Anne Marie's Chemistry Blog

I saw an interesting book at the local library the other day. It was about 100 scientific facts everyone should know. Unfortunately, many of the facts weren't facts at all and some weren't particularly vital. It got me thinking... what scientific concepts should everyone know? I've started a list. You can post additional ideas. I'll clean up the list once it's long enough. What do you think everyone should know about science?

Science changes.
Science is dynamic. Not everything you learned growing up is 'true' today.

Clear liquids aren't always water.
Hydrochloric acid is clear. You wouldn't want to drink it.

You need oxygen to live.
Just as not all clear liquids are water, not all gases contain oxygen. Plus, you can diminish the amount of oxygen when you introduce other gases (e.g., carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide from combustion, helium from a balloon). Keeping this little scientific tidbit in mind may someday save your life.

Hot air rises.
So... if you can only heat the first or second floor of your house, heat the first floor.

What goes up must come down.
Gravity. Don't set heavy objects where they can fall on your foot, etc.

Water flows to the lowest point.
It's gravity in action. All liquids flow 'down'. This is handy to know if you ever need to actually find water, but its more practical applications involve plumbling and drainage.

Most materials expand when heated and contract when cooled.
Notable exceptions are water (ice floats, also important) and some types of wax. You can use this information to help open glass jars with metal lids, among other things.

That which doesn't kill you does not necessarily make you stronger.
I'm sure leaded paint chips taste nice and sweet. They won't kill you outright, but they aren't good for you. If you don't die immediately from something, that doesn't mean it's non-toxic.

While pure water doesn't conduct electricity, normal water does.
Hence it's a bad plan to have electric appliances where they can fall into the tub. It's not a great idea to go to the beach during a thunderstorm.

If you saw yesterday's photo of flaming drinks you may be thinking they are too beautiful to drink. Another reason you might not want to drink them is because I suspect the liquid in those glasses is wax and not alcohol, since alcohol in a glass usually burns with a blue flame. If you want glasses of golden flame to use as a decoration, pour some oil for liquid candles into a glass and ignite it. On the other hand, if you want flaming drinks you can actually drink, you can ignite any high-proof alcohol. Most commonly this is 151 rum, but any alcoholic beverage 150-proof or higher will work. Many flaming drinks today are flaming shots, but you can set most drinks on fire:

Basic Flaming Drink Directions

• Prepare your drink.
• Warm a little liquor in a spoon. Hold your hand steady so that the flammable vapor can collect right over the liquid.
• Ignite the alcohol in the spoon and pour it onto your drink.
• Dim the lights to enjoy the show, then blow out the flame before taking a drink. Be careful! The glass and drink may be hot.

Flaming B-52

If you're ready for something a little more advanced, try my personal favorite, a flaming B-52. This is a layered drink. If you make it correctly, you will have a tricolored drink topped by a flame.

B-52 Ingredients

• Kahlua
• Irish Cream
• Grand Marnier or Cointreau
• shot glass
• spoon or a maraschino cherry
• match
• 151 rum

• Fill the shot glass about a third full with Kahlua.
• You form layers with the lighter alcohols by slowly pouring them over the back of a spoon (or a cherry), touching the side of the glass just above the liquid. Use this technique to slowly add a layer of Irish Cream over the Kahlua.
• Add a layer of Grand Marnier on top of the Irish Cream.
• Pour a couple of drops of 151 on top of the Grand Marnier and light the drink on fire.
• If you use warmed Grand Marnier, you don't even need the 151.
• You can drink the lit drink using a long straw, from the bottom of the drink. It's more prudent to blow out the flame before drinking the B-52.

Here's a nice YouTube video you might want to watch if you want to see how to form the layers. Once you learn how to layer drinks, you can try this technique with other liqueurs (or sugar water, if you want something non-alcoholic with even more layers). Combinations to try (heaviest to lightest) include Tia Maria, Irish Cream, Absinthe or Amaretto, Irish Cream, and rum.

Flaming Drink Safety

Fire is fun and all, but you need to be safe.

• Don't mix or drink flaming drinks if you're intoxicated.
• You really ought to blow out the fire before drinking the drink. In my opinion, it's not worth burning yourself.
• Don't add spirits to a flaming drink.
• Use heavy glassware to minimize the chance of the glass cracking.
• Short or rounded glasses tend to work better than tall, narrow glasses.
• Don't prepare or serve flaming drinks near open bottles of liquor.

Fire State of Matter | Fire Projects
Photo: This bartender is making five flaming martinis at once. Usually you make the drinks and then ignite them... I guess he is using a different technique. (Tom Purves, Flickr Creative Commons)

Do you have hard water? If you do, you may have a water softener to help protect your plumbing from scale buildup, prevent soap scum, and lessen the amount of soap and detergent needed for cleaning. You've probably heard that cleansers work better in soft water than in hard water, but does that mean you will feel cleaner if you bathe in soft water? Here's an email I received about that question:

Hi,

For the first time we have a water softener in our house. After showering, I feel slippery, as though I haven't rinsed off all the soap. Is this my imagination at work or is it harder to rinse off in soft water? Will soap which has not been rinsed off make my already dry skin drier? Is there a solution to my problem (presuming I have one)?

Thanks,

DB

No, it's not your imagination. Yes, the soap residue could cause your skin to become drier.

Hard water contains calcium and magnesium ions. Water softeners remove those ions by exchanging them for sodium or potassium ions. Two factors contribute to that slippery-when-wet feeling you get after soaping up with soft water. First, soap lathers better in soft water than in hard water, so it's easy to use too much. The more dissolved soap there is, the more water you need to rinse it away. Second, the ions in softened water lessen its ability to 'stick' to the soap molecules, making it more difficult to rinse the cleanser off your body. There are a few ways you can address the problem. You can use less soap, try a synthetic liquid body wash, or rinse with naturally-soft water or rainwater (probably won't contain elevated levels of sodium or potassium).

