Salads, sandwiches, and, of course, hamburgers feature condiments for flavor and texture. Tuna and chicken cling to onions and celery with the aid of mayonnaise. A teaspoon or so of mustard might add some bite to the salad. And if you’re feeling inventive, you could add a drop or two of hot sauce mixed with [...]
Pucker up, it’s time to talk pickles. Pickled peppers, cukes, onions, eggs, really anything that can be preserved by tossing it in a brine solution and letting nature take its course. In the case of pickling, its about establishing the right conditions for one group of bacteria to win out over another. The ones that [...]
It’s so simple, it almost seems magical. Leaves take in sunlight, convert it to sugars and starches, and the plant feeds itself and becomes the first link in a food chain that reaches all the way to the apple you chew and swallow on the way to the big game. So, how does it work? [...]
What makes the simple hamburger bun the perfect stage for a juicy hamburger? An airy lightness? The sweet earthy taste and smell of yeasty dough? A hint of shiny brown sugars carmelized onto the surface of the bread in the baking or toasting process? White, wheat, potato? With or without sesame seeds? Or it is [...]
Both may be guilty pleasures, but hamburgers and chocolate owe their status as mouth-watering treats thanks to chemistry. For hamburgers, it is that delicious brown, crusty surface that is left behind when the raw meat is exposed to high heat, something called the Maillard reaction. With chocolate, the substance falls in the literal sweet spot [...]
What makes nutmeg and cloves smell like Christmas, while polyurethane-based adhesive smells like, well, glue? As we enter week four of the weekly, online, video series “Chemistry Now,” we find that placement of a double bond in the hydrocarbon side chain makes all the difference in how eugenol, found in cloves, and isoeugenol, found in [...]
As part of the weekly, online, video series “Chemistry Now,” NSTA and NBC Learn have teamed up with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to create lessons related to common, physical objects in our world and the changes they undergo every day. The series also looks at the lives and work of scientists on the frontiers [...]
As we mentioned last week, NSTA and NBC Learn have teamed up with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch “Chemistry Now,” a weekly, online, video series that uncovers and explains the science of common, physical objects in our world and the changes they undergo every day. The series also looks at the lives and work [...]
In celebration of the International Year of Chemistry, NSTA and NBC Learn have teamed up with the National Science Foundation (NSF) to launch “Chemistry Now,” a weekly, online, video series that uncovers and explains the science of common, physical objects in our world and the changes they undergo every day. The series also looks at the [...]
The melting snow piles outside NSTA headquarters in Arlington, Virginia, provide daily reminders of the D.C. area’s record 2010 snowfall (locally dubbed Snowmageddon). Like many teachers in other parts of the country, we’re watching for green shoots and planning for spring. What better way to spend the remaining days of winter than planning how to [...]
