The crew from Modern Marvels on the History Channel visited our science lab back in July to play with some really cold science experiments. In other words, the liquid nitrogen was flowing and the onions were exploding! Mark your calendars… Modern Marvels: Deep Freeze will officially be airing on the History Channel on Tuesday, September 25th at 8pm EST.
I love Halloween. One of my favorite activities is to “carve” pumpkins using a simple reation inside the fruit. First, you carve the face then carefully replace pieces. After creating a reaction by generating a gas inside and igniting it (ask your local chemistry teacher for the details) the face pieces are blown off with a small explosion. Halloween is more than 100 days away and I just couldn’t wait. So I initiated the new weather anchor at the local Denver television station by introducing her to carving watermelons. The problem was, we didn’t really carve the watermelon, it exploded. Watch the Video to see how we skipped right over the carving and went straight to exploding.
Okay, it’s not science… but I’m so proud that I just had to share it. Mark and Scott are our twin 5 year old boys who have both taken a liking to magic. It probably doesn’t hurt to see their brother Jack (who is now 8 years old) performing his magic tricks on stage. I was recently invited to be a featured speaker at the SPLASH Summer Conference presented by Frog Street Press in Dallas, Texas. Mark and Scott performed this trick on stage in front of almost 1,700 teachers and they had a ball. The boys couldn’t understand why everyone was getting up to leave at the end of their trick. You’ll see why.
Jack is 8 years old and likes to perform (he must get that from his Mom). Three years ago, the owners of Frog Street Press invited Jack to accompany me to their amazing summer conference for teachers called SPLASH. I helped Jack perform his first magic trick in front of a large audience (about 1,200 teachers) and that’s all it took. The Frog Street Press people were kind enough to invite us back this July, and Jack was ready to hit center stage. Jack’s routine is an original twist on a classic magic trick you might have seen performed by another magician using pom-pom balls. The audience in this video consisted of almost 1,700 early childhood educators (primarily pre-K through 2nd grade). Here’s Jack…
Not exactly… but this stuff is really cool. It’s probably best described as a self-siphoning gel. The chemical is called polyethylene oxide or Polyox and it has an incredibly large molecular weight - about 4 million. When the powder is mixed with water (that’s the tricky part), the liquid becomes very thick and will literally siphon itself from one container to another. As a kid I order a product called Moon Blob - “The Gravity Defying Gel” - which promised to do the same thing. It did… but now I’m doing it as an adult! It’s tough to explain it… just watch the Polyox video.
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