Chemistry

Science Play And Research Kit: Borax Bead And Flame Tests

You can perform simple qualitative analysis to detect certain metals in various substances using borax bead, and flame tests. The inoculating loop for these tests is very easy to make. You can use 20 gauge to 26 gauge Nichrome or platinum wire depending on ...

Article - Steve Schuler - Dec 18 2013 - 9:26am

How To Make Vodka More Awesome- Use It To Send Text Messages Wirelessly

Vodka can make people do strange things- especially if they also have a phone. But it can also do cool things, like demonstrating how to message people using chemical signals when conventional wireless would fail. Researchers in the UK have successfully t ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 18 2013 - 6:36pm

Softly Impossible: Table Salt's Bizarre Behavior At High Pressure

Though table salt, sodium chloride (NaCl), is one of the best-known and most studied chemical compounds known, it still has a few mysteries. Under ambient conditions, it crystallizes in a cubic unit cell and is very stable with one sodium atom (Na) and on ...

Article - News Staff - Dec 28 2013 - 12:31pm

Platinum Ain't Cheap But 'Cheapium' Could Be

Platinum is used in catalytic converters to transform toxic fumes from a car's engine into more benign gases, to produce high octane gasoline, plastics and synthetic rubbers, and to fight the spread of cancerous tumors. But it's not cheap, which ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 3 2014 - 4:27pm

How To Know If Your Chocolate Is Really Premium Chocolate

If you buy extra virgin olive oil, caveat emptor. Olive oil has been an avenue for corruption for hundreds and perhaps even thousands of years. Some extra virgin olive oil in studies was found to not only not be extra virgin, it wasn't even olive oil ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 15 2014 - 11:50am

Home Science Tools Chemistry Kits

While writing my series on the Science Play and Research Kit, I hoped to survey chemistry sets that are already on the market. I was able to get a reviewer’s sample of the Chem C3000 and you can take a look at my review of the Thames and Kosmos set here. ...

Blog Post - Steve Schuler - Jan 16 2014 - 7:38am

Salad Spinner Centrifuge

Follow me on Twitter: @SteveSchuler20. Back in the day, some chemistry sets came with a mechanical centrifuge. They were operated similar to those old-timey pump style tin spinning toy tops. This is the style centrifuge that came with my chemistry set: Not ...

Article - Steve Schuler - Mar 12 2015 - 7:48am

Grog- Inspiring Fights In Nordic Countries Since 1500 BC

Scholars writing in the Danish Journal of Archaeology say that "grog" dates back a lot farther than previously believed; to perhaps 1500 B.C. and in an area stretching from northwest Denmark to the Swedish island of Gotland. Like most things, so ...

Article - News Staff - Jan 17 2014 - 2:34pm

LittleBits Sample Rotator

In a previous article I built a magnetic stirrer using littleBits and Erector set parts for the home laboratory. At the end of the article I added a design for a sample rotator (a device used to continuously mix lab samples). I have (somewhat) improved the ...

Article - Steve Schuler - Jan 24 2014 - 10:03am

Close Enough For NIEHS Work

The subject of endocrine disruption is not particularly new, with extensive scientific and regulatory attention to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) over the last 20 years or so. A common definition, from the World Health Organization/International Pr ...

Article - Steve Hentges - Feb 28 2014 - 12:36am