More star-spanglered science

Every year, at least once, I get asked why helium makes your voice higher. It's been something that I probably should have explored and done some research on, but I never got around to it. Luckily I stumbled upon the above video that not only does a great job explaining things but also takes the marvelous extra step of having an assistant suck down a little sulfur hexafluoride to show off the opposite effect.

The main guy in the video is Steve Spangler whose blog reads like an excellent primer on, most prominantly, the Mentos & Diet Coke eruptions. The blog also has lots of interesting entries detailing Spangler's clear skills in and love for showing the coolness of science.

You can also see Spangler demonstrating insta-snow. Both of these videos come to us thanks to Snacks4TheBrain, yet another cool science blog.

Still no luck, though, in hunting down that video for the iodine clock demo timed out to the 1812 overture. If anybody can help me out there, I'd be much obliged.