Science

[sheridan143]

I LOVE science. I am actually a nerd in it. Hahaha.

[caramba2654]

Today we mixed cabbage juice with sodium hydroxide and it turned green!

[Kamak]

90% of the chem labs I did when I was majoring in chemistry (for a semester) were titrations.

 

-drip- "is it pink yet?" "nope." -drip- "is it pink yet?" "nope." -drip- "is it pink yet?" "nope." -drip-

 

Needless to say I wasn't impressed.

I actually liked titrations... I was weird like that...

 

What I hate though is chromatography... it sucks majorly.

 

-K-

[TikindiDragon]

I also rather enjoyed titration, and chromatography. What I never did like was having to write the reports up

 

Billy used to drink a lot, but now he'll drink no more, because what he thought was H2O was H2SO4.

 

Yeah, I'm a bit of a chemistry geek.

[RheaZen]

Edited August 29, 2011 by RheaZen

[LadyNightshade]

Well, I for sure know this will be a good year for me in science (chemistry at least).

 

I get my own key to my own drawer full of my own glassware (well, I don't own it, but the point is that during the semester it is mine). I don't have to share any of my glassware, or open up my drawer and find half of it is broken (Which has happened to me. I've also opened my drawer before and found test tubes with mysterious liquids in them. Unfortunately, even if it's say, bright blue and you know with certainty that it's a copper solution, you still have to treat it as hazardous material, which is a complete pain).

 

 

Also, we are distilling rum. First lab of the semester and we're all making some pretty heavy alcohol.

 

Not that we can actually drink it. They always add stuff to the yeast to keep students from drinking their solutions

Edited August 30, 2011 by Lady_Nightfox

[Trikonasana]

That's still pretty fantastic. I wish I'd been able to do that in chemistry. Coolest thing I think we did was making our own biofuel out of vegetable oil, which made the entire north wing of the school smell like fast food for hours after we were done.

 

Shooting butane fireballs out of graduated cylinders was pretty sweet too, but that wasn't actually part of the lab procedure. >____>

[LadyNightshade]

I'm still disappointed in myself for missing the lab last semester where they did the thing with gummy bears.

 

 

I don't ever remember making the building smell good. It's always like someone mixed something that releases a sulfur compound and forgot to be under the fume hood and the whole building smells like a skunk for a while.

[Trikonasana]

THAT'S MY FAVOURITE CHEMICAL REACTION EVER.

 

We never got to do it in any of my years doing science in school. Just a lot of titrations and, on occasion, burning things, but they were never spectacular like that.

[LadyNightshade]

Again, I'm so disappointed I missed it. I had to make up the portion of the lab I missed but the gummy bear was a demonstration and the professor said it was too hard to clean the tube afterwards so I missed out.

 

I think the second coolest thing we did (during last semester) was isolating caffeine out of coffee.

 

 

I lied, we did make the lab smell good on occasion. When we brewed the coffee to do that.

Edited August 30, 2011 by Lady_Nightfox

[Trikonasana]

You had some really cool labs o__o I'm jealous.

 

To make up for the flame tests we never did, I once put copper sulfate powder into a Bunsen burner in one of my labs. My chem teacher was so confused as to why the flame was suddenly green - he never put two and two together and noticed the copper sulfate powder we were using for the lab

[LadyNightshade]

We just have a really good set of professors in the biology and chemistry field at my school. A lot of them are younger and have a good concept on what will interest students and help them understand the material better.

 

Also it was Chem II so I went through a semester of titrations to get there.

 

 

I just really love real life applications. That's why I'm in biochemistry/medicine. Things are so much more interesting when you can relate to it.

[Trikonasana]

Haha yeah, everyone has to go through a crapload of titrations before they can experience the true awesomeness of chemistry...

 

I'm not a chemistry major anymore - I'm really not math-minded enough for sciences. It makes me a bit sad when i remember the super cool flame test equipment in the advanced chem labs. ;_; Maybe someday I'll pay one of my science-nerd friends to let me into the lab so i can play with it (safely, of course; I'm very careful in labs lol).

[TPishek]

Ooo, I remember separating the caffeine from coffee in OChem. We also made aspirin and turned lard into soap. Always ran IRs on our products too-- it was pretty fun stuff.

[LadyNightshade]

We are doing a few IR runs this semester but we're mostly working with NMR

 

Which is a complete and total explanation of why cell phones don't get any kind of reception in that building.

[Dr. Paine]

[canobiecrazy]

How to harvest Phosphorus from Human Urine

 

 

You will need:

1 Beaker

1 Torch

1 Glass Retort & Stand

Something to heat the retort with

2 Tablespoons of Charcoal Powder

2 Tablespoons of Cinnamon Powder

Some Human Urine

Some water

 

 

Step 1: Put the human urine in an open container for a week.

Step 2: Mix two tablespoons of finely-powdered charcoal and two tablespoons of powdered cinnamon into the urine and stir.

Step 3: Heat the retort containing the urine mixture using your torch. Be sure to wear protective clothing and eye protection. Do this in a well ventilated place.

Step 4: A whiteish yellowy stuff will build up in the beaker full of water. Thats your phosphorus. Don't let it get out of the water, or it may explode, however...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Kestra15]

"You were mistaken. Which is odd, because memory shouldn't be a problem for you."

 

They may not take over the world, but they have epic smack-talk!

Edited September 2, 2011 by Kestra15

[Trikonasana]

canobiecrazy, did you actually have to do that in a lab at school? I mean it's pretty cool but we were never allowed to use bodily fluids in labs when I was in school (high school at least).

[canobiecrazy]

canobiecrazy, did you actually have to do that in a lab at school? I mean it's pretty cool but we were never allowed to use bodily fluids in labs when I was in school (high school at least).

Nope. Found it online.

[Trikonasana]

Haha okay, I was gonna say...

 

You can find some pretty dangerous things online that people do in their garages. Like once I think I found a video of two guys who were doing experiments with some extremely powerful acid which ate through the containers they were using and then spilled all over the place. Fun stuff.

[RheaZen]

To the religious arguement: It is stupid to believe that science is the only thing that exists, and that there is no supreme being. Plenty of scientific "laws" have been proven wrong by reality. Science cannot exist without a god. No god can exist without science. Personally you should just quit bickering and realize that neither explanation has all the answers in itself. Even SCIENTISTS believe in SOME sort of supreme being out there, because there are certain situations where the rules were changed, for one thing. Take ice. Ice is the only solid that floats on it's liquid form. Every other solid will sink when submerged in it's liquid form. Someone had to change the rules.

My braaaaaiiiiin. Meltiiiing.

 

But since ice was mentioned... water. Pretty cool stuff. It's easy to forget how awesome it is since it's so common, but yeah.

 

/random

Edited September 3, 2011 by RheaZen

[Trikonasana]

You know what else is awesome? Non-Newtonian fluids, like the classic cornstarch and water "green slime" mix. They pour like liquids and fit to their containers like liquids do, but when pressure is applied to them in a short amount of time they display solid properties.

[RheaZen]

Indeed they are. And ferrofluids!

 

You know what doesn't get enough attention? Condensates. Plasma gets all the hype 'cause it sounds cool.

Edited September 3, 2011 by RheaZen

[Trikonasana]

I'd forgotten about ferrofluids but goodness those are fun.

 

Liquid metals are really nifty too.

 

What exactly is a condensate? /didn't take enough science to know