How Do Color Changing Oreos Work (Spider-Man & Captain America)

I'm a sucker for novelty flavors - particularly novelty flavors of Oreos.

So I bought the Doctor Doom, color-changing Oreos and didn't notice any color change happening.

Admittedly, I wasn't dunking the cookies in milk. I was just eating them and noticed maybe a slight greenness to my teeth and tongue, but the green was dominated by the standard brown of Oreo crumbs and the dark brown, 'toasted marshmallow' cream.

So I went hunting and found that the color change is accomplished by encapsulated dye within water-soluble capsules. When the capsules come into contact with water (or milk which is, of course, water-based), the capsules release their dye.

Thankfully the cream is primarily oil-based, so the capsule don't dissolve until they're in milk...or water...or saliva.

What happens if you eat a silica get packet? - Vivian Jiang

Do not eat.

It's such a simple instruction that we've all read a hundred times or more on the tiny silica gel packets that come in sneaker boxes, shirts shipped from warehouses, and many more fabric and leather goods.

But why shouldn't you eat silica gel? If it's just silica, then it's the same as sand. While eating sand might be unpleasant, it's not necessarily unsafe if it's clean sand.

The increased surface area of the silica gel - one gram of silica gel has more than 700 square meters of surface area according to the video - is the issue. That surface area and its attractiveness toward polar molecules - water, ammonia, and other small molecules - cause it to absorb 40% its weight in water, making it a spectacular desiccant. 

In general, the silica gel wouldn't do too much harmful to your body unless it had a cobalt chloride coating.

Student submitted - Saponification

Today's post was submitted by Aleeyah B, one of my AP chemistry students. As a sub assignment after the AP chemistry exam, I had students submit two posts for this blog. I'll be posting them over the next few weeks.

We use soap every day, I hope, but we rarely stop to think about the chemistry of it. This source tells us that soap is made when a fat or oil made of triglycerides (fat found in blood) reacts with a strong base such as sodium hydroxide. This reaction breaks down the triglyceride molecules and makes something called glycerol (a sugar alcohol) and what we call soap. Every soap molecule has two ends, one hydrophilic and one hydrophobic. The hydrophobic end attracts to the oil and grease (non-polar), while the hydrophilic side attracts to the water (polar). As we wash our hands, the soap is able to grab the oil, but is also able to be washed away by the water.

Something that I thought was funny was that soap doesn’t just murder all the germs on your hands, but actually washes them away. I always thought soap instantly killed any bacteria it touched, and not necessarily washed them away.

You can learn more about saponification at this link.

Boxed cake vs scratch cake — Why bakers can't beat SCIENCE

A few years back - when we were still in the previous iteration of Princeton High School - I had my AP chemistry students make cupcakes with three separate leavening methods: baking soda, baking powder & soda, and mechanical leavening (whipping egg whites). The three methods are fascinatingly different and produce very different results.

In this video Adam and his baker friend look at the differences between box cake mix and from-scratch cakes. They're not quite looking at just the leavenings, but the science behind the differences are fascinating.

I'm sometimes sad that we went with material science rather than food science as one of our science electives at Princeton. I wish I had a good curriculum for high school students to explore food science, but that would also require a cooking classroom - something that our principal at the time of the building of new Princeton High School wasn't interested in building anything that practical.

Drink THIS If Your Mouth Is Burning

Well, dangit.

I've been saying that the heat-killing ability of milk toward chili peppers was because the capsaicin is soluble in fat which means that full-fat milk should be way more effective at reducing the burn.

But the study cited in this video says that skim milk was slightly more effective than was full-fat milk.

Dangit, how dare they learn something that makes a good story I've been telling for a couple of decades not be true anymore...

油はちゃんと固まる？固めるテンプルを使った結果【講師：舐岡味郎】

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.

What exactly is the goop inside a lava lamp?

Unless the lamp has broken, the 'lava' is inside the glass, so shouldn't they be 'magma' lamps?

Hah, see, that's funny.

And some lava lamps have an important use in internet security, but what's inside them?

I'll say that I appreciate the presenter's sense of humor. YRMV

Clearly...

To the seriousness, the recipe is, as the presenter admits, rather finicky. Add a little of this, add a little of that, try adding a little more of a third thing. Repeat until it works. 

For a classroom activity, I would want a much more precise so my students could get a higher rate of success. I'm guessing that they might not be as persistent as the presenter. We've talked about the students needing a bit more grit and perseverance, but I'll admit that I would likely get frustrated with trying the method that the presenter presents.

I am curious about the IMFs in the braklean (still available as tetrachloroethylene (with CO₂ propellant, by the way) and how well it mixes into the paraffin. 

Curious...might be a fun summer project, but I'm happy to just buy a lava lamp.

How Lava Lamps Are Made | The Making Of

Lava lamps, still relevant today.

So, molten blob of glass blown into bottle shape. Check.

Two questions there...one, we see the workers throw away two bottles in the maybe ten second film clip. That seems a really high failure rate or an incredible fluke. Two, I wonder what kind of glass they're using. I would think soda lime would risk cracking from the uneven heating from the bulbs versus the air.

