Chemistry

Stories filed under Chemistry in the Weird Science History archive — 55 stories from the strange edge of science.

• From a Barrel That Exploded on Purpose to the Red Can on Your Wall: A Short History of the Fire Extinguisher
• From Matches You Lit With Your Teeth to the Safety Match: A Short History of the Match
• The 12-Foot Weed Thomas Edison Bred to Make Car Tires
• The Antiseptic Mist That Sprayed Queen Victoria in the Face — and That Its Inventor Later Said He Was Ashamed Of
• The Car Henry Ford Tried to Grow From Soybeans — and the Axe He Swung to Prove Plastic Was Tough
• The Chemist Who Caught His Landlady Recycling Dinner With a Pinch of Radioactivity
• The Chemist Who Got Parliament to Make Gold-Making Legal Again
• The Dinner Party Where Three Doctors Sniffed Chloroform and Woke Up Under the Table
• The Fizzing Candy That Supposedly Exploded Kids' Stomachs — and the 50,000 Letters Sent to Say It Didn't
• The Minister Who Lived Next to a Brewery and Invented Soda Water to Cure Scurvy
• The MSG Panic a Surgeon Confessed to Starting on a $10 Bet — Over a Letter He Probably Didn't Write
• The Seafloor Slime Hailed as the Simplest Life on Earth — That the Specimen Jar Made Itself
• The Ten Tons of War Sodium the Army Rolled Off a Cliff Into a Frozen Lake — Then Shot at Until It Exploded
• The Zookeepers Who Wiped a Hippo's Face With Gauze to Find Out Why It 'Sweats Blood'
• The Minister Who Sold Gold From Seawater — With a Diver Hiding Under the Wharf
• The 'Rubbish Bird' a Grad Student Discovered Was Poisonous by Licking His Own Scratch
• The Unwashed Flask That Fell 11 Feet and Became Your Windshield
• From a Beach Bonfire to a Cake in a Battery Jar: A Short History of Glass
• The Rust Spray Named After the 39 Times It Didn't Work
• Smell-O-Vision: The Movie That Hissed Perfume at Its Audience and Left Them Sniffing
• The Peasants Who Ate Arsenic in Front of a Room Full of Scientists — and Came Back the Next Day
• The Glue Rejected for Being Too Sticky — That Later Hoisted a TV Host Into the Air
• The Sweetener Discovered Because a Student Heard 'Test' as 'Taste'
• The 14-Year-Old Who Convinced 43 Classmates to Ban Water
• The 7,500 Pounds of Hagfish That Slimed Five Cars and Closed a Highway
• The Chemist Who Failed to Make Diamonds — and Got the World's Favorite Fake One Named After Him
• The Children's Toy That Came With Four Jars of Uranium — and Flopped Because of the Price
• The Dentist Who Invented Cotton Candy — and Sold 68,655 Boxes of It
• The Sewing Machine Salesman San Diego Hired to Make Rain — Who Filled the Reservoir and Never Got Paid
• The Chemical That Sets Fire to Sand — and the Rocket Chemist Who Recommended Running Shoes
• The Everlasting Pill That Families Fished Out of the Chamber Pot and Passed Down
• The Obituary That Supposedly Created the Nobel Prize — and That Nobody Has Ever Found
• The Seaweed Ash That Ate Its Own Vats — and Gave Up a New Element
• The Ulcer Experiment That Splashed Out of Its Flask and Became Diet Soda
• The Molecule So Foul a Waitress Sprayed Deodorant at the Chemists Who Made It
• The Wallpaper Cleaner Nobody Needed Anymore That Became Play-Doh
• The Oil-Well Gunk Drillers Hated That Became Vaseline
• The Weedkiller That Made New Zealand's Trousers Explode
• From Frog Legs to Lithium: A Short History of the Battery
• Polywater: The New Form of Water That Almost Ate the World
• Starlite: The Fireproof Plastic a Hairdresser Invented and Took to His Grave
• The Alchemist Who Boiled Urine Looking for Gold and Found Phosphorus
• The Beetle That Explodes Inside a Predator's Stomach — and Walks Away
• The Billiard Ball Prize That Invented Plastic
• The Blank Squares That Predicted Three Undiscovered Elements
• The Chemist Who Fed the World and Gassed the Trenches
• The Chemist Who Forgot to Wash His Hands and Discovered Saccharin
• The Chemist Who Put Lead in Gasoline and Holes in the Ozone
• The Cylinder That Weighed Too Much and Became Teflon
• The Hot Stove Accident That Invented Modern Rubber
• Spontaneous Human Combustion: The Myth That Refused to Burn Out
• The Roman Cup That Was Accidentally Nanotechnology
• The Secret Rubber Substitute That Became Silly Putty
• The Teenager Who Tried to Make Malaria Medicine and Accidentally Invented Purple
• The Weak Glue That Took Six Years to Find a Job — and Became the Post-it Note

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