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.

When Kitty Litter Caused a Nuclear Catastrophe

I am consistently amazed that we have had so many nuclear / radioactive material accidents in such a little time since we discovered how to harness it in the mid 20th century.

There are a bunch of nuclear weapons that we've lost, aka broken arrows, some of which we've never found...

...close calls where we've almost set off nuclear weapons...

...military accidents that lead to near criticality or releases of radioactive material...

...civilian accidents that released radioactive material...

...and one solo civilian who nearly joined the nuclear fraternity himself...

That doesn't even include the time John Lithgow almost killed us all by letting a high school kid build a nuclear bomb for his science project.

The above video details how an accidental replacement of one letter in somebody's hand-written notes - 
"use inorganic absorbent" changed into "use an organic absorbent" - lead to a release of radioactive material from a storage facility in New Mexico.

I'm starting to think that nuclear power and weapons might not be worth the risk.