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Now, you know those blenders sitting in your kitchen? Do you think yours can blend marbles?…apparently, this guy did. And he ended up with glass dust which kinda just flowed out of the blender when he opened it. I think its 1)really cool and 2) REALLY dangerous. Like…very dangerous. Ever heard of asbestos? well, I’m wondering what glass dust might do to your lungs………..
…
Well, the video is pretty cool, watch it here
(and yes, I’m unloading about a months worth of saved up posts on you, though its going to be spread out)
*Edit: Forgot the link

Ever since I first saw this stuff in the Guiness Book of World Records, I have been fascinated with it. Aerogel holds numerous records, most notably for being the least dense solid on earth. Basically it is a jello like material that has had all the moisture sucked out and replaced with gas. The result is an extremely light, extremely strong, solid formed by a network tiny molecular chains.

Aerogels have great potential for many uses such as insulation and an alternative to glass. The only problem is that it is difficult and expensive to produce the stuff. Also, the usefulness of aerogel as a glass replacement is limited by its blue tint, an effect that can be reduced if it is produced in zero-G($$).
Check it out:
on wikipedia,
Zero-G aerogel,
and get the recipe here (hint hint)

Okay, I’m not sure I’d exactly want to do this to my lawn, but I can see some times when this would be really cool.  Here’s an article (with graphics, photos, and easy-to-read diagrams on how to cut light/dark stripes into your lawn.  The theory behind this is very basic.  The grass appears dark if its bent towards you, light if its bent away.  So, in laymans terms, cut your grass in opposite directions.  Cut one mowers width left to right, cut the next one right to left, and you should eventually get some nice stripes.  I see no reason why the stripes couldn’t be consecutive circles around a fountain, or even a letter or number pattern that repeats inside itself.

http://www.scag.com/lawnstriping.html

Okay, these are way beyond what I could probably ever hope to carve, but for all of you with artistic skills, who’ve wondered what the best way to fancifully carve a relief into a pumpkin is, you definately want to read this link.  Even if you’re happy with triangles and squares for a face, look at some of these amazing pumpkins anyway.  They’re cool.

http://www.villafanestudios.com/pumpkins.htm

Okay, I dunno why anyone would want to make a v8 out of paper, but someone has.  Okay, I wouldn’t want to, and I probably couldn’t build something with such finess and attention to detail.

  The description says that it has moving parts, including a compount crankshaft, colling fan, 8 rods and pistons, and a gearbox.  Power is supplied by some D batteries.  I suppose it’s not really a working engine, but a paper model with parts that are animated to look like they really move.

Description from, link to
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/tech-gadget/video-functional-paper-v8-engine

I have returned! after a rather length hiatus. sorry bout that.

here is the next installment of Edmunds Kit reviews.

Dehydration of Sucrose! Its a fun experiment. Check out the pics

We
liked the idea. We liked the chemicals. We kinda liked the results. There was a
problem with the actual experiment. If you look at the picture, the carbon is
rising out of the beaker. We tried everything provided in the kit. It came with
16 M H2SO4, chemical grade sucrose :-P, an acid neutralizer, and an info sheet.
We liked the chemical grade sucrose…hehe. We definitely liked the H2SO4. I
think the only step higher than that in our YAY scale would be vapor H2SO4 or
HCL. Mmm pure undiluted acid. Fun stuff. Anyways…

We unpacked, started up the lab. We decided that…16 M
acid is something to be cautious about. Rightly so. We used the fume hood. Mark
decided that we should use a large beaker, which we believe increased surface
area and decreased the visual effect. Added and mixing the chemicals, we added
it and waited for the rising black foam. It happened, just not as
spectacularly

.

Second try, we used a smaller beaker, I added more
sugar, the rest of the H2SO4 and only a bit of the acid neutralizer. Sadly, we
kinda ran out of the acid, so this isn’t really a multi-trial experiment.

The experiment ended well, cleanup was easy, and I sported
two baggies of carbon laced with H2SO4 and base neutralizer residue. I’m still
figuring out what to do with it…but, we shall see. All in all, the lab was a
success, we DID dehydrate sucrose, it was fun, and relatively informative. Other
than the relative scarcity of some of the materials, we were pleased with the
lab. Its FUN! Lol

Before: After:

Homepage here.
Want to try this out yourself? get it here. its not too expensive
We have a few others left. this one and this one. Oh, and this one

We should have those up in the next week. And, get ready for more posts tomorrow

Here comes that review we
were talking about. This is part 1 of 3 reviews on products by Edmund
Scientific. You know why? (Because we got 3 kits…) This one was a luminescence
kit. Now, because of one chemical provided in the lab, we decided to trek to
the local high school to the AP Chemistry teacher there for use of his lab and
fume hood. I would have done it at my house, but…I don’t trust my own hood
because I installed it myself.

