LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Gunpowder: Powders
built 179 days ago
The programme ... disproved claims that some deterioration in the quality of the gunpowder would have prevented the explosion. A portion of deliberately deteriorated gunpowder, at such a low quality as to make it unusable in firearms, when placed in a heap and detonated, still managed to create a large explosion. The impact of even deteriorated gunpowder would have been magnified by the impact of its compression in wooden barrels, with the compression overcoming any deterioration in the quality of the contents. The compression would have created a cannon effect, with the powder first blowing up from the top of the barrel before, a millisecond later, blowing out. In addition, mathematical calculations showed that Fawkes, who was skilled at the use of gunpowder, had used double the amount of gunpowder needed.
Source:
In conducting the autopsy on Kennedy, Los Angeles coroner Dr. Thomas Noguchi found powder burns on Kennedy's ear and gunpowder residue in his hair. Noguchi said this indicated that Kennedy was shot from a distance of, at most, 1.5 inches (3.8 cm). (When a firearm is discharged, the powder residue travels only a few inches because the material is very light.) Noguchi's conclusions led to speculation that Sirhan was too far from Kennedy and in the wrong position to have administered the fatal shot (... fired from a .22 caliber handgun, one which had apparently been fired into Kennedy's head at point-blank range from behind his right ear) and that a second shooter must have been present. Dr. Noguchi wrote years later that:
Source:
Airbags will become even safer Innovations-Report - Russian scientists are successfully developing smokeless gunpowder for automobile airbags. This powder combusts almost instantaneously at the most important moment, but the airbag will fill with a gas that is harmless to the passenger, not like known compositions today.
Source:
MORE ABOUT
Powders