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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...