Where do electronics go when they die? Most devices are laid to eternal rest in landfills. But what
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How to make sparks fly in your mouth
We're issuing a science-based exception to the "don't chew with your mouth open" rule for this one. If you crunch Wint-O-Green Life Savers with your mouth open in the dark in front of a mirror, you should see some sparks start to fly. The light you see is due to a phenomenon called "triboluminescence."
When you chomp down on a mint, your teeth are fracturing crystals of sugar. This fracturing happens all the way down at the molecular level, where chemical bonds are broken. Because of the structure of the sugar crystal, the breaking of these chemical bonds causes a build-up of electrons that creates a miniature electrical field. Eventually, the electrons glom onto molecules like oxygen or nitrogen in the air, and emit a bit of light in the process. Usually we can't see this light because it's in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum. But wintergreen candies contain a compound called methyl salicylate that fluoresces, converting that UV light into visible blue light.
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Why do Pop Rocks pop?
Carbon dioxide gas is the chemical key to making Pop Rocks crackle in your mouth. Pop Rocks are made by heating a mixture of carbon dioxide and candy (a combination of sugar, corn syrup, lactose, and flavoring) to temperatures above 320 degrees Fahrenheit inside a pressurized chamber. While there's still 600 pounds per square inch of pressure on the mixture, the candy-carbon dioxide combination is cooled. After cooling, the pressure is released and the candy shatters into pieces full of tiny bubbles of carbon dioxide gas.
When you stick some Pop Rocks in your mouth, the candy melts and the carbon dioxide bubbles escape from their sugary prisons with satisfying pops.
And, despite any rumors you might have heard, eating Pop Rocks and drinking soda together won't cause your stomach to explode. That urban legend seems to have spread based on the false notion that pop rocks and soda would combine like an acid and a base and react violently — but since they both just get their fizz from carbon dioxide, the worst thing that would happen to you would be a really big burp.
Why do Mentos and Diet Coke create a geyser?
While you won't get much of a thrill from mixing Pop Rocks and Coke, if you pop some Mentos mints into a bottle of Diet Coke, you'll get to see an impressive geyser:
In some ways, the reaction looks like a science fair volcano. But unlike a baking soda-vinegar geyser, the candy isn't combining with the Coke in an acid-base reaction (none of the ingredients in Mentos are basic). Instead, the Mentos serves as a little factory and launchpad for carbon dioxide bubbles — supercharging the normal bubble-formation process in the Coke. The mint's rough surface has thousands of tiny pores, an ideal landscape for lots of bubbles to form (a process called nucleation). As the bubbles grow they become more buoyant and float up to the top of the soda. The process keeps chugging along, creating more and more bubbles until it explodes out the top of the bottle in a foamy overflow.
Certain ingredients in Mentos, like aspartame and potassium benzoate, also speed the process by acting as surfactants — chemicals that lower the surface tension of the soda. This makes it even easier for bubbles to form on the candy. Too much surface tension in a liquid doesn't allow for much bubble formation — the attractions between molecules in the liquid are strong enough that the molecules at the surface resist moving up and away. Adding a surfactant, like Mentos in Coke or soap in water, loosens the liquid molecules' hold on each other a little bit, allowing for bubbles to form.
Appalachian State University physicist Tonya Coffey wrote an in-depth paper on the science behind the Coke-Mentos reaction published in the American Journal of Physics in 2008. Coffey found that combining Diet Coke and Fruit Mentos yielded the most impressive horizontal spray distance, flinging the soda nearly 17 feet from the bottle.
Making candy dance
For a less explosive demonstration of the powers of carbon dioxide fizziness, you can drop a few pieces of various kinds of candy or food into a glass of clear soda and see what happens. Anything with a rough surface — like raisins, or Valentine's Day conversation hearts — should provide a good surface for bubbles to form, as we saw with the Mentos. If the candy (or raisin) is light enough, the carbon dioxide bubbles should be able to buoy it up to the surface; when the bubble pops, the candy (or raisin) falls back down again. This up-and-down "dance" should last until the soda goes flat.
See the spectrum in black jellybeans
Plunk a wet black jellybean down on a piece of filter paper, and you'll be able to see that its blackness is actually made from a combination of hues. The various dyes in the bean will travel different distances away from the jellybean on the filter paper due to their different properties. Some shades of dye are more water-soluble, meaning they dissolve more easily and can be carried along the paper further. Some colors will be more attracted to the paper. The resulting rings of colors are called a separation pattern — something chemists use all the time to figure out what different chemical ingredients are in a mixture. You can try this same experiment with other colors of jellybeans and with other candies as well.
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How to grow giant gummy bears
If you leave gummy bears in tap water for a while, they'll swell up into something more like Gummy Grizzlies. The reason for this is the process of osmosis — the tendency for water to perform a balancing act where it flows from a solution with fewer molecules dissolved into it into a solution that has more molecules in it (provided the two solutions are accessible to each other through a semipermeable membrane that allows certain molecules to cross its border, but which screens out others).
Gummy bears are actually a solution of water. These candies start out as a liquid mixture of water and gelatin, which is heated and then cooled, a process that draws water out of the bear and hardens it into a chewier texture. But there's still some water trapped in the matrix of gelatin that forms the bear. When you stick a gummy bear in water, osmotic pressure forces water molecules into the gummy bear, making the candy swell up like a sponge.
How to take the M off an M&M
If you leave an M&M or a Skittle in water for a little while, the 'M' or 'S' should peel off and float up to the surface. That's because the letters on the candy are made out of white edible ink that doesn't dissolve, unlike the dyes that color the candy shell.
