Morbid Monday

I happened upon a great article titled "The Man Who Dissolved His Wife"...

On May 7th, Adolph reported his wife missing, but her family suspected foul play. Police questioned relatives and friends and searched the city for Louise Luetgert or her remains.

During a search of Luetgert’s factory on May 15th, a watchman suggested they look in a steam vat in the cellar that was used to dip sausages. The police looked inside, and found that the vat was filled halfway with a putrid-smelling, reddish-brown liquid. When the police pulled a plug near the bottom of the vat, on the outside, the slimy liquid and small pieces of bone fell out. Inside the cauldron, police found a gold ring with L.L. engraved on the inside.

But it turns out that article is just one in a series of Morbid Monday articles from Atlas Obscura.

They've a bunch of sick, sick articles, most of which are worth a read.

This week's big purchase

Bought myself two of each of these items...

It's kind of sad how excited I was when I found these on Amazon. I need to replace a few of my originals because they didn't survive the shipping for summer camp.

They're great for demonstrating that crystals with more empty space make for less workable metals. See, the top ones (the rainbow ones) have individual ice cube trays that are close together, little space between them. The trays slide back and forth past each other easily when they're turned so the ridges of one tray are against the ridges of the other tray.

The other ones (the white ones) have more empty space between them, bigger gaps. When you show the wider-spaced trays trying to slide back and forth past each other, the individual trays get stuck because they dip down into those gaps of the other tray.

More empty space = less workable metals

Why so anti-science?

Science is generally trustworthy.

Say it with me.

"Science is generally trustworthy."

See, not everybody in the United States understands that.

The Pew Research Center recently did a study looking at the general beliefs of the United States public and of the scientific community.

Turns out that the viewpoints of those two groups are radically different.

And that's a problem because we kind of depend on science for a whole lot of the awesomness that is our modern world.

Without animal testing, we would be without all of our modern medicines.

There are clearly a whole bunch of issues with public, wrong-headed beliefs that vaccines cost lives instead of  the truths that they save millions of lives and that the only research article that found links between autism and vaccines was entirely discredited. No, what kills people is the lack of vaccines (see California's current measles outbreak).

Even our Congressional leaders, the newest Congress, is among the most anti-science Congresses in history.

a test of scientific understanding

So, where does the fat go when you lose weight?

Answer after the jump...

Feathers in a vacuum

This experiment proves absolutely nothing whatsoever that hasn't been proven a whole bunch of times before.

It uses a huge amount of resources to do that, taking four hours of pumping to evacuate a giant room of all its air so that a British guy could drop a few feathers and a bowling ball at exactly the same time.

But all of that doesn't matter in the least because this is just do frickin' cool...

 

Chlorophyll / Blood demonstration

That looks pretty frickin' awesome.

Take some chlorophyll (readily available in leafy, green veggies) with a little boiling, shocking, blending with oil, filtering, and shining black (UV) light on the mess that's formed.

Gonna see if I can get one of my students to film this.

I like offering points to get somebody else to do the messy stuff I don't want to but that I want to see anyway.

Sci-ence is dead, long live sci-ence

I was saddened when Sci-ence.org closed up shop. Maki Naro shuttered sci-ence.org nearly a year ago and posted that he had begun a project as a blogger for Popular Science, a post that they've used to great effect off and on for a few years, taking in a cartoonist (webcartoonist, sometimes) to great effect, posting science-themed cartoons.

I'd kind of forgotten about Maki's transition until a few weeks ago when I dropped in on Boxplot, the Popular Science blog that Maki's putting out. Let's check out some of the webcomics posted there...each of which was posted with a somewhat in-depth analysis/explanation of the issue at hand...

The dome's never looked so good

My summer job is traveling the country presenting week-long workshops for teachers (primarily science teachers) on behalf of the ASM Materials Educational Foundation. As such, I get to spend a couple of April days at the ASM headquarters in Materials Park, OH in a southeastern suburb (or maybe exurb, I'm not familiar with the area) of Cleveland.

This year we were up there just after ASM had announced their new logo. You can see it in the video up above, but here's a still of it...

It's a needed update from their older logo...

...and gives them an opportunity for some new branding, such as in their six posters that we were able to see sitting in the dome's employee lunch area...

 

None were ready for production while we were there. I know, because I asked. I particularly love that second one, with the tagline "Make big plans!" referencing a quote by architect Daniel Hudson Burnham:

Make no little plans; they have no magic to stir men's blood and probably themselves will not be realized. Make big plans; aim high in hope and work.

It's a quote that is engraved on the Eisenman Fountain underneath the geodesic dome that rises above the ASM headquarters - and referenced in an editorial from Michael Connelly, one of the ASM trustees.

If you're ever in the area, stop by and check out the dome. It's a sight to see.

Better Baking Through Science

Last quarter, one of my students turned in an extra credit assignment in which she had made chocolate chip cookies and done a little research to explain the chemistry that went on while the cookies baked.

She brought in the cookies for the class, and they certainly weren't bad. They weren't the best I'd ever had, but they were cookies I didn't have to make myself. I'm not one to look a gift cookie in the mouth.

The best part of the project, though, was the two resources to which she pointed me. The first is a video from Ted-ED that explains a lot of the science involved as dough turns into cookie.



The second is from SeriousEats and goes through variable by variable, eventually finding what they say is the best recipe around. The author explores the macroscopic results that all twenty-one change make and the science involved.

I need to do some baking because their final results - with a little sprinkle of salt on top - look outstanding.

I wish I could link you to the Cooks Illustrated recipe, because it's got some interesting takes (browned butter, one whole egg + one yolk, extra brown sugar). Sadly, though, it's behind a paywall. If you're willing to pay, Cooks Illustrated is a fun site from tip to tail.

