Reactions

The onion — how could something that tastes so good cause so many tears? Common in cuisine from all around the globe, onions are world renowned for their ability to make us all look like cry babies. We’ve taken it upon ourselves at Bytesize Science to get to the bottom of this teary phenomenon. In our latest video, we dug up the roots of this culinary annoyance to figure out exactly what chemical mechanisms trigger this reaction in our eyes, and we even threw in a couple techniques you can try at home to stop the tears before they start.

Did you know that malaria has caused more than half of all human deaths since the stone age? Get the scoop on the severity of this global threat with Nobel Prize winning chemist Dr. Peter Agre and his colleague Marcello Lorena-Jacobs of Johns Hopkins University. Watch our latest episode to find out the interesting direction their research has lead them on in their quest for a cure.

Find out why smaller ice crystals make smoother, richer ice cream in this video hosted by Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Food Engineering, Richard Hartel.

Learn how insect repellent ingredients like DEET work to scare away those nasty mosquitoes.

Watch as University of Wisconsin-Madison Professor of Food Engineering Richard Hartel explains how to spin piping-hot melted sugar into tasty threads, eventually cooling off and forming cotton candy.

When it comes to detecting art forgery, the stakes are high. Paintings and sculptures carry price tags of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. A chemical analysis can validate the price, or trash it. In this episode of ChemMatters, find out about the scientific techniques, many based on chemistry, used to examine paintings at the molecular level and determine whether they are fakes or the “real deal.”

When it comes to detecting art forgery, the stakes are high. Paintings and sculptures carry price tags of tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. A chemical analysis can validate the price, or trash it. In this episode of ChemMatters, find out about the scientific techniques, many based on chemistry, used to examine paintings at the molecular level and determine whether they are fakes or the real deal.

The process of how sewage is transformed back into drinkable water is one of the great, underappreciated marvels of modern life. In our latest ChemMatters video, we're going to show you how wastewater goes from polluted to pure.

The next time you heat leftovers in your microwave, we can't guarantee you will get a great meal. But if you check out this video, you can find out the physics and chemistry behind how your food is cooked!

Disappearing ink. Trick birthday candles that relight after extinguishing. Pulling an egg through the mouth of a bottle without breaking it. These tricks seem to defy the laws of nature, but they’re not magic. Let’s apply a little chemistry to reveal the mysteries behind these magic tricks.

Episode 1: Chemistry and Special FX

Episode 2: Fake Snow

Episode 3: Artificial Skin

Episode 4: Explosions!