If you consider yourself a regular coffee, tea, or hot chocolate drinker, you probably have a kitchen cabinet full of stained mugs that refuse to scrub clean. Thankfully, there is a better solution that doesn't involve continuing to fight those stains with a sponge, bleach, and elbow grease. The answer to your coffee or tea stain problems is Cafiza: an awesome espresso machine cleaning product that is popular amongst professional baristas... but also doubles as an extremely effective ceramic ...
Watermelon is not only a refreshing treat but is full of nutrients and energy. Prepare for a summer you will never forget by starting a watermelon patch today. From seeding to watching your plants grow, this is a fun project for the whole family.
If you have a taste for sweets, you have at least one thing in common with mosquitoes. While too much sugar is unhealthy for humans, a new product makes sweets deadly to mosquitoes.
How can a drug used to treat cancer be effective against viruses, too? The answer lies in the drug's shared target — specifically, cellular components that control the activity of genes. A new research study showed that one such type of drug, histone methyltransferase inhibitors used in cancer clinical trials, has activity against herpes simplex virus, too.
Colorado State University scientists have developed new tech that quickly identifies the presence of Zika virus in mosquito populations — and in human body fluid.
A 'superbug' fungus is currently running riot in the hospitals of New York and New Jersey. This outbreak of Candida auris has contributed to 17 deaths in NYC, according to recent reports.
Lawn and garden sprayers are great lawn maintenance tools, get expert tips and advice on pesticides, fungicides, and fertilizers in this free video.
With a predicated increase in the number of Lyme disease cases in the coming spring season, new research endorses the use of bait boxes to control ticks on the rodents that serve as their hosts.
Add antibiotics to the possible list of culprits responsible for honeybee decline around the world. While it may come as a surprise, antibiotics are commonly mixed into feed used by commercial beekeepers to maintain their hives. In a recent study published in PLOS Biology, researchers from the University of Texas at Austin found antibiotics used to treat honeybees may be a contributing factor in individual bee death and colony collapse.
Only a handful of food products are impervious to spoilage—dried rice, salt, sugar—but even among those, honey is unique in that it remains edible without any preparation necessary. It's like this: if you came across honey in an Egyptian tomb, as archaeologists have, you could taste it and never guess it was thousands of years old.
Rabbits have been a persistent problem in Australia for over 150 years. Now the Peel Harvey Catchment Council (PHCC) and Peel-Harvey Biosecurity Group have released a strain of the rabbit haemorrhagic disease virus (RHDV), called RHDV1 K5, to reduce the number of pests in the Murray region of New South Wales.
Some bacteria can already do it—generate electric current, that is—and those microbes are called "electrogenic." Now, thanks to the work of a research group from the University of California, Santa Barbara, we know how to easily turn non-electrogenic bacteria into electricity producers.
It hasn't even been eight years since Candida auris was discovered—cultured and identified from the ear canal of a patient in Japan—and now it's drug-resistant, setting up residence in hospitals, killing patients, and wreaking havoc across the globe.
In the summer of 1976, 4,000 American Legionnaires descended upon the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for a four-day convention. Several days later, many of the attendees experienced symptoms of severe pneumonia. By the beginning of August, 22 people had died. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimate that about 180 people were sickened and 29 people died before this mysterious outbreak burnt out.
No one can dispute the evolutionary success of bugs. The oldest insect fossils were found encased in crystallized mineral silica in Scotland in 1926, and they're between 396 and 407 million years old.
One thousand feet under the ground, extremophile microbes that have not seen the light of day for four million years are giving up some fascinating facts to scientists who go the distance.
Watermelons scream summer like no other fruit, and there's nothing like biting into a sweet one on a hot summer day. Although there's no exact right way to cut watermelon, there are many occasions when you might not want to cut it into wedges. It may be the classic cut, but the triangular shape insures that you'll always get some on your face. And for parties, there's always the messy problem of leftover rinds.
Find out how everything in a chemistry lab works, from pipettes to burners to recrystallization to storage. You'll get precise instructions on how to work and perform certain scientific duties in the chem lab, whether it's chemical or just ordinary high school science.
