Sodium acetate is such a useful little chemical. Not only is it responsible for the awesome flavor of salt and vinegar potato chips, but it also produces the heat in those little reusable hand and foot warmers you can buy at outdoor stores. Plus—when it's just too damn cold outside and you'd rather spend the day indoors—the same reaction that keeps your fingers and toes toasty can also be used for fun at-home art projects.
You can buy sodium acetate online, but all the real Cool Kids are making it themselves.
Thumbnail image courtesy Flickr user puroticorico, via CC
Photographer Eric Brummel created this magnificent time-lapse video of the Milky Way in which the sky is stabilized so you can experience the Earth’s rotation. He captured the footