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.

Refueling a NUCLEAR REACTOR - Smarter Every Day 311

This video is ridiculously long, like longer than a lot of movies long, like 106 minutes long, like as long as The Graduate.

That's a result of the commodification of our time and the values of the YouTube algorithm, but that's a story for another day.

This video shows what it takes to refuel a nuclear reactor, and Destin does an amazing job of being our stand-in character. He does a brilliant job every step of the way.

...and in spite of the multiple security steps and procedural double- and triple-checks every step along the way, I'm still nervous about nuclear power.

Apparently the steps involved in making the videos has made Destin more trusting about nuclear power, however. The video title below even says as much.

How To Separate Alcohol And Water

I have the bottle on which this video is based in my classroom. It's a product available from Educational Innovations (a subsidiary of Flinn Scientific).

I've posted about the bottle before, but this video's from the Action Lab and does a neat extension involving the ink from a permanent marker. I've done something similar using faceted acrylic beads that have a pigment that dissolves off of the beads and into the alcohol-rich phase of the bottle, leaving the beads white (and after a time, inconveniently distorted, sticky, and gushy). That addition is thanks to Bernoli Baello, with whom I was lucky enough to teach our summer camp once.

Coke Just Revolutionized Coke

Last week's video looked at whether Mexican Coke contained any glucose or sucrose or fructose. 

This week's video follows up on that with a whole lot more accuracy and precision in a college chemistry research lab at Shippensburg University.

The lab student then tested a much fresher, sucrose-sweetened Sarsaparilla soft drink from a local, Pennsylvania bottler.

then...Then...THEN, they test an American Coke flavored by cane sugar, something the video host said he didn't think existed in the past bunch of decades.

...and visited NPR studios.

Everyone is Wrong About Mexican Coke (Even ‪@johnnyharris‬)

It's been a whole lot of years since I've done a Benedicts Test, so I'm going to trust that our YouTube host from Reactions (a channel from the American Chemical Society - ACS).

Luckily he used a second test, a glucose monitor, to back up the results.

Fascinatingly, the video goes on to possibly debunk the idea that Mexican Coke doesn't contain any actual sucrose - which it should if it was made with cane sugar as it claims to be.

See, the video started with trying to recreate those results - that Mexican Coke doesn't contain any sucrose - from a journal article, but the video ends with a deeper understanding: that sucrose undergoes an "acid-catalyzed sucrose inversion to free fructose and glucor...in the low-pH environment of most carbonated beverages."

So the presence of glucose in the Mexican Coke doesn't mean that Coke is lying to us but perhaps that it's just more complicated.