Bringing food chemistry to life

We use silly putty in class, both the Food Systems Chem and my graduate Food Polymer Science classes,  to get a handle [literally] on aspects of non-linear visco-elasticity of materials. Mike the Mad Biologist at ScienceBlogs linked to this video story at 30threads.

It pays to know your raw materials

Don’t mix up your mung beans and poppy seeds.  From Science Punk

Wine Authorities: Rosé from the Friday Fermentable

Terra Silligata

Forwarded from a student in this winter’s class- Tangential to food chemistry per se but not to the polymer science parts of it.

Military use new gel that hardens on impact

To quote the article “The substance relies on “intelligent molecules” that “shock lock” together to absorb energy and create a solid pad”. Seems to me they don’y need to be too “intelligent” just big enough and entangled enough that they can’t pull apart (disentangle) on the imposition of a high speed deformation, like a bullet impact. Silly putty on steroids. It is cool stuff nonetheless.

Aah- Finally a quote from the inventor “Richard Palmer, the inventor of this gel said “When moved slowly, the molecules will slip past each other, but in a high-energy impact they will snag and lock together, becoming solid … In doing so they absorb energy.” http://www.daxii.com/articles/d3o_the_magic_shock_absorbent_gel.aspx

Image From Telegraph.co.uk

Vision of d30 in action here…

http://splodetv.com/video/reactive-d3o-gel

and here

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8EBWGbhsuws

image via http://thegearjunkie.com