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Category Archives: Chemistry
Life Discovered on Mars–36 Years Ago
New analysis of 36-year-old data, resuscitated from printouts, shows that NASA found life on Mars, an international team of mathematicians and scientists conclude in a paper published this week. Continue reading
Posted in Astronomy, Biology, Breaking News, Chemistry, Exploration, History of Science, Space
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Ultraviolet Fluorescence Effect
This fact sheet briefly covers the ultraviolet fluorescence effect observed in some naturally occurring minerals. Continue reading
Making Magnalium
One thing that I like to do is make things from scratch. Particularly things that not everyone makes or can make. Magnalium is a 50 50 alloy of aluminum and magnesium that is used primarily in pyrotechnics. It is quite brittle making it easy to break up into bits or powder. Continue reading
Posted in Chemistry, Pyrotechnics
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More Thoughts on Chemicals
Sheldon makes some good points about using Material Safety Data Sheets. One thing though is that they can be a bit scary. You may read the ones on some chemicals that you plan to use and then decide, maybe I should not mess with that chemical. It is a good idea to get calibrated to the language of the data sheets. Continue reading
Posted in Best Practices, Chemistry, Tips
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Know Your Chemicals
Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS) are compilations of information about chemical substances and industrial products that tell you what you need to know to handle the material safely. Continue reading
Posted in Amateur Science, Chemistry, Tools
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Building a DIY Photospectometer
For a great science project that will go well beyond simply building it, we ran across this oldie-but-goodie from 2007: “Take a 100 W light bulb, a light-dependent resistor, a prism or grating in front of a slit, and a curtain – and voilà , a DIY spectrophotometer.” Continue reading
Posted in Chemistry, Makers and Making, Physics, Projects, Research Tools
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A Primer on Cooling Baths
If you do lab work, sooner or later you will need to cool something to a very low temperature. Regular ice water baths will keep things at 0 °C, but what if you have to go lower than that? Continue reading
Posted in Amateur Science, Chemistry, Physics
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News Clues About How Aggregates Become Organisms
One area of evolutionary biology that receives intense study centers around the question of how collections of many unicellular organisms become what we would recognize as a multicellular entity. It has long been known that some single-celled organisms can organize themselves into larger groups. Research continues, however, on how these groups became true multicellular organisms. Continue reading
Posted in Biology, Chemistry, Evolution
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DIY Ferrofluids
This is something I’ve wanted to play around with for some time. Ferrofluids are liquids that contain nanometer-sized magnetic particles suspended in a carrier solution. When the solution gets close to a magnetic field, it solidifies and shapes itself according to the shape of the magnetic field. Continue reading
Posted in Amateur Science, Chemistry
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