Awesome chemistry posters

Simon Page put together some posters for the 2011 'International Year of Chemistry'. Three of the prints are for sale on his online store, but they're prohibitively expensive (£55).

The rest of his posters are pretty gorgeous, too, with nice colors and geometric designs.

The other awesome chemistry posters I want to mention today are from Compound Interest and are way more informative than Page's. They aren't quite as pretty, but they're ones I would certainly post on the walls of my new classroom next year.

I want lots of them, and they're at least way cheaper ($12.81 per poster) though not quite as large (23" x 16").

Anybody wanna get me some gifts?

A moderately expensive joke

In what I'm guessing is a reference to a joke in Portal, water bottles with the following warning are being sold: "WARNING: May cause diaphoresis, micturition, and acute tissue hydration."

See, it's funny.

Sadly the bottles being sold by the Portal folks look kind of lame and have a giant Portal logo on one side...

 ...and it doesn't expressly say that it has that warning on the backside. Other sites, however, do show photos of the backside of the bottle...

At $9.99 plus S&H, that's not a bad price for a decent little gag, but I really don't like the Portal logo.

For a scant $31.05, however, I can get the same warning on a bottle of my chosen color thanks to Zazzle and can change the bottle size for an extra buck - or change the text color and other stuff, too.

Is a red bottle without the logo worth paying the extra $20 for?

I'm thinking that it might be.

"Not Our Fault" from Bob's Burgers

I am so geeked for the premiere of Cosmos this Sunday. Yeah, I love Bob's Burgers and all, but I don't think I've ever watched it anywhere but on Hulu anyway.

Update: Why this year was a failure

In regards to my recent post about wanting to see the aurora borealis, and it turns out that the lights were visible in Aberdeen where I spent a year a couple of decades ago.

I hate Scotland for having the lights now instead of then.

A magnetic personality

I would've never considered how magnets were made...particularly how the world's strongest magnets - strong enough to levitate a strawberry.



Super magnets like these can be really dangerous. You have to be careful lest you squish your hands.



How do they ship things like that?




I've considered buying some of the supermagnets from United Nuclear, but that would clearly be stupid.

Why this year was a failure...

Randal is right.

This year was a failure for me, too.

At some point I need to find a way to see the aurora borealis.

Thank you, Styx

Who doesn't love a good illusion, especially one you can play with?

Grand-Illusions.com has a fun assortment of novelties for sale and a digital museum of other fun toys that the owner has collected over the years. To make things even better, they have videos showing off almost all of the items.

I'm most interested in...

The nitonol spoon...

Fallen Astronaut

I know I should keep posting Christmas ephemera, but I feel like taking a little left turn today. I might fit some more Christmas something in later today.

Instead, I want to marvel at the brilliance of the only sculpture on the moon: Fallen Astronaut.

The sculpture is among the most touching, beautiful efforts of commemoration that I've ever heard of. One of the astronauts worked in advance to find as light-weight, hideable tribute to his fallen comrades (some of whom were actual, Soviet comrades - brotherhood knows no political bounds). He managed to sneak the sculpture up TO THE MOON, and then he and his fellow astronauts had to distract mission control long enough to set up a make-shift memorial.

I love the moon. I love the idea that we as a species walked on the moon. I desperately want us to get back to the moon.

More info about Fallen Astronaut on Wikipedia and at the Smithsonian.

Red Hot Nickel Ball is red hot

It seems to amazingly simple: heat a ball of nickel up to red hot and drop it into stuff.

But it's just so fascinating to watch.

Click through to see my favorite, Pop Rocks.

I need a few new ties...

I've been wearing more neckties again this year, something about trying to be good and work with the culture plan in the hopes that the situation at work can get better. So, I'm on the lookout for a few new ties...

I want but am to cheap to pay for some new chemistry ties like...

This one...

This one...(really want this one)...

This one...

This one...

This one...

This one...

This one (and in red, too)...

I already have a few novelty science-themed ties...

• DNA double helix (actually, I have it in blue)
• museum artifacts in yellow (and in maroon and in navy)
• atoms in blue
• chemistry novelty tie (had it, got cream pie all over it, ruined it)

And there are a number of science-themed ties that don't do much for me, just kind of meh...

• burgundy experiments
• navy blue elements
• most everything from zazzle
• Trust me, I'm a chemistry teacher
• white periodic table 
• navy blue periodic table
• black lab
• blue periodic table
• structure of the atom
• black periodic table
• elements & symbols
• test tubes

SubZero was so cool!

On one of my many travels this summer, I was lucky enough to get to visit SubZero, an ice cream store that makes their ice cream to-order with big squirts of liquid nitrogen.

The menu was a bit daunting with options on top of options:

• 5 six cream bases (premium, lowfat, custard, yogurt, non-dairy, soy/rice)
• 47 flavors (strawberry, chocolate, vanilla...citric acid, watermelon, Mt Dew, cotton candy...)
• 33 mix-ins (berries, chocolate flakes, Andes mints, mangoes, bubblegum...)
• various consistencies from soft serve to hard frozen

 ...but I managed to make a few choices and get to the sweet treat. Turns out the quick-freezing action of liquid nitrogen makes for a very smooth ice cream because the ice crystals never have a chance to grow large and make for grainy ice cream. The on-demand production lets them have all the options for everybody to order.

And it turns out it makes outstanding ice cream...with a show.

It's a blast. Give it a try if you're ever in the area. The closest to me (where I am in Cincinnati) is in downtown Cincinnati.


 Plus they do some pretty cool-looking educational outreach...