Even the Densest Metal Doesn't Exceed USPS Shipping Weight Limit

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So many words there...

That's 48 pounds of tungsten in a post office mailing box right there that people are trying to pick up. 

Apparently it's really tough to pick up 48 pounds of tungsten - which makes sense because tungsten is really dense...but not as dense as osmium.

Apparently filling the same box with osmium would give you 61.5 pounds (source) - thankfully still below the post office's maximum weight limit of 70 pounds. To quote...

Osmium’s density is 22.6 grams per cubic centimeter. OP measured the inside dimensions of the small flat rate box and multiplied them to get the volume, 75.3 cubic inches. This is equal to 1,234.5 cubic centimeters. So all we have to do is multiply 22.6 x 1234.5. This gives us 27,899.7 grams, which is 61.5 pounds.

So, unless you go hunting neutron star matter or dark matter or something exotic like that, you're good to put just about anything inside one of those post office mailers.

Hydrogen Isotopes

 

Source: https://xkcd.com/2719/

See, it's funny because hydrogen actually does have three isotopes with official names: protium (hydrogen-1), deuterium (hydrogen-2), and tritium (hydrogen-3).

If you're not ready to follow along, the empty circles with a + are protons. Each hydrogen by definition has to have one of those, so a couple of the isotopes up there aren't really hydrogen.

The filled, black circles are neutrons. Those can be different - which is what makes isotopes different in the real, non-xkcd world.

The smaller circles with a minus sign (-) are electrons. Most neutral hydrogens have one of those, too, because positives and negatives sort of need to balance each other out.

The rest of them in that diagram aren't real. Technically explainxkcd.com says ium and instant hydrogen technically exist but certainly aren't common. The oops, all neutrons is a reference it Cap'n Crunch's Oops, all berries cereal. I would reference a particular comedian's routine about the Oops, all berries cereal, but it's not school-appropriate. 

His name is K. Trevor Wilson...in case you wanted to look it up...which you clearly shouldn't do because he uses words that aren't school-appropriate. 

Can You Burn Metal?

TL;DR - sort of

Burning means to oxidize, which kind of means to combine with oxygen (and also kind of means to lose electrons), and metals can oxidize - we just normally call it rusting or corroding.

So, yes, metals can sort of burn but mostly it happens too slowly for us to notice it happening whereas burning happens way faster. To get that to happen, you'll need to get more metal exposed to more oxygen all at once - like by burning steel wool.

It's not pyrophoric or anything, but it's kind of neat.

Why Baking Soda is the Most Useful Ingredient in Your Kitchen | What's Eating Dan?

pH is frickin' cool.

Today's video has Dan explaining how baking soda helps with browning (facilitating the maillard reactions), tenderizing ground meat while letting it stay moist, and can help speed up the cooking of kidney beans, onions, polenta, green beans, and broccoli.

Watch the video and become a better cook.

Why salt crystals grow as pyramids (sometimes)

Some explanations are so remarkably simply that I never would've thought of them.

I've heard of hopper crystals in bismuth for years. I always assumed that they were studied by a scientist named Hopper. In this video, Adam Ragusea explains that they're actually called hopper crystals (not Hopper crystals) because they resemble the shape of a hopper that feeds ingredients into a production line.

And that's just the surface level of new knowledge that I got from this video. Adam spends much more time trying to explain why making hopper crystals of salt - the ones he shows and that I have in my cabinets at home as Maldon salt - is hard to do. Apparently they only form in super-saturated salt solutions and then only stay hopper-shaped pyramids until they either bump into other crystals to form a raft or get heavy enough to sink to the bottom of the solution and in-fill with more salt.

If only they could get them to grow in space - as an International Space Station experiment shown in the video recounts...

Why November is the most dangerous month for trains

Heya, Steve. Good to have you back.

I'll fully admit that I assumed this was going to be a dead simple explanation. Leaf cover decreases friction because leaf-on-leaf friction is less than train-on-rails friction.

Turns out it's a lot more complicated than that, needing to look at pectin and the creation of a natural 'jam' on the rails.

Who would've guessed that the chemistry of leaf litter would result in longer travel times in the month of November in England?

Problems with gas stovetops | weak, dirty and dangerous

Vinegar leg on the right, folks.

Took me a while to figure out what the heck that was about, but I've been watching Adam Ragusea for a while now. His videos are a nice balance of cooking technique and science. Plus I like his style - at least in these shorter videos. (Admittedly his filmed podcasts drive me a little bonkers - as is the case with most hour-long podcasts that seem like fifteen minutes of content stretched and rambled out to a full hour.)

I'm fairly well convinced that my next stovetop needs to be induction, not gas.