Metal pieces spun and polished. Check.

If you want to see something about how dislocations allow for that metal spinning, check this out.

Fill 'the liquid' in the bottle along with a metal spring. Check.

So we know one of the liquids is 'colored wax' meaning it had to be nonpolar. I assume that the other liquid is something polar. I get that the family makes sure the trade secret is kept secret, but I desperately want to know if at least I'm correct about the polarities.

Maybe I should just stare at the lava lamp I own for a while to calm down.

Cocoa Powder That Can't Get Wet in Milk

We do this experiment in honors chem at Princeton HS when we study intermolecular forces.

The general response that I get from most students the first time they do the experiment successfully is general grossness and stunned. The peeling of the 'skin' of the cocoa is just so gross.

We, admittedly, don't do the demo with the lycopodium powder, but we might be doing that in the future. We do something similar to that with Magic Sand, though.

And we certainly don't do the demo with the vacuum pump. I have a vacuum pump, though. Interesting. Might be worth trying in the future.

And the flammable water at the end...hmmm...

Tentacled droplets swim with stored heat energy

Okay, I will readily admit right off the bat that I have no clue what is happening here.

I can describe it using the words of the ChemistryWorld.com article from which this video comes...

Beginning as innocuous oily droplets about 20–40μm across floating in water, these structures take on faceted, crystal-like shapes when cooled to around 2-8°C – even though they aren’t frozen. Then things get really weird. 

Some of the particles’ facets grow while other shrink, producing a variety of geometrical forms such as kites, isosceles triangles and spiked tetrahedra. Then, from some of the sharp corners emerge tentacle-like strands, as if being extruded from a nozzle. As they grow, the strands bend into undulating shapes – and the droplets start to swim, propelled through the fluid by the tentacles’ extension.

What the heck? The tentacles appear as the microdroplets are cooled, propelling the microdroplet forward. Then, as the droplet is warmed again, the tentacles retreat back into the droplet? That's weird.

Luckily, I'm not the only one stumped as to what's happening here. " ‘I have really no idea what is going on,’ [McLeish] admits. "

The world is strange. 

Let's try to keep it that way.

Piezoelectricity - why hitting crystals makes electricity

Heya, Steve. Good to see you back again.

The part of this video that I think I most appreciate is the actual look at the guts of a piezo electric safety lighter. I've used them for a long time and never quite been sure how they work on the inside.

I also appreciate Steve's comments on quarts 'healing crystals' around 1:40. "Don't know if you take it orally or..."

And then we get into the fact that piezoelectricity is dependent on the electronegativity differences in a quart crystal (admittedly simplified in Steve's peanut-butter-jar model). I'm totally duplicating this post for my material science blog because of that explanation.

Why our sewers are plagued by fatbergs

Don't pour grease and oil down the drain...pretty much ever.

See, sewage is washed down the pipes by the way of water. 

Water takes along with it things that are soluble in water...like salt...food coloring...the eventual product of goldfish 'sent back to the sea'...

...but not things that are NOT soluble in water...like oil...grease...

But it's even worse (as Hank Green tells us in the above video) because of the hydrogen sulfide created by bacteria in human waste. The hydrogen sulfide eventually turns to sulfuric acid which reacts with lime in concrete (which most of our sewers are made of) which eventually crumbles the concrete and releases calcium sulfate. The calcium sulfate then reacts with fatty acids (oils, grease) and turns them into soaps (a la Fight Club).

And whatever non-waste stuff you're flushing down the toilet ('flushable' wipes, tampons, whatever) is just making that stuff stick to the walls even worse.

Sewage stuff is gross, man...gross.

So, don't pour oil and fat down the drain.

Don't flush anything but poop, pee, and toilet paper.

Modified sponge mops up oil but not water

"Due to the nature of the industry, cost-effective high absorbents are needed...Any advancement to have high spill sorbent is of use." ~ Seshadri Ramkumar

See, what he's saying is that the oil industry (and the shipping industry and pretty much everybody else) spills oil in the ocean...and lakes...and rivers...and fields...so we need to be ready to soak up the oil.

The environmental impact and morals of our modern dependence on fossil fuels aside, the chemistry here is pretty cool.

Though the name of 'compound 1' seems a little odd to me because I can't imagine that the first compound they tried was their successful attempt. There's a reason why we have Formula 409.

Either way, 'compound 1' attracts to nonpolar solvents like oils but has little to no attraction to polar solvents (like water).

Shardik would be fine

See, it's funny because the bear in the water is a polar bear.

In chemistry, polar means one side of the species (molecule, usually) has a slight positive charge, and the other side a slight negative charge. This means the polar molecule will attract to water which is also polar.

Non-polar bears (brown bears, black bear, spectacled bears, koala bears, gummi bears) wouldn't dissolve in water.

Though they should be careful about swimming in cyclohexane because it's non-polar, so non-polar solutes would dissolve in it.

Drawing On Water-It Is So Surreal!

Such a cute little guy there with his floaty, bendy legs and balloon.

I'm going to have to try this out because it looks pretty dang simple to do, and the application of polarity seems pretty straight forward.