17 5 / 2013
Braniac’s alkali metal were faked.
Wow, I hate TV.
But this video is pretty good, it gets reasonably sciency half way through.
16 5 / 2013
"Atoms aren’t just small: they’re really really small.
10^23 is an astonishingly large number. The number of grains of sand in all the beaches in the world is around 10^18. The number of stars in our galaxy is about 10^11. The number of stars in the entire visible Universe is probably around 10^22. And yet the
number of water molecules in a cup of tea is more than 10^23."
(Source: google.com.au, via thecraftychemist)
15 5 / 2013
Catalyst Preserves Fresh Fruit
Ripening fruit, vegetables and flowers release ethylene, which works as a plant hormone. Ethylene accelerates ripening, so other unripened fruit also begins to ripen — fruit and vegetables quickly spoil and flowers wilt. In the journal Angewandte Chemie, Japanese researchers have now introduced a new catalytic system for the fast and complete degradation of ethylene. This system could keep the air in warehouses ethylene-free, keeping perishable products fresh longer.
Read more: http://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2013/05/catalyst-preserves-fresh-fruit
