Short answers, pulled from the story.
Benzene is a colorless liquid hydrocarbon compound with the chemical formula C6H6 that acts as a potent carcinogen. It targets the liver, kidney, lung, heart, and brain while causing DNA strand breaks and chromosomal damage that lead to acute myeloid leukemia and other blood disorders.
German chemist Friedrich August Kekulé published a paper in 1865 suggesting the molecule was a ring of six carbon atoms with alternating single and double bonds. The cyclic nature of benzene was finally confirmed in 1929 by the crystallographer Kathleen Lonsdale using X-ray diffraction methods.
The word benzene derives from gum benzoin, an aromatic resin known since ancient times in Southeast Asia. Michael Faraday first isolated and identified benzene in 1825 from the oily residue derived from the production of illuminating gas.
Major sources of benzene exposure include tobacco smoke, automobile service stations, exhaust from motor vehicles, and industrial emissions. Benzene is ubiquitous in gasoline and hydrocarbon fuels that are in use everywhere, making human exposure to benzene a global health problem.
The water supply to the city of Harbin in China was cut off in 2005 because of a major benzene exposure. Benzene leaked into the Songhua River after an explosion at a China National Petroleum Corporation factory in the city of Jilin on the 13th of November 2005.
More than half of the entire benzene production is processed into ethylbenzene to make polymers and plastics like polystyrene. Cyclohexane consumes around 10% of the world's benzene production and is primarily used in the manufacture of nylon fibers for textiles and engineering plastics.