POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/26/2009
Two Glow Sticks, one was broken normally and the other was cut open and the liquids mixed in a small bottle.
Glow sticks have become an extremely common trick or treating accessory. They are perfect for increasing the visibility of kids because they are safe, easy to use, and have an awesome spooky glow to them.
Most everyone has used a glow stick at some point or another, but have you ever wondered how they work? The answer lies in a simple chemical reaction.
The basic structure of a glow stick consists of a flexible plastic tube that contains a clear slightly oily substance (i’m not entirely sure what it is, but i’ve heard reports of it being some sort of ethyl group) and a glass ampule with hydrogen peroxide and a fluorescent dye. When you bend the stick, the glass breaks and the two chemicals are allowed to mix. This starts a chemical reaction that causes the stick to glow, an effect called Chemoluminescence.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/24/2009
Tonic water is a liquid that it often used as a mix in for alcoholic drinks, but did you know that it was originally used to prevent malaria? As the European powers colonized South Asia and and Africa, they began encountering new diseases such as malaria that caused much pain and suffering.
One of the solutions to the malaria epidemics was quinine, which was known to help ease the symptoms. However, quinine is extremely bitter and so it was diluted in water to create tonic water. In modern times, tonic water isn’t used as a cure or prevention of malaria, but that is how it began, as a medicine to prevent malaria.
An interesting note: tonic water glows blue under a black light, due to the quinine in it.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/23/2009
I was browsing Dark Roasted Blend and came across an article about an interesting toy called a Gomboc. The Gomboc has only one point of stable equilibrium and one point of unstable equilibrium, resulting in the Gomboc rolling around when placed on a flat surface.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/22/2009
In 1628 the Swedish navy sent their newest warship out on her maiden voyage. Upon leaving the harbor, the ship promptly heeled over and and sank to the ocean floor taking 30 to 50 of her sailors with her.
The reason for the sinking of the Vasa was her extremely unstable design. She was built too narrow with too little ballast and too much weight on the top. The instability of the design was quite obvious during stability tests of the new ship, but no one was willing to point it out to the king, thus allowing the ship to sail when it was obvious that she shouldn’t.
After a few attempts at raising her, the location of the Vasa was lost and she was not rediscovered until 1956. Finally, in 1961, the Vasa was raised and placed in the Vasa Museum in Sweden where she can be visited by the general public.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/15/2009
Every day we use water from the tap, from our sinks and showers, our hoses and washing machines. What few people know about this water is that it is actually treated with flourosilicic acid. This flouridation of the water is designed to help prevent tooth decay among the general population in a similar manner to the iodizing of salt.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/13/2009
Tempel 1 on Impact via
Nasa In late 2006, a Nasa probe, called Deep Impact, collided with the Tempel 1 comet. The resulting outgassing lasted for 13 days and released between 33 and 66 million pounds of matter.
The Deep Impact mission was instituted to learn more about the chemical makeup of comets. The spacecraft was made up of two parts, the flyby section and the impactor. The impactor hit the comet with the same force as an explosion of five tons of dynamite. The flyby section then flew through the plume of debris and collected data about it. The data was later radioed back to earth for analysis. The impactor also had a camera and recorded images until about 3 seconds before impact.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/11/2009
Nitroglycerin is extremely dangerous to work with, it explodes from even small physical shocks, and over time it becomes even more unstable.
In 1867, Alfred Nobel combined Nitroglycerin with diatomaceous earth to create a mixture known as dynamite. In addition to being used for mining and construction purposes, dynamite became a widely used tool of death and destruction.
In 1888, a french newspaper incorrectly printed a obituary about Nobel, who hadn’t yet died. The article harshly condemned him for creating a more efficient method of killing. This article had such an effect on Nobel that when he died he established the Nobel Prize to honor those who have made significant contributions to science.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/09/2009
…On the Moon. At the end of the Apollo 15 mission, immediately prior to returning to their spacecraft, astronauts David Scott and James Irwin performed a short experiment to prove that Galileo Galilei was correct in his theory that objects in a vacuum fall at the same rate regardless of their mass.
The experiment involved dropping a geology hammer and a falcon feather at the same time and seeing which one hit the surface first. On earth the hammer will always hit the ground first, but on the moon, where the atmosphere is all but nonexistent, both hit the ground at the same time. The actual cause for the disparity on earth is air resistance, not a difference in mass. Linked is a video of the experiment taken from the surface of the moon.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/05/2009
Thomas Edison may have invented the first commercially practical light bulb and popularized the usage of electricity, but Nikola Tesla made our modern electrical infrastructure possible.
In the late 1800’s Thomas Edison founded the Edison Illumination Company, which provided electricity to a small number of customers in Manhattan. The electricity was transmitted as 110 volts of DC current and thus could only be transmitted about two miles. Tesla introduced a new system, called alternating current, which allowed the power to be transmitted over longer distances by stepping up the voltage of the electricity with transformers. Without this new system, it would not have been economical to run national power grids because there would have to be a generating station every few miles.
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POSTED by: Scott McKittrick on 10/03/2009
Infrared light is a type of electromagnetic radiation that has a longer wavelength than visible light. Despite the fact that it’s invisible, it is actually all around us all the time. The interesting thing, is that a digital camera with a CCD in it (most digital cameras use them) can see infrared. In fact they are so good at seeing it, that digital cameras actually incorporate an infrared filter to prevent interference.
Tv remote controls use infrared light to send signals to the tv. While they are invisible to the naked eye, a digital camera (even one with the IR filter still in place) can see them. See the video demonstration here.
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