drying nail polish has the same ingredients as regular nail polish, except it has even more solvent. The solvent evaporates quickly, reducing the drying time. Who knew it was that simple. Faster drying nail polish comes at a higher price though because there is more solvent than usual, and they tend to be more runny than regular nail polish, therefore they leave a thinner coat of polish. A second film forming ingredient (copolymer) is added to quick drying formulations so that they will form a coat in a short amount of time. Other quick-dry products, such as sprays or drops that you apply over the polish to make it dry almost instantly. These products typically contain volatile silicones which evaporate fast, taking the polish solvent along with them. The top film of the polish forms almost immediately, so you're less likely to smudge your nails.