Browsed by
Author: Dr C M Helm-Clark PhD

Doc Clark was given a box of rocks when she was four and it all went downhill from there. Having made the mistake of going to engineering school, she took a geology class, realized she was on the wrong path through life and jumped ship for a degree in rocks. She's done lots of things over a lifetime, including mapping geothermal resources and Yellowstone-related volcanism, investigating the oil deposit under the Great Salt Lake and managing the field work of a Superfund site.
Merry Blogmas for December 6: Bread is Not the Same

Merry Blogmas for December 6: Bread is Not the Same

Comments 0 Comment

We continue  today with our daily “Merry Blogmas” posts on fun bite-sized science topics, which will run until Christmas. THE TASTE OF BREAD HAS CHANGED WITH TIME We no longer know what bread used to taste like but we do know that it had to taste different from the modern equivalent. How do we know this? From research done in research-funded “living history” projects and from archaeology on the remains of Medieval and Renaissance buildings. Here’s the evidence; In the…

Read More Read More

Merry Blogmas for December 5: Collagen-Based Glue

Merry Blogmas for December 5: Collagen-Based Glue

Comments 0 Comment

Today continues our daily Merry Blogmas 2017 posts of short science-lite articles for Dec. 1 through Christmas. Hide Glue and Other Collagen-Based Glues Collagen is the principle protein in the bone, muscle and skin tissues of mammals and certain fish. It is made up of fibrous strands of polypeptides, which is the same as saying that collagen is made up of long mostly-straight chains of linked amino acids. Collagen-based glues include those made from: animal hides animal hooves of animals fish skin…

Read More Read More

crystalline sulfur
Merry Blogmas for December 4: Sulfur

Merry Blogmas for December 4: Sulfur

Comments 0 Comment

We continue  today with our daily “Merry Blogmas” posts on fun bite-sized science topics, which will run until Christmas. SULFUR Sulfur is one of the coolest elements going. It’s also on the smelliest things on the planet. It stinks enough that I included it in the article I wrote for listverse.com on 10 rocks that stink. Sulfur has some really cool properties. It’s a soft yellow mineral that can be set on fire. It burns with a blue flame. While…

Read More Read More

The Food Science of Hard-Boiled Eggs – Part II

The Food Science of Hard-Boiled Eggs – Part II

Comments 2 comments

This is the second of three parts on the eggcellent topic of hard-boiled eggs. To state the obvious, this discussion is about the unfertilized eggs of chickens, ducks, and geese. THE BIOCHEMISTRY OF EGGS The problem with making the perfect hard-boiled egg is that everyone has their own favorite recipe or gimmick that works for them; however, few people understand why their own method works or why someone else’s doesn’t. To understand how to properly hard boil an egg, we first…

Read More Read More

Merry Blogmas for December 2: Diatomaceous Earth

Merry Blogmas for December 2: Diatomaceous Earth

Comments 2 comments

What’s a Diatom? Diatoms are microscopic algae creatures that live in oceans, seas and deep lakes. When they die, their hard shell-like skeletal remains fall to the lake or sea bottom. Their fossilized remains are made of amorphous silica with the approximate chemical composition of opal, SiO2·nH2O. The “n” in that chemical formula means that the amount of water mixed in with the silica dioxide is not really known. Layers of pure fossilized diatom remains are called diatomite. What’s Diatomaceous Earth?…

Read More Read More

Merry Blogmas for December 1: Cinnabar

Merry Blogmas for December 1: Cinnabar

Comments 0 Comment

Merry Blogmas! I have decided to join the blogmas insanity and post a short blog post everyday until Christmas. Other than the regular weekly blog posts, the blogmas post will all be off-the-top-of-my-head brain dumps without citations. CINNABAR It’s one of the coolest minerals going: It’s mercuric sulfide. Its mineral form is called cinnabar. It has a mineral formula of HgS. It’s the main ore mineral for mercury. The mercury mines of Almaden, Spain are the largest in the world…

Read More Read More

The Food Science of Hard-Boiled Eggs – Part I: Boiling Water

The Food Science of Hard-Boiled Eggs – Part I: Boiling Water

Comments 7 comments

There are three parts to the science of hard-boiled eggs: the physical chemistry of boiling water, the biochemistry of eggs, and the science of cooking eggs. We will look at them in that order over the next three Sundays. Today in part I, we will look at the science of boiling water. Have you been adding salt to the water you use to boil your eggs? I’ll show you why you probably may want to stop wasting your salt… THE…

Read More Read More

Glass mug of beer
Beer as a Risk-Factor for Malaria

Beer as a Risk-Factor for Malaria

Comments 4 comments

This would be funny if it wasn’t actually real. First, let’s talk about malaria followed by the connection between malaria and beer. MALARIA Malaria is one of the nastiest diseases known. It is caused by several different species of itty bitty protozoans from the genus Plasmodium. The Malaria Disease Vector A disease vector is medical-speak for the way a disease is transmitted between people. As you probably remember from high school biology, the vector for malaria protozoans are vampire bugs, otherwise known…

Read More Read More

The Phytochemical that Launched a Thousand Ships – Part II

The Phytochemical that Launched a Thousand Ships – Part II

Comments 0 Comment

THE PHYTOCHEMICAL THAT LAUNCHED A THOUSAND SHIPS – PART II Our phytochemical of interest, piperine, is the active ingredient in Old World pepper and the plants of the Piper genus. Its history and background were discussed last week here. Compared to last week, this week’s post might not seem as spicy but I hope I can pepper it up a bit. Piperine is (2E,4E)-5-(2H-1,3-Benzodioxol-5-yl)-1-(piperidin-1-yl)penta-2,4-dien-1-one: a compound name only an organic chemist could love. It’s more succinctly known as C17H19NO3, a name that unfortunately…

Read More Read More

1572 print of Calicut (Kolkata, formerly Calcutta)
The Phytochemical that Launched a Thousand Ships – Part I

The Phytochemical that Launched a Thousand Ships – Part I

Comments 1 comment

THE PHYTOCHEMICAL C17H19NO3 As you may recall from high school biology, a phytochemical is any chemical compound that comes from plants. Our species of omnivore consumes huge quantities of phytochemicals everyday: caffeine, sugar, methyl salicylate, vanilla, just to name a few. Because much of our diet is plant-based, many of our daily nutrients are in the form of phytochemicals. Basically, phytochemical is just a fancy word but now that you know it, you can get a lot of mileage out of it…

Read More Read More