Make Poison Using Household Chemicals

WonderHowTo is made up of niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects. Thanks to all of our active moderators and ...more

Oh, boy. A stopped-up drain. It'll inevitably happen with any home plumbing system and your kitchen sink is no exception. That clog won't go away on its own and will require immediate attention to keep any standing water from rising. But you don't have to resort to calling an ...more

One of the only things I remember from watching Nickelodeon as a kid is the epic green slime. Looking back, I don't know what was so great about it, but every kid my age thought that being drenched in slime would be the coolest thing on earth. Of course, the first thing I did ...more

Great Cleaning Products that Won't Leave You Feeling Dirty! After that delicious organic meal you served, you probably head to your kitchen to start washing your dirty dishes. Now before you reach for that dish soap, read whats on the back of its label. That bacteria killing ...more

If you've ever gotten super glue stuck to your fingers, you know what a pain it can be to get it off again! Don't worry - there's a simple household item you probably already stock that can take care of your super glue super mess! Things You'll Need: Nail polish remover Tiss ...more

Insecticides are widespread products which are used daily in our lives. Organophosphorus is the main compound in these products and has toxic effects on our health that may be fatal in some cases. Insecticides affect mainly the synapses of the nerve cells in our central nerv ...more

Home chemistry is great, but what happens when you forget to label your chemicals? How do you know if you turned a clear glass of ammonia into a clear glass of unobtainium? Chemists have a tool for just that. Litmus paper are small bits of filter paper saturated with a reacti ...more

The next time you brew yourself a nice cup of hot tea, don't throw the tea bag away. Old tea bags can be used in many ways ranging from household cleanup to DIY beauty and even gardening. Other than the classic method of placing tea bags on tired eyes to reduce puffiness, tea ...more

The only thing better than successfully pulling off a new experiment is doing it with household materials. You get to laugh in conceit as professional scientists everywhere spend all their grant money on the same project you just accomplished with some under-the-sink chemicals ...more

If you're on a tight budget for food, whether you're in college, or someone just starting out living on their own, you're probably low on money and sick of ramen noodles. Don't get me wrong, ramen can be tasty and filling, and there is almost nothing cheaper. Sadly, people ar ...more

Definitions Aging If you bought a bottle of Twelve Year Old Scotch, and you hang on to if for nine years, guess what you have? A bottle of 12 year old Scotch. Scotch Whiskey is different from wine in the aging process. Only bad things can happen after its bottled. Keep it in ...more

Glass is one of the least reactive substances known to chemistry. It is the standard container material for almost all lab chemicals because it's so inert. But there are a couple of substances that have strong reactions with glass. Sodium hydroxide, aka solid drain cleaner or ...more

I have an absolutely wonderful time making projects and writing articles for all of you mad scientists! Today, I will bring you behind the scenes for a look at the workbench, tools, and software that make the Mad Science World possible. Above is my beautiful workbench! My who ...more

Bleach is a great product for getting rid of tough stains and disinfecting areas around the house, but the amount of harmful chemicals these products have inside of them is extremely high, as you can probably tell by reading the MSDS for the Clorox brand. If you want to creat ...more

Welcome back, my greenhorn hackers! Continuing with my Wi-Fi hacking series, this article will focus on creating an invisible rogue access point, which is an access point that's not authorized by the information technology staff and may be a significant security vulnerability ...more

A gold-medal winning entry into the iGEM synthetic biology competition could change the way we look at Esherichia coli, the bacteria better known as E. coli. Often the culprit in food-borne disease outbreaks, E. coli is rarely congratulated for its good work. Recently, studen ...more

If you have a taste for sweets, you have at least one thing in common with mosquitoes. While too much sugar is unhealthy for humans, a new product makes sweets deadly to mosquitoes. At a presentation at the 254th meeting of the American Chemical Society, in Washington DC, res ...more

A rose by any other name may smell as sweet, but one annoying invasive weed may hold the answer to treating the superbug MRSA. Researchers from Emory University have found that the red berries of the Brazilian peppertree contain a compound that turns off a gene vital to the dr ...more

Poison ivy, poison oak, and the lesser known skin irritator, poison sumac, can all cause a conundrum in the search of itch relief: to scratch or not to scratch. Fortunately, there are a number of home remedies one can try to help alleviate the itch(ing), with many like coffee, ...more

