The Science of Caffeine: The World’s Most Popular Drug

Here’s a quick shot of sci­ence to start your day. The Amer­i­can Chem­i­cal Soci­ety, an orga­ni­za­tion rep­re­sent­ing chemists across the US, has released the lat­est in a series of Reac­tions videos. Attempt­ing to explain the sci­ence of every­day things, pre­vi­ous Reac­tions videos have demys­ti­fied the chem­istry of Sriracha, Love, Pep­per and more. This lat­est video breaks down the world’s most wide­ly used stim­u­lant, caf­feine. If you haven’t had your morn­ing cup of cof­fee, you may need to watch this video twice.

On a side note, if you live in the San Fran­cis­co Bay Area, con­sid­er spend­ing Sat­ur­day, May 3rd at Stanford’s one-day cof­fee sym­po­sium. Orga­nized by Stan­ford Con­tin­u­ing Stud­ies, the sym­po­sium – Cof­fee: From Tree to Beans to Brew and Every­thing in Between – will fea­ture guest speak­ers (his­to­ri­ans, sci­en­tists, the CEO of Blue Bot­tle Cof­fee, etc.) talk­ing about what goes into mak­ing this great bev­er­age of ours. Stu­dents will also have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to par­tic­i­pate in cof­fee tast­ing and eval­u­a­tion ses­sions. In full dis­clo­sure, I helped put the pro­gram togeth­er. It promis­es to be a great day. So I had to give a plug. You can learn more and sign up here.