Chris Sweeney

Ah, the periodic table. The Rosetta Stone of chemistry, if you will. Well, today, this great tormentor of high school science students celebrates its 140th birthday, so lets take a quick look at a bit of the history behind this scientific gem.

It’s no secret that cleaning up an oil spill is a difficult task. When most of us think of oil spills, we think of incidents like the Exxon Valdez accident, which released more than 10 million gallons of oil into the Prince William Sound in 1989. But what we don’t think about are the more than 200 million gallons of used oil that pollute U.S. wastewater every year after being dumped into sewers, streams and landfills.

We told you , a few months back, about how MP3 players connected to long-range acoustic devices are being used to thwart pirate attacks. While blasting deafening sound waves at a bunch of machinegun-toting lunatics seems great, wouldn't it be better to avoid the pirates altogether?