24 March is World Tuberculosis Day. Tuberculosis is curable and preventable – yet 1.8 million people died as a result of it in 2015 alone, meaning it ranks alongside HIV as the world’s most deadly infectious disease. This graphic take a look at the basics of the disease, and how it can be treated.
While some trees drop their leaves in autumn, others stay green all year round. How do they accomplish this, and what’s the benefit? This graphic takes a look at some of the chemical tricks these trees utilise. Click here to view the full graphic on the C&EN site.
Today’s post is an update to this old one on the chemical structures of neurotransmitters. Your thought processes are the results of some pretty complex chemistry, and these compounds are some of the chemical entities involved in it. Below is given a little more detail on each, lifted from the original graphics.
If you’re a dog owner, hot weather inevitably leads to wet dogs, particularly if you live near the sea, a river, or basically any other body of water that looks appealing to your canine companion. It’s probably not escaped your notice that dogs tend to smell pretty awful after getting wet. Why is that? Chemistry and biology combined can help explain.
Doubtless the majority of people reading this will, at some point in their life, have had the unpleasant experience of being stung by stinging nettles. But what chemicals do stinging nettles contain that elicit this effect? Further to that, a commonly espoused remedy for the stings, in the UK at least, is to rub dock leaves on them – but does this actually work, or is it just a widespread myth? This graphic sorts the nettle sting remedy fact from the fiction.