Making soap bubbles with candy corn
This is one experiment you won't be able to do at home, unless you happen to live in a low-gravity environment:
NASA astronaut Don Pettit used his special stash of candy corn on the International Space Station to model how soap works. Soap molecules have a hydrophobic (water-hating) end and a hydrophilic (water-loving) end. When you scrub something with soap, the hydrophobic ends of the soap molecules automatically point towards little globules of grease and oil on your clothes (or your dishes, or your skin); eventually, the particles of grease are encased in little bubbles of soap and can be rinsed off with water.
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With his candy corn experiment, Pettit did the same trick, but in reverse: He coated one end of his candy corn pieces with oil, making it hydrophobic, then started adding kernels to a floating sphere of water. The hydrophobic ends naturally oriented themselves away from the center. After Pettit added enough candy corn, the sphere reached what's known as the "critical micelle concentration." The candy corn sphere wasn't mushy anymore, but behaved like a solid ball — or like a soap-coated grease globule ready to be rinsed off and away.
Why microwaved marshmallows puff up
Put a couple marshmallows in the microwave for about a minute, and you'll see them puff up. This is because the heat from the microwave softens the sugar in the marshmallow, and also causes the air pockets inside the sweet to expand. Because the sugary walls of the marshmallow are softer, the marshmallow puffs up. When cooled, the marshmallow shrinks down again — but is usually a bit crunchier than before, probably because some of the water inside it evaporated in the heat of the microwave.
Speaking at an Aerojet Rocketdyne plant, NASA administrator Charles Bolden said that NASA is looking into advanced propulsion technologies that can cut the current eight-month journey to Mars "in half." Technologies such as solar-electric propulsion are definitely on the cards, but NASA may look towards more unconventional solutions such as nuclear rockets, too.
Over the past few years, there's been a lot of attention on getting astronauts on Mars, mostly fuelled by crazy projects like Mars One, the success of the Curiosity rover, and heavyweights like Elon Musk saying he wants to colonise Mars.
The main problem with getting humans to Mars is that, with our current liquid-fuelled rocket engines, it takes a very long time to get there; about eight months or so. If we can cut the journey in half, we significantly reduce the amount of food and water needed—which in turn cuts down the weight of the spacecraft, which in turn reduces the amount of fuel needed, which in turn feeds a very positive feedback loop. Less time in outer space means astronauts will be bombarded by less radiation, too.
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Consumers are now in the era of “on-demand” entertainment, in which they have access to the books, music
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Braided, serpentine filaments of glowing gas suggest this nebula's popular name, The Medusa Nebula. Also known as Abell 21, this Medusa is an old planetary nebula some 1,500 light-years away along the southern border of the constellation Gemini. Like its mythological namesake, the nebula is associated with a dramatic transformation. The planetary nebula phase represents a final stage in the evolution of low mass stars like the sun, as they transform themselves from red giants to hot white dwarf stars and in the process shrug off their outer layers. Ultraviolet radiation from the hot star powers the nebular glow. An unrelated, bright, foreground star is near center in this close-up, telescopic view, while the Medusa's transforming central star is actually the dimmer star below center and toward the right-hand part of the frame. The Medusa Nebula is estimated to be over 4 light-years across.Graphenea has won a project worth €2.5 million from the EU Horizon 2020 program ‘SME Instrument’. The funding will be used for the construction, installation and commissioning of a new production plant that will multiply production capacity by 200 times and consolidate the firm’s global leadership in the sector. The project was selected among 614 submitted proposals. In addition to construction of the production plant, the project will result in the opening of twenty highly skilled labor jobs.
“It is a very important boost that will accelerate our business plan. It will allow us to grow faster and consolidate our position as the global leader in our industry”, said Jesus de la Fuente, Founder and CEO of Graphenea after receiving the news. “We want to be the best in the world.”
The guarantee: Results and Customers
With this award, the European Commission has recognized Graphenea’s results both in research and production of graphene. The process developed and patented by Graphenea is highly efficient and environmentally friendly.
Graphene is a material under development, with new applications discovered every day, and current uses in advance polymers, battery electrodes and sensors. The world market in 2014 was estimated at about $12 million.
Graphenea currently employs 13 professionals, mostly PhD in Chemistry, and has closed 2014 with more than 400 customers in 50 countries and a turnover of around $1.2 million (~10% of the world market share). Graphenea holds leading international firms like Intel, Nokia, IBM, Philips, Repsol, BASF and Sigma-Aldrich in its customer portfolio.
Operating plant in 24 months
The ‘SME Instrument’ will contribute €1.8 million to the construction, installation and optimization of a pilot production plant of high-quality graphene for industrial applications. This is a relevant milestone in the development of Graphenea in an emerging market that recognizes the high quality of the materials produced by the company.
The construction of the new plant will take 24 months, including installation of equipment. If all goes as planned, the new facility could open in late 2017.
De la Fuente states that “in the first year of implementation of the pilot plant, it will allow us to increase our revenues and address the emerging global market for graphene”. He also said that “if the phase pilot plant is successful, Graphenea will move to an industrial phase that will require a larger investment.”
Photo: Graphenea headquarters.
Regulation
In a first stage, the pilot plant will be limited to an annual production of 1 ton per year imposed by the European regulation of new chemical products. Graphene is a new material that has not yet passed the registration process required by the European regulations for new substances, so its production or import is limited. Graphenea has begun the process of registration and certification of their materials to overcome this regulatory limitation. Thus, the firm will become the first producer of graphene approved for industrial use in Europe.
Presence and investment in USA
The main graphene demand comes from the United States, with large activity concentrated in the Boston area. According to the firm, this geographical area holds the biggest potential for development in the coming years. For that reason, and in parallel to the pilot plant project, Graphenea opened an Applications Laboratory at MIT campus. “We must be close to the market,” concluded Jesus de la Fuente.
Smelling good is just part of what some beetles must do to find a mate. They have to
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