On May 17th, 2020, twelve firefighters were injured after an explosion occurred at a facility where butane is used for cannabis extraction. It is not yet known if butane was the cause of the explosion but, it was reported that, butane canisters were found in and around the building. The investigation is ongoing. According to […]
What is Nitrogen Blanketing? Nitrogen (N) blanketing is a process by which nitrogen is added to fill the headspace (the area between the fill line of a tank’s contents and the top of the storage vessel) to eliminate oxygen and moisture from storage tanks. Nitrogen is commonly used to blanket due to its extremely low […]
On January 31, 2020, the Secretary of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) declared a public health emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Shortly thereafter, hand sanitizer began to disappear from U.S. retailers’ shelves, as anxious consumers (and, unfortunately, opportunistic hoarders and resellers as well) swept up all available stock. In the ensuing months, traditional hand […]
Personal protection equipment (“PPE”)includes the gloves, gowns, N95 respiratory masks, and other items required by doctors, nurses, and other healthcare personnel responsible for treating patients, including those suffering from infectious diseases. As has become evident in the current COVID-19 emergency affecting the globe, during a crisis, these critical items may not always be available in […]
In March 2018, at two separate fertility clinics, one in Cleveland and the other in San Francisco, the cryogenic tanks storing eggs and embryos malfunctioned, resulting in devastating losses for couples hoping to conceive children. Nationwide, as of December 2019, there were more than 440 sites that store embryos or eggs in specialized storage tanks […]
How about meat without involving animals? Move over, veggie burgers; food companies such as Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods, among others, have created plant-based meats that smell, taste, and look (imagine a thick, juicy hamburger) like the real thing. Unlike traditional veggie burgers, made from soy and bean paste, which have been marketed primarily to […]
In 1996, California passed Proposition 215, making it the first of many states to ultimately legalize medical cannabis; as of January 2020, an additional 32 states and the District of Columbia have also made medical cannabis legal. Additionally, recreational use of cannabis is now legal in 11 states and is decriminalized in many others. Cannabis legalization […]
Helium is the second most abundant element in the universe and used across a variety of industries. Valued for more than simply filling party balloons, helium is of critical importance in many commercial applications, including high-tech, automotive, healthcare, and aerospace. Helium Uses For instance, the manufacture of fiber optics requires an all-helium environment to prevent […]
Frozen foods first became commercially viable in the 1930s, thanks in large part to Clarence Birdseye. He is credited with inventing the double-belt freezer, the forerunner to modern quick-freeze technology, which includes the tunnel freezers used by most major food processors in North America. Frozen foods offer many benefits to today’s busy consumers, including convenience; […]
