Are Electric Cars Really More Environmentally Friendly?

I'd heard that at one point the average electric car (or hybrid) is worse for the environment to produce than even a Hummer because of the energy that goes into the production of the battery. The moment the two vehicles start driving, the electric vehicle starts catching up with its Hummer competitor.

The video today doesn't necessarily get into that. It looks at the efficiency of electricity produced by power plants and compares that to how efficient a gas-powered car would need to be in order to be more efficient than an average EV in various states of the US.

I did not know that - as of this video being produced in 2018 - Colorado was the dirtiest power-generating state and that Alaska was the cleanest.

Metals in glass are AWESOME!

So many pretty colors of glass!

I have to hunt down some of those metal oxides to add to my glass in matsci class.

Just look at the possibilities...

source - from YouTube video above

Oh, and the video talks about how some metal oxides (erbium and holmium, in particular) change color in different light sources, but that doesn't diminish how pretty they all are.

source - from YouTube video above

I may make a project out of producing that rainbow up there for myself.

Anybody want to pitch in to share in the purchase of the various oxides? I know I won't be able to buy less than like a quarter pound each, and I'll only need like twenty grams 

How The World's Most Expensive Color Is Made

Good lord that's a labor-intensive process.

I understand that the quality of the final product is important and noticeable by really discerning artists and art lovers, but I'm amazed that anybody still uses this method to produce ultramarine blue from lapis lazuli. I'm kind of glad to know that he uses a different - supposedly secret, faster, and higher-yielding than the Cennini method.

I'll warn you that the later half of the video is mostly about the politics and economics of the mining in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. It's interesting, but it's not so much about the material production but more about material sourcing.

 

Making Uranium Glass With some Unusual Properties!

I make glass with some regularity in my material science class. We batch glass and add in manganese oxide (purple), chromium oxide (green), copper oxide (light blue), and cobalt oxide (dark blue) to produce colors.

From watching this video, I'm thinking I may need to buy some new crucibles and try other oxides to check out more colors. I'm not as worried about their color under UV light - though that is kind of gorgeous - but rather under various visible light sources.

Source - compound interest

Science Hasn't Answered Why This Works

Clickbait titles aside, Nate From The Internet (formerly of The King of Random youtube channel) has been posting some outstanding videos of late.

This one looks at how temperature and soap both have effects on the brightness of the glowsticks - hence on the rate of the chemical reaction taking place within the glowstick.

My thought is that the soap allows the oil- and water-based chemicals in the glow stick (my source here is that I've cut glowsticks open and put my hands in the liquid, noticing that some of the liquid felt oily) to mix together more effectively which speeds up the reaction.

The $1 Trillion Problem Diamonds Can Solve

Polycrystalline diamonds aren't nearly as pretty as monocrystalline ones are, but they seem to be much easier to produce - especially if you're trying to grow them onto a computer chip.

...which I would never have thought to do but which seems to be really desirable because diamond is a phenomenal conductor of heat, seemingly an improvement on aluminum as a heat sink for electronics on a massive scale.

image from YouTube video above

All that's left is to grow those diamonds via chemical vapor deposition - which is also incredibly cool.

Why Making Blue M&M’s Is So Hard | WSJ

I'll admit to having long-term skepticism about the use of artificial sweeteners, dyes, preservatives, and a lot of other things in our world.

But I also admit that artificial blues are way more vibrant and pretty on M&Ms than the spirulina-based candies.

I know that Aldi's private label goods have eliminated products with artificial dyes, I wonder if they sell any blue candies.