05Mar 2018 by Vincent Summers No Comments

Acid-Base and REDOX (Oxidation-Reduction) Chemical Reactions

Chemistry
[caption id="attachment_19477" align="alignright" width="440"] Rocketry thrives due to REDOX reactions.[/caption] Acid-Base and Redox: When they can, chemists categorize chemical reactions into types. Some specialized varieties of chemical reaction include those named for specific individuals involved in their discovery. As examples, there are the Diels-Alder reaction, the Claisen rearrangement, the Dieckmann condensation, and the Friedel-Crafts alkylation. Yet, many chemical reactions can be classified simply as acid-base reactions, or as oxidation-reduction (REDOX) reactions. Consider examples of each... Acid-Base Reactions When I was young, I was deeply interested in rocketry. My parents bought me one of those red plastic rockets that included a pump. You partly filled the rocket with water, then pumped air into it until the pressure made it difficult to pump more. Then you aimed it upward and pushed a…
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04Sep 2015 by Vincent Summers No Comments

Fat, Fatty Acids, and Omega Fatty Acids

Health
[caption id="attachment_7752" align="alignright" width="440"] Fish are rich in 3-omega fatty acids.[/caption] "Pretty young things” run around uttering words the media have injected into their vocabulary, including among them the expression omega fatty acids. But, in fact, most of them have no idea what an omega fatty acid is. Let’s go a step further on that. They don’t know what any kind of fatty acid is. In fact, ask them to define what fat is, and they will only be able to describe it and tell you where you can obtain some, not they haven’t a clue as to what it actually is. But that is OK. One doesn’t need to know every aspect of a subject to be able to function. You needn't know the workings of a computer to…
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