Pee The Rainbow

PUMPKIN-SPICED FLUORESCENCE

Inside a pumpkin, seeds don’t need much chlorophyll—the molecule that helps plants convert light into food—because there isn’t a lot of light deep inside the fruit’s flesh. Instead of chlorophyll, the green seeds are chock-full of protochlorophyllide, a highly fluorescent molecule that glows orange-red under ultraviolet light and can be converted into chlorophyll a by an enzyme in the seeds. The enzyme reduces protochlorophyllide to produce chlorophyll when the enzyme encounters light, which occurs only after the seed has left the pumpkin and therefore needs to start producing its own food so it can grow. Helmut Brandl, a science communicator and professor at ETH Zurich, extracted this protochlorophyllide by grinding up pumpkin seeds and mixing them with nail polish remover (bottom row).

Submitted by Helmut Brandl

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I’ve done a reaction with 40 wt. % dimethylamine solution in H2O. The bad thing was that it only started when the solution was at 90 °C and it was slightly exothermic, so after it started, it was at 100 °C in no time.

The gas bubbler at the top of the reflux condenser indicated that a LOT dimethylamine gas escaped from the reaction as seen on the gif. The coloration of the liquid in the bubbler was caused by an indicator to see, that dimethylamine is going away or something else is happening.

Double, double toil and trouble;

Reaction stir and oil bubble.

today on adventuresinchemistry: mouth pipetting: horribly disgusting or the most horribly disgusting?

Jane Goodall teaches John Oliver how to fight, eat bananas like a chimpanzee

Video Clip SS241672 (Dendritic Ice Crystal Growth)

Macro timelapse footage of Dendritic Ice Crystals Growing.

At sub zero temperatures, moisture from the surrounding atmosphere condenses almost immediately. The dendritic (tree-like) form of the crystallization is a natural fractal pattern.

As a rule, except in conditions where supercooled droplets are present in the air, frost will form only if the deposition surface is colder than the surrounding air. For instance frost may be observed around cracks in cold wooden sidewalks when humid air escapes from the warmer ground beneath. Other objects on which frost commonly forms are those with low specific heat or high thermal emissivity, such as blackened metals; hence the accumulation of frost on the heads of rusty nails.

© Francis Chee / Science Source

HEY EVERYONE LOOK AT THESE NEKO ATSUME UNDERTALE CHARACTERS MY FRIEND DREW!!!!! AHHHHHH!!!!!!!! she doesn’t have a tumblr but I needed to share them with the world and she said it was okay so LOOOOOK!!!!

Lifelike Illustrations and descriptions of edible Mushrooms. 

By Krombholz, JV,cs . 1831

Contributing Library: Missouri Botanical Garden, Peter H. Raven Library

BioDivLibrary

Book recommendation for anyone who has ever spent any time in academia as either a teacher or a student. The Saber-Tooth Curriculum is a 1939 sharp-witted critique of the educational system that hasn’t lost an ounce of relevance in the 77 years since its publication. Its pseudonymous author J. Abner Peddiwell describes a society of cavemen who refuse to update their curriculum of fish-grabbing, horse-clubbing, and tiger-scaring long after the environment around them has changed. The book serves as an excellent argument against the fallacious logic often used in the defense of preserving tradition in academia.

Illustrations taken from the classic edition.