Daniel notices that almost every tire he sees is black.

Cars. Trucks. Bicycles. Always black.

Natural rubber is not black. It is off-white -- milky and pale, the color of latex from a rubber tree. Early car tires in the 1900s were white or light-colored. They also wore out far faster than modern tires.

The reason tires are black today is a single additive: carbon black. A fine dark powder made from burning hydrocarbons in a limited supply of air. When manufacturers discovered that mixing carbon black into rubber dramatically improved its strength and resistance to wear, heat, and degradation from sunlight, it became a permanent part of tire compounds. The black color is not a design choice. It is the visible signature of the chemistry inside.

And the company that supplied the carbon black? Binney and Smith -- the same comp ...