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There's just something cool about layering colored liquids! This particular density column shows off the red, white and blue colors, plus (of course) you can light it on fire. I've got instructions for patriotic-colored liquid layers using common household materials, or you can make a layered mixed drink for a holiday celebration. Both alcoholic and non-alcoholic versions are simple to make!     Red, White and Blue Layered Mixed Drinks Red: food coloring with 151 rum or red fruit juice or grenadine White: Irish cream or half-and-half or milk Blue: food coloring with simple syrup or blue curacao

Did you know you can get a condition called "popcorn lung" from breathing the artificial butter flavoring from microwave popcorn? The artificial butter flavoring is a naturally-occurring chemical called diacetyl. Diacetyl causes no problems in the butter, milk, cheese, beer, and wine where it's found, but when vaporized it can cause damage to the bronchioles in the lungs, eventually deteriorating them into the serious irreversible condition called bronchiolitis obliterans. If you nuke a bag of popcorn every now and then, it's not a health concern for you, but workers in the factories producing the butter-flavored popcorn are at risk for lung damage, as are consumers who pop a couple of bags of corn daily. I would guess theater concession stand employees would also fall into this category.

May 21 st was the birthday of two men who invented two electric diagnostic devices that are often confused with each other. The EEG, or electroencephalogram device, was invented by German psychologist Hans Berger to record electrical signals from the brain. The ECG or EKG, otherwise known as electrocardiogram was invented by Dutch physician Willem Einthoven to measure the electrical current given off by heart beats. Perhaps nobody mixes these two devices up, but I sometimes do. All you have to remember: EEG - brain waves, ECG or EKG - heart beats.

Liquid nitrogen is literally cool! If you get hold of some, I expect you to be creative coming up with things to do with it. However, what if you're stumped for ideas? I'm planning to get some liquid nitrogen and want to make sure I don't miss any cool projects. Therefore, I've compiled a list of activities you can perform using liquid nitrogen, plus there is a section where you can read ideas for liquid nitrogen projects or add your own favorite project. Of course, you're welcome to post an idea right here.

013 marked professional networking site LinkedIn’s ten year anniversary.  By the end of its first decade, the company netted 225 million members, with a growth rate of over two members per second. [1] Now with 277 million members, LinkedIn has the largest number of users of any online professional network in the world. [2] “LinkedIn is, far and away, the most advantageous social networking tool available to job seekers and business professionals today,” according to Forbes. [3] “I’m often asked, ‘How important is it for those already near the top of their careers to be utilizing resource tools such as LinkedIn?’ Most times, these questions come out of not fully understanding what you can do with a LinkedIn account and profile,” says career coach John Crant of SelfRecruiter.com [4] So, how can you harness LinkedIn’s vast audience and  successfully showcase and disseminate your published content? Utilize your strongest promotional tool on LinkedIn – your profil...

How organic chemists tweak existing molecules and build new ones from scratch Natural products—molecules originally isolated from bacteria, fungi, plants, and other sources—often have medicinal values that can be enhanced by careful

Malaria has been a problem for people for all of history. It usually causes symptoms a lot like flu, fevers, chills and nausea--even causing death. The term malaria or mal aria means "bad air". Medieval doctors thought there was something in the air that causes the disease. On May 13, 1857, Ronald Ross was born. Ross was an Anglo-Indian physician who discovered malaria is caused by the parasite Plasmodium . This parasite would be spread by mosquito bites. A female mosquito would bite an infected animal or person, get infected itself, and infect everyone it bit afterwords. Describing the life-cycle of Plasmodium would earn Ross the 1902 Nobel Prize in Medicine. 1975 - Marguerite Catherine Perey died. Perey was a French physicist who discovered the element francium. She found the elusive element while investigating lanthanum samples. Francium is produced by the alpha disintegration of actinium and has a very short half-life of only 22 minutes.

Did you know that you can make a polymer from an element? It's really easy to turn ordinary yellow sulfur into plastic sulfur! As an added bonus, you'll get to experience a couple other interesting properties of sulfur. The yellow solid melts into a blood-red liquid. When it is heated, it may ignite with a blue flame... Make plastic sulfur Materials 50 g sulfur [Compare Prices] test tube (25 mm x 200 mm) burner test tube clamp beaker of water (500 mL or so) tongs Procedure You'll melt the sulfur, which changes from a yellow powder into a blood-red liquid. When the molten sulfur is poured into the beaker of water, it forms a rubbery mass, which remains in polymer form for a variable length of time, but eventually crystallizes into a brittle form. Fill the test tube with pure sulfur powder or pieces until it is within a couple of centimeters of the top of the tube. Using a test tube clamp to hold the tube, place the tube in a burner flame to melt the...

 A soap bubble consists of a thin layer of water trapped between two layers of soap molecules. The liquid layer is thin, but it is still affected by gravity, so as a bubble floats, the water is drawn to its base. The film at the top of the bubble thins, even as evaporation removes liquid from the entire surface, until finally the bubble pops -- from the top. If you freeze bubbles with dry ice, you can pick a bubble up to examine it more closely to verify this for yourself. Another fun way to view bubbles is to color them.