With warm weather comes bugs, and with bugs come bites, and with bites come itches. From ticks and spiders to mosquitoes and bees, insect bites come in sundry shapes and sizes, but they all commonly pull an itchy, red reaction out of our bodies. Once a bite fires up our immun ...more

Most people are familiar with the decline of honeybee colonies around the world. Among other threats, Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD) is eroding the capability of honeybees to maintain their hives and provide their services to human farmers. Not usually discussed as major driv ...more

To keep fungal pathogens at bay in their crowded homes, wood ants mix potions to create powerful protection for their nest and their young. Makes sense, right? Humans mix chemicals all the time to make medicines, household cleaners, and other health and wellness products. But ...more

Before you bite into that beautiful tomato in your garden, the tomato fruitworm, or the Colorado potato beetle, might have beat you to it. At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), researchers explained how microbes inside the gu ...more

You're in the middle of cooking and a car alarm, cute kitten, or neighborhood brawl made you step away from the stove for a few minutes longer that you should have. It happens to almost every home cook. Most of the time, nothing dramatic happens, but every now and then, you en ...more

If you have an oil stain on your asphalt driveway, wipe up the excess oil with an absorbent cloth or mop it up, then act quickly using the common household items below to make sure that it doesn't become a permanent eyesore or a headache to clean up later. Dawn dishwashing so ...more

Exposed to hormones, pharmaceuticals, and other chemicals, the beautiful wild fish in Canada's Grand River have taken on some pretty odd characteristics—they're turning into females. A long-term study suggests using bacteria to manage polluted water could turn the tide for fem ...more

To make soap, you need fat, and if you've seen Fight Club, you're probably well aware of where soapmaker Tyler Durden got his fat from. Liposuction clinics. If you're not willing to go that far for a perfect bar of homemade soap, you can just use some drain cleaner and America ...more

Ever see those cars so covered in dirt, dust, and grime that someone writes "Wash me" on it using their finger? Well, for those cars' sakes, as well as cases less extreme, a word of advice: procrastination is not a solution — it can only compound the problem. Self-cleaning car ...more

What can't coconut oil do? This edible oil, extracted from the copra or meat of a coconut, has done what most other food, beauty, and health trends have not: demonstrated real lasting power. Indeed, the "superfood" continues to make headlines, with its many uses the subject of ...more

Cleanliness is next to godliness. My interpretation of that age-old adage means that keeping your house clean is just as un-fun and boring as being a goody two shoes. That's why they call things like laundry and doing dishes "chores," I assume. Yuck. Lucky for you, though, we ...more

A few years ago I went hog-wild trying to achieve a zero-waste lifestyle. I didn't succeed, but the experiment taught me that we throw away things we could—and should—be using more. In ye olde days of our forefathers, people generally used every part of the animal in cooking. ...more

In this video, I'll be demonstrating how anyone can make their own iodine clock reaction with simple over-the-counter chemicals. Video: . Household Materials Needed Hydrochloric acid (for cleaning purposes) Hydrogen peroxide (3%) Sodium hydroxide (drain cleaner) Povidone-iodi ...more

Most of us have conducted an investigatory science project without even knowing it, or at least without knowing that's what it was called. Most science experiments performed, from elementary to high school students and all the way up to professional scientists, are investigato ...more

Hello there, people. Today, I am going to show you how to extract the essence from a useful plant, using either alcohol or olive oil. This is how you take a plant and turn it into a useful (and preservable) medicine. For those of you who know nothing about herbal medicine, let ...more

First of all, I would like you all to meet my good friend Iggy. There he is, in all his scaly reptilian glory. As you can see, he spends a lot more time on top of his cage than inside of it. You see, Iggy here doesn't deal well AT ALL with confinement. I don't know if it's pos ...more

The oven is arguably our most essential kitchen appliance (right alongside the fridge, freezer, and yes, even the microwave). But even though we've been using them for a few millennia, many of us know so little about our ovens that our cooking or baking can feel like a roll of ...more

By connecting the dots between theory and real-life effect, two new studies offer more proof that neonicotinoid insecticides are causing extensive damage to honeybee colonies. Research studies have linked neonicotinoid insecticides to damage to honeybee colonies, while agricu ...more

Biting into a perfectly ripe mango is living proof of nature's goodness. The flesh is at once creamy, smooth, tart, and sweet. Plus they're incredibly good for you. Don't Miss: The Best Way to Peel a Mango A study led by Dr. Edralin Lucas, an associate professor at Oklahoma ...more