Modern fertilizer manufacturing uses the Haber-Bosch and Ostwald processes to fix aerial nitrogen as ammonia, then oxidize the ammonia to nitric acid. Having already created a Haber-Bosch reactor for ammonia production, [Markus Bindhammer] took the obvious next step and created an Ostwald reactor to make nitric acid. [Markus]’s first step was to build a sturdy […]
Genetic defects are exceedingly common, which is not surprising considering just how many cells make up our bodies, including our reproductive cells. While most of these defects have no or only minor effects, some range from serious to fatal. One of these defects is in the CPS1 gene, with those affected facing a shortened lifespan […]
Humans weren’t the first organisms on this planet to figure out how to turn the abundance of nitrogen in the atmosphere into a chemically useful form; that honor goes to some microbes that learned how to make the most of the primordial soup they called home. But to our credit, once [Messrs. Haber and Bosch] […]
We’ve all got our health-related crosses to bear, and even if you’re currently healthy, it’s only a matter of time before entropy catches up to you. For [Markus Bindhammer], it caught up to him in a big way: liver disease, specifically cirrhosis. The disease has a lot of consequences, none of which are pleasant, like abnormally […]
We’ve all got our favorite hand tools, and while the selection criteria are usually pretty subjective, it usually boils down to a combination of looks and feel. In our opinion, the king of both these categories when it comes to screwdrivers is those clear, hard acetate plastic handles, which are a joy to use — […]