Science Elements podcast highlights the science of fireworks

The July feature of Science Elements, the American Chemical Society's (ACS') weekly podcast series, shines the spotlight on the science of fireworks, just in time for the July 4th holiday. The episode is available at http://www.acs.org/scienceelements.

Independence Day is a time for picnics, parades and, of course, fireworks. Those beautiful explosions in the sky would be nothing without chemistry. In today's episode, Science Elements talks to the man who literally wrote the book on fireworks.

"Everything you see in a fireworks display is chemistry in action," says John Conkling, Ph.D., of Washington College.

Other recent topics of Science Elements podcasts include:

• How white bread encourages the growth of "good" microbes in the gut
• Deadly bacteria that elude detection in the body
• The surprising reason why smog continues to soar in Los Angeles

Provided by American Chemical Society