One of the comments on this reddit post pretty well nails what I think is happening in the above video.
Then I found another comment that linked to this video...I'm pretty sure that the lines are made out of some kind of wax that is printed on there that blocks the glaze from going past it if it's the right amount becuse of surface tension.
I have absolutely no idea what's being said in the above video, but I like that it shows the time-lapse solidification of the cooking oil in the pan. That puts this video in the lead spot above this one which is in English but doesn't show the actual solidifying.
Now to the other admission that I have about today's topic. I can't find any thorough explanation of how the solidification process happens.
I've looked around and found a whole lot of people asking what the science is but with no acceptable answers. Fryaway - a similar product - has a blog post describing ways that oil can be solidified but never quite saying which method their product utilizes.
They do say that their product is a "non-toxic, plant-based powder", and another blog shows an ingredient list for a similar product as being "natural oil", but that isn't much to go on.
If anybody can find more information specifically on the science of how these cooking oil hardeners work, I would be very much appreciative if you'd share.
I don't think it's one of these oil hardeners, but it might be.
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| Source - NPR article |
We didn't used to need nearly as much lithium as we do now, and we're going to need way more lithium going forward because lithium is used to make pretty much every high tech battery - like those in electric vehicles. Those batteries need a whole lot of lithium.
I've posted about the one lithium mine in the United States and how it's running into conflicts with environmentalists over the destruction of habitat for Tiehm's buckwheat.
Today's article from NPR - which also has a 7-minute audio story in case you'd rather just listen to the story - shows some photos from the aforementioned Silver Peak mine in Nevada and explores other possible sources of lithium including seawater and geothermal power plant brine. Sadly they don't go into the reason lithium is so useful: its position at the top of the activity series and its relative low density making it a great way to store energy in small masses.
Back in December the scientific community announced a breakthrough in fusion energy.
Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me even made jokes about it in their "Who's Bill This Time?" and "Predictions" section - the latter of which saw them joke that the next scientific breakthrough would be a drug that makes people care about fusion breakthroughs.
That same week, Saturday Night Live got in on the game with a cut-for-time sketch about one of the scientists who was supposedly involved in the fusion development.
But they got the science a little wrong...
At 4:58 they claim that Edgar is inert...like a hydrogen atom. Hydrogen is far from inert. Helium is inert, though. I'm guessing somebody on the SNL writing staff got a little mixed up in what they remembered from high school science class.
Then at 5:04 they talk about 'splitting him open' to 'unleash the incredible potential that's locked inside'. I assume that's a reference to fusion...but fusion doesn't split things apart. It fuses them together.
And, yes, I did think those things when I watched the video for the first time.
This is how my brain works.
Don't judge me...
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| Rollover joke - The Earth is, on average, located in the habitable zone, but at any given time it has a certain probability of being outside it, which is why life exists on Earth but is mortal. (Source - XKCD) |
See, it's funny because most of the time, the atom - particularly the Bohr model of the atom - is likened to the solar system with electrons following 'orbital' paths around the nucleus the way that planets follow similar paths around the sun.
As a chemistry teacher, I can say that it's much, much harder to come up with a similarly easily understood analogy for how electrons exist in the quantum mechanical model of the atom. There just isn't any sort of macroscopic thing that is anything like the quantum mechanical model of the atom.
And if the planets did move like electrons, that would be somewhat terrifying - especially as electrons can teleport from region to region a la an electron in a box.
Though I do have some evidence that the planets have a measurable spin, so there is that, at least.
