Alcohol occurs naturally when fruits, vegetables, and grains exposed to bacteria in the air undergo the process of fermentation. People can create and speed up the conditions for fermentation to produce ethyl alcohol, also called ethanol. Pure ethanol...

Alcohol is a rather general term for a class of hydrocarbon compounds, and is widely used as a cleansing agent (for example to wipe the skin before an injection is made). But in everyday talk (and, for the most part, in PSYCHOPHARMACOLOGY)...

Not a single compound, but one of a group of HYDROCARBONS in which a hydroxyl (i.e. a hydrogen/oxygen molecule, e.g. OH) molecule replaces a hydrocarbon (i.e. a hydrogen/carbon) bonding. Alcohols have the general formula of CnH2n+1OH. The simplest...

These are primary oxidation products of hydrocarbons and are classified as primary, secondary or tertiary, depending on where OH groups are attached to the molecule. Alcohols react with organic acids to form...

In chemistry, an alcohol is any organic compound in which a hydroxyl group (-OH) is bound to a carbon atom of an alkyl or substituted alkyl group. The general formula for a simple acyclic alcohol is CnH2n+1OH. In layman's terms, the word alcohol...

health intro,,USE THIS VERSION!! What is an alcoholic? Even the dictionary waffles. Alcoholism, Webster's says, is either "the habitual drinking of alcoholic liquor to excess" or "a diseased condition caused by" excessive drinking. Some help that is to people who worry they're drinking...

It is unfortunate that the House of Representatives recently voted to overrule a Veterans Administration policy calling alcoholism "willful misconduct" {"House Votes to Restore Benefits to Alcoholic Veterans," Oct. 18}. Contrary to the claim that this is an important victory for all recovering alcoholics,...

Charlie Cross counted how many friends and relatives took their own lives over the years and came up with 19, all Alaska Natives."Of those 19, a mere three that I know of were not consuming alcohol," Cross, an investigator with the Alaska State Troopers, said...

When Brian Steik lived on the streets, the government spent tens of thousands of dollars on emergency room visits and other services to keep the alcoholic alive.Now social-service agencies are conducting an experiment: Offering Steik and dozens of other homeless drinkers subsidized apartments where they...

Before recorded history, human beings discovered that grape juice, when exposed to naturally occurring yeasts, becomes wine. Scientists would eventually describe this process as fermentation, thousands of years after wine and other alcoholic beverages...