We have discovered distinctive red/gray chips in all the samples we have studied of the dust produced by the destruction of the World Trade Center. Examination of four of these samples, collected from separate sites, is reported in this paper. These red/gray chips show marked similarities in all four samples. One sample was collected by a Manhattan resident about ten minutes after the collapse of the second WTC Tower, two the next day, and a fourth about a week later. The properties of these chips were analyzed using optical microscopy, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray energy dispersive spectroscopy (XEDS), and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC).

It was a British citizen who, at the beginning, would model how to wage war in Israel. In the 1930s, when tension between the Arab people and the Jewish-Zionist community became a full-fledged civil war in Palestine - which had been under British rule since World War I - the fierce British officer Zionist Orde Wingate helped the Jews create a commando unit called Special Night Squads (SNS).

What do people think about when they think of Southern California? Hollywood is probably high on the list, with beaches and freeways close on its heels. Aerospace may not top the list, but it should. Aerospace was the dominant industry in Southern California for much of the twentieth century; only after the end of the Cold War did Hollywood pass aerospace as the main employer in the region. What did it mean to have these two major industries, aerospace and entertainment, in such proximity? At first glance they seem to have little in common: one appears technological, the other creative; one the child of government demand, the other of commercial appeal. But the two share an intertwined history, one that shaped Southern California—and the rest of our world—in surprising ways.

​In recent years, the seemingly unstoppable trend for tattoos has brought safety concerns into the spotlight1. Currently, basic toxicological aspects, from biokinetics to possible alterations of the pigments, are largely uncertain. The animal experiments which would be necessary to address these toxicological issues were rated unethical because tattoos are applied as a matter of choice and lack medical necessity, similar to cosmetics2. Consequently, the hazards that potentially derive from tattoos were as yet only investigated by chemical analysis of the inks and their degradation products in vitro3,4,5,6. Even though toxicological data might be available for some ink ingredients individually, information on in vivo interactions of the ink’s components and their fate within the body is rare.