Freezing is a great way to preserve the nutrients and lengthen shelf-life of food. No need to waste extra apples from the fall. Freeze your apples to be used in a variety of ways at the date of your choosing.
Earlier this year, NASA reported on findings that might point to water, and microbial life, on moons orbiting Jupiter and Saturn. Named Europa and Enceladus, those moons contain large oceans under their icy surfaces, which many speculate could hold microbial life.
We've worked hard to reduce the flow of toxic chemicals into our waterways, which means no more DDT and other bad actors to pollute or destroy wildlife and our health. But one observation has been plaguing scientists for decades: Why are large quantities of one toxic chemical still found in the world's oceans?
A disease called "citrus greening" has devastated and permanently altered citrus production in the United States, but a vaccine that could protect orange trees may be part of a winning strategy to beat the bacteria that is killing the trees.
As summer mosquito season approaches, researchers are warning people with previous exposure to West Nile virus to take extra precautions against Zika. A new study found that animals with antibodies to West Nile in their blood have more dangerous infections with Zika than they would normally.
Growing populations and higher temperatures put pressure on world food supplies. Naturally occurring soil bacteria may save crops in drought-stressed areas, put more land into crop production, and produce more food.
We may not fully appreciate all the important roles wheat plays in our lives until it's gone—or at least, when it's in very short supply. What would a world be like without bread, cakes, cereal, pasta, or wheat beer? If the dire warnings about an impending stem rust fungus come to pass, we may know all too soon.
A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but one annoying invasive weed may hold the answer to treating the superbug MRSA. Researchers from Emory University have found that the red berries of the Brazilian peppertree contain a compound that turns off a gene vital to the drug-resistance process.
A recent pathogen outbreak in Illinois is just one of many outbreaks of an underappreciated, but serious, viral infection passed from rodents to humans. These hantaviruses have been cropping up more frequently in the last decade or so, giving us more reason to clean out our dusty attics, basements, and garages.
Using mathematical modeling, researchers suggest weather and warming created the "perfect storm" that drove the Zika outbreak in 2016.
Next time you want to add plain ol' salt to your recipe, don't. Instead, use a delicious citrus herb salt, which will elevate the flavor of your dish more than salt by itself ever could.
Summer is the season to enjoy stone fruit: peaches, plums, nectarines, and apricots are all kissed by the sun and bursting with juicy flavor—which is all well and good when you're eating them as is.
Watermelon is the perfect snack for hot temperatures. It's hydrating, crisp, and refreshing, especially when it's chilled. Yet some people aren't content with leaving a good thing alone, which has given us many watermelon-based innovations, some great (vodka-filled watermelons) and some delightfully strange (square watermelons).
Windborne microbes shifting in the snows of the great ice sheet of Greenland may be able to neutralize some of the industrial contaminants oozing out of the melting ice.
Bed bugs are brown and creepy. Could you spot one in your hotel room? A new study reveals most people are freaked out by bed bugs, but only about 35% could identify one.
A sometimes serious disease spread by fleas is making inroads in Texas, quietly doubling case numbers since 2008, and beginning to encroach on larger metropolitan areas.
Before you bite into that beautiful tomato in your garden, the tomato fruitworm, or the Colorado potato beetle, might have beat you to it.
Exposed to hormones, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals, the beautiful wild fish in Canada's Grand River have taken on some pretty odd characteristics—they're turning into females. A long-term study suggests using bacteria to manage polluted water could turn the tide for feminized fish.
What is gluten, why do some people think it is pure culinary evil, and why are there more and more products devoted to being free of this mysterious substance? Here's what one person thinks: What Is Gluten Really?
Sweet potatoes are a popular side dish, especially around the holidays. Save some money and start growing sweet potatoes at home. Not only will they be cheaper, but you'll be able to enjoy them year-round.
Recycling your garbage is noble and, in many places, mandatory. But it also can be very confusing. This guide will clear up the rules.
Food labeling is a tricky beast. For instance, when I read the words "cage-free" on an egg carton, I think it means that happy chickens frolic in a sunlit meadow all the livelong day until they're gently herded into a clean, sweet-smelling coop to lay a few dozen eggs—which I can purchase for a reasonable price, of course.
