We Take For Granted That Drops Which Impact A Solid Surface Will Splash, But, In Fact, Drops Only Splash

‘BLOOD LAMP’ Mike Thompson, an artist based in Amsterdam, wanted to design a piece that forced people to think about the cost of the power they use. So he made a lamp lit with the user’s blood. His “Blood Lamp” glows thanks to a reaction with luminol, a molecule used in police forensics that gives off electric blue light when exposed to an iron-rich protein in blood called hemoglobin. Iron atoms catalyze the oxidation of luminol, creating a high-energy, unstable peroxide molecule that releases energy as blue light as it relaxes to its low-energy ground state. After the user adds blood and the reaction consumes all of the luminol, the light fades, and the lamp can never be used again.

Credit: Mike Thompson

Related C&EN Content:

Counting CD4+ T Cells By Chemiluminescence

Plane To See

Surreal Monochromatic GIFs by Carl Burton

It’s not technically science but I’m pretty proud of our creation. Behold, the Periodic Table of Cookies! (Bell peppers for obscuring identifying info.)

Emission Spectra of the Elements

source

Sooooo satisfying!

Learn Everything You Need To Know About Chemicals In Your Food in 4 Easy Steps!

Step One

Obtain High School level Chemistry textbook. 

Step Two 

Open the book to chapter one, section one. 

Step Three

Locate and identify the goals of chapter one: basic definition of chemistry. 

Step Four

Discover that EVERYTHING IS MADE OF CHEMICALS. 

Whew. That was pretty scary, wasn’t it? Education is hard. Learning about scary chemicals is a big adventure. But aren’t you glad you pulled through? I’m glad we had this talk. 

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

The Wolf Among Us