Hard & Soft Water | How Soap Works
Photo: It's harder to work up a lather in hard water, yet rinsing in soft water may leave you feeling slippery. (Nicholas Eveleigh, Getty Images)

When I'm dead, I don't think I'm going to care what happens with my body. However, I realize my family might not feel the same, so perhaps the idea of being dissolved with lye as opposed to a more traditional burial or cremation, would be problematic for them. If you're new to the idea of alkaline hydrolysis, here's how it works. A 300°F solution of a strong base, in this case lye (sodium hydroxide), is sprayed on a body at 60 pounds of pressure per square inch in what looks sort of like a body-shaped stainless steel pressure cooker. The base hydrolyzes the tissues, leaving a syrupy brown liquid and some bone residue. The bone residue could be collected and dried, if desired, similar to the collection of cremated remains. In the case of animal carcasses, the solution is washed down the drain. There are two medical centers using the equipment for research cadavers (University of Florida in Gainesville and the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, MN). They flush the remains, too. Although the solution has a strong odor, it is sterile and does not pose a threat to the water supply.

The equipment for alkaline hydrolysis is a little more expensive than what you need for cremation, but the process may be more environmental friendly than cremation, which releases carbon dioxide and mercury from dental amalgams. The sodium hydroxide solution may be less troublesome than the blood and leftover embalming fluid washed down the drain when a body is prepared for burial.


Dissolving a Body with Hydrofluoric Acid | What Causes Rigor Mortis?

You've probably heard that Hawaii's Kilauea developed a new vent back in March that has been spewing out volcanic fumes. The fumes from the volcano react with the air and water to produce vog, or volcanic smog. Volcanoes National Park was closed for a bit last month because of the fumes. It's nasty stuff... sulfur dioxide. The same gas is produced from burning fossil fuels, so except that it comes from a volcano, vog is the same as smog. Sulfur dioxide from either source forms a haze when the sunlight reacts it with other gases in air. The reaction with water produces acid rain. What does this mean for Hawaii? It's nothing new, since Kilauea has had an active vent for a long time. The vog is substantially worse than it was, however, causing damage to certain crops and asthma-like symptoms in some people.

Hawaii Chemistry | Green Sand Beach
Photo: Visitors to Volcanoes National Park are warned of the potential hazards associated with breathing fumes from volcanic vents. (Anne Helmenstine)

A snazzy new health club is opening up near me. I got the flyer in the mail trying to entice me to pick up a charter membership. If you know much about me, you know I'm a devotee of water sports and daily yoga/pilates, so I thought long and hard about joining the club. After much consideration, I decided I'm not going to get a better workout swimming in an indoor pool than I do bodyboarding at the beach (though admittedly the pool has no sharks). I'd love to try kickboxing or tai bo, but the classes were just yoga and pilates. My workout routine needed a boost, though, so I went to the store and picked up some heavier dumbbells and weighted ball. The kids asked me why the weights are labeled in lbs when the unit is pounds. I didn't know the answer, so I went to Google.

I learned that 'pound' is short for 'pound weight' which was libra pondo in Latin. The libra part meant both weight or balance scales. The Latin usage was shortened to libra, which naturally was abbreviated 'lb'. We adopted the pound part from 'pondo', yet kept the abbreviation for libra. There you go... something to ponder while doing curls and bench presses.

Unit Conversion Worksheets | Constants, Prefixes, and Conversion Factors

I've been looking at my crystal recipes (a girl can't write about fire all the time, right?) and wanted to check in with readers about the type of crystal-growing projects you would like to see. Are you looking for the projects that are reliable and safe for kids? Are you looking for challenging projects, not likely to be found elsewhere online? Do you want to see a mix of different projects? Here's a poll that gives you a chance to voice your opinion. If you have more to say, by all means, post a comment. (For those of you who hate crystals, don't worry... I haven't forgotten about you.)


What Is a Crystal? | Crystal Recipes

No, that is not my car windshield defrosting. It's not a photo of some weird mold, either. These are crystals my kids and I grew outdoors on the glass patio table this morning.

I didn't get up this morning and think, "Oh! It would be a perfect day to grow crystals on my table!" I was working on another crystal project (hope to post it later this week) and had some leftover solution. I had run my solution through a coffee filter to clear out undissolved solids (and dog hair that mysteriously worked its way into the solution) and recalled a tutorial for making quick crystals in the sun. It was warm and sunny outside, so I thought I'd set the coffee filter on the table to dry and maybe grow quick crystals. The filter turned out okay, but the solution we had accidentally spilled on the glass table produced these crystals. If a little solution is good, more is better, right? The kids started making little pools of solution across the table, some containing dots of food coloring. We made up other crystal growing solutions to try. In the end, the table was flooded with solution, producing a sparkling rainbow when the liquid hit the hot glass.



If you want to try this at home, I recommend using the following solution:

• 1 cup hot water
• 1/2 cup table salt
• 1/2 cup vinegar

Mix the salt, vinegar, and water. This solution is non-toxic. This is important, since your pets might help (mine did), kids will want to touch the crystals, and there is a good chance you will end up washing the solution onto your porch or yard. When you are done, definitely break out the garden hose, since any salt solution could corrode the metal on your table if left there indefinitely. The rate of evaporation will affect the size of the crystals. Fast evaporation will yield numerous tiny crystals. Slower evaporation (cooler temperatures, higher humidity) will produce larger crystals. Have fun!

Photo: My patio table. Note the lovely scratches in the glass. (Anne Helmenstine)