Turns out…we didn’t use
the hood. Oh well. We do caution you though, that the MDS information on the
liquid solvent (DMS) indicates it is an irritant and is readily absorbed by the skin.
We should have used gloves. I was just really careful. Don’t follow my example.
K?

We unpacked the kit, and
found that it was nicely packed, with very good chemical safeguards. Every
bottle had an MDS sheet attached, which was a real plus. The only thing I found
slightly annoying was the lack of NaOH and beakers. Then again, beakers…I hope
you have if you are going to be doing this type of thing. Deep bowls work too…just
don’t use them afterwards.

Oddly enough, our kit did not come with NaOH so we had to find some
NaOH. Granted, this is not one for the non-chemistry initiated. So, be ready to
follow directions on how to get a specific molar concentration NaOH. And
remember, when it tells you to only poor a few ml of the solution in, follow the directions.

We proceeded with safety
glasses, as it was fairly high concentration NaOH. Our first trial failed quite
miserably, owing to contamination in our beakers as well as a poor
concentration of NaOH. It turned out to be a sickly pale green color. We shook
it vigorously, used magnetic stirring rod on max, and it didn’t work.

Note that the sample on the right is the failed one. The one of the left was our final result

We did it again, with the
clean beaker and was very careful with NaOH, and low and behold, let there be light! We followed
directions and got a fairly bright liquid that glowed bright blue green. Increasing
the concentration of luminol did not affect the brightness, which was an
interesting sidetrack, although after we were through ogling the bright blue
light, we realized it was simply an inherent rate of the reaction. In common
language: ya aint goin to change it.

This was an interesting
kit, very straightforward, and fun. Slightly hard to comprehend chemically for
students, but hey, we’ve taken college chemistry, and it makes sense. This
product was quite nice, and the chemistry teacher was interested in it. You can
check out the home page here and the product page here. We are testing two
other products, which can be found here and here. Good stuff

You  know, one of the major problems with Windows, are the hideous and often blood pressure elevating blue screen of death. You see that, and generally, you either 1)have a heart attack 2)skip a beat 3)break out in sweat or 4)start swearing. Oh yes…
The mac people would hold it over the pc users about those blue screens…and how macs never have em. Ya know why? Because theyve been altered. You get a pretty, calming message that doesnt even seem like theres an error!. Look:

I mean, thats a very nice slicked down version of the BSOD, where…it doesnt even scare you.
Well…behind this facade is a BSOD. If you want to scare someone with a mac, or do it as a joke, you can actually change the settings to display a BSOD mac style.
Check it out here

Well, you know how some sites have those obnoxious smiley ads? the shiny big yellow balls that are just plain annoying? Well…now is the time for payback. Kinda. Sadly, its not as violent as some might expect, or detailed….but, it was provided as is, here

And then…there are the companies who make swiss army knives, that…transcend those of ordinary swiss army knives. This knife should belong to the few commandos who feel like carrying about 40 pounds of shiny chrome plated tools in their pockets. Wenger (the company who makes this) calls it the Giant Knife Version 1.0. Substitute or knives, bike tools, toiletries, laser pointers, corkscrews, pliers, 30-40 different screwdrivers, saws, magnifying glass, scissors, flashlight, fish scaler, reamer, scraper, hole punch, toothpicks, keys, key rings (for the other stuff you might want on it…) For a grand total of 85 individual tools.That just scares me. Also…the price. $1200. Yup…its that much. Then again, if you really need all this stuff on you, in the form of a knife, i think you might as well pay up…check it out here

No, this is not one of those, “Build a breadbox out of ordinary household materials!” Its a “build a breadbox thats on steroids” post!
You know how bread grows mold right?…right?…
Well, and you also know that UV Light kills bacteria and mold right?

Well then…logically…why not put a UV light in a breadbox eh?….

And so…the Ultraviolet Moldless Bread Box was born in the shining glory of cancer inducing light!
 I won’t post the entire how to here, but a few modifications on this sites design. 1st of all, dont look at ultraviolet light straight on…unless you want cataracts and skin cancer. And 2nd of all, place a break button on the box edge, so that when you open the box, the light turns on, since UV light is quite damaging to DNA and can cause cancer and other not fun stuff. Have fun eating your now mold free bread!

Read the how to here