General Science and Technology: Everyday Things

Ever wonder about what's really in hair coloring, Silly Putty, Cheese Wiz, artificial snow, or self-tanners? Chemical & Engineering News, the official magazine of the American Chemical Society presents a collection of articles that look at the chemistry behind a wide variety of everyday products.

Find out what's in household products and what are the potential health effects, and other safety and handling information.

For many common products, this site provides full details on the background, manufacturing process, how they work, who invented it, what raw materials are needed, and more.

HowStuffWorks explains in easy to follow language, how many things encountered in life work. Nearly anything curious or important in science, technology, health and medicine is covered here.

Pictures and charts that explain the chemistry behind the things you see in ever day life.

Assembled by Andy Brunning this site takes a close look at the chemical substances we come across on a day-to-day basis. Also has the feature Today In Chemistry History, where they show attractive graphics highlighting the work of important chemists.

The Publicly Available Consumer Product Safety Information Database website of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). This government agency is charged with protecting the public from unreasonable risks of injury or death from thousands of types of consumer products under their jurisdiction.

A new label from the U. S. Environmental Protection Agency to help consumers, businesses, and purchasers find products that perform well and are safer for human health and the environment.

Baffled by the list of ingredients in cosmetics, skin lotions, shampoos and hair conditioners! This dictionary has detailed descriptions of nearly every ingredient you will encounter in these products.

Science videos and infographics from the American Chemical Society that uncover the chemistry in everyday life.

How Everything Works is sort of like a radio call-in program that's being held on the WWW instead of the radio. It is a list of commonly asked questions about various topics in physics. The questions and answers are arranged in chronological order, starting with the most recent. It is also possible to view all questions and answers on a specific topic. Also included is information on the "How Things Work" college course as taught at the University of Virginia and other institutions.

Practical suggestions for home improvement and maintenance.

Prof. T. Ross Kelly a professor of chemistry at Boston College has accumulated a collection of various gizmos, devices, and toys which are excellent examples of scientific principles or things that you look at and you say "That's impossible!" except it's staring you in the face. This collection of videos include explanations of how they work or references to where one can find this information.

This site from Enchanted Learning has brief descriptions of inventors and their inventions. You can browse and search by inventors names, categories of inventions, or time periods.

An online guide to birds and bird watching.

This service from the American Physical Society explains the science behind many everyday things in life.

A massive space flight compendium covering the history and many details of rockets, spacecraft, and people in space history.

Biweekly science podcasts from the American Chemical Society about the little things that make the big things in our world (both good and bad) possible.