May 12 th is Dorothy Hodgkin's birthday. Hodgkin was the British chemist who developed three dimensional x-ray crystallography. X-ray crystallography involved growing a crystal of the sample you wished to investigate, beaming x-rays through this sample, and recording the diffraction pattern made by the atoms of the crystal. The pattern would reveal the structure of the crystal's atoms in two dimensions. Hodgkin aimed her x-rays through crystals at multiple angles and compared the differences in diffraction patterns to find the three dimensional structure. This technique showed atom positions, length of chemical bonds and the relationships between individual molecules in the crystals. She found the structures of penicillin and insulin, but the structure of vitamin B12 would earn her the 1964 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.

Sparklers are small handheld fireworks that give off fiery sparks rather than explode. Sparklers consist of a thin metal or wooden stick coated with a simple pyrotechnic mixture. Colored sparklers really are as easy to make as regular sparklers. The difference lies in the oxidizer that is used. You're basically replicating a flame test, except in reverse since you know the colors to expect from various metal ions. Potassium nitrate or saltpeter will impart a violet color. Barium nitrate burns green. Strontium nitrate burns red. Aside from ordering from a chemical supply store, you can find strontium nitrate in emergency flares and potassium nitrate at some garden supply stores (or you can make it yourself). You can mix in other metal salts from the flame test or colored fire list, but only go for one color. If you try to mix colors, you'll likely wind up with a basic golden sparkler. There are several recipes for colored sparklers. Here are some examples. Ingred...

Forget the Cutting Edge – Embrace the Old-Tech Fut...:   By Josh Kearns Our society is pathologically enthralled with “the new.” As scientists and engineers, we’re inculcated starting from v...j

I-stacking better without the aromatics?: 08 July 2011 Scientists in the US have discovered that electrons confined to their double bonds can sometimes deliver stronger pi-stacking...

One of the more popular beach accessories where I live is a mood toe ring. These are similar to the 1970s mood rings, except they are smooth bands of color instead of the classic rounded domes. Also, I've seen reddish tones in the newer rings that weren't available in the first rings. The original mood rings had a nasty habit of self-destructing if you got them wet, which I can verify isn't a problem with the modern rings. Mood rings supposedly change color to show your emotions.

The baking soda and vinegar volcano is a popular science project, but the science part of the project involves explaining how the reaction models a real volcano or explaining the science behind the reaction that produces the lava. In a nutshell, the reaction between baking soda and vinegar produces sodium acetate, water, and carbon dioxide. The carbon dioxide is trapped by detergent to form bubbly lava, which flows down the side of the model because carbon dioxide is more dense than air. However, sometimes you'll want to explain or write the chemical reactions that occur to produce the carbon dioxide. Here's a look at ways to write the reactions.

It's very easy to make a glow in the dark crystal geode. The 'rock' is a natural mineral (eggshell). You can use one of several common household chemicals to grow the crystals. The glow comes from paint, which you can get from a craft store. Glow in the Dark Geode Materials eggs glow in the dark paint (I used GlowAway™ washable glowing paint) very hot water (I used my coffee maker) borax, alum, epsom salts, sugar, salt, or use another crystal recipe food coloring (optional -- I used neon green coloring) Prepare the Glowing 'Geode' There are two ways to crack your eggs. You can carefully crack the top of the egg by tapping it on a countertop. This will give you a deep geode with a smaller opening. Alternatively, you can crack the equator of the egg or carefully cut it with a knife. This will give you a geode you can open and put back together. Dump the egg or make scrambled eggs or whatever. Rinse out the inside of the eggshell with water. Pee...

May 2 nd is George Pimentel's birthday. He was an American chemist who produced the first chemical laser. Chemical lasers rely on an exothermic reaction to pump the necessary energy to create the coherent light of a laser. They are some of the most powerful lasers in use today with outputs in the megawatt range. They are used as industrial cutting or drilling tools, research and military weapons. To give an idea of the power - energy per unit area - of these lasers, the laser in your DVD player, computer mouse, or laser pointer has a power rating in the milliwatt range or 1/1000 th of a watt. A megawatt laser is 1,000,000,000 or 1 billion times more powerful.

Trick birthday candles are the sort that mysteriously re-light themselves a few seconds after being blown out. If you put them on your birthday cake, especially if you are... how shall I put it... using lots of candles... then blowing out all of the candles at once can be a discouraging exercise.

Did you know you can burn driftwood, especially from the ocean, to get a fire with blue and lavender flames? The colored fire comes from excitation of the metal salts that have soaked into the wood. While the flames are pretty, the smoke given off of the fire is toxic. Specifically, driftwood releases a lot of dioxin from combustion of salt-soaked wood. Dioxins are carginogenic, so burning driftwood from beaches is not recommended. Some coastal communities have considered burn bans on driftwood to reduce the levels of pollution from the smoke. All smoke contains particulates which can cause health problems when the smoke is inhaled, but you may have been unaware of the additional issue with burning driftwood.

mr-chemist: Claisen Condensation: The Claisen condensation (different from  Claisen rearrangement) is a C-C bond forming reaction that occurs between two esters or one ester...

Acyloin Condensation: Acyloin Condensation is a coupling reaction in which two carboxylic acid esters couple in the presence of metallic sodium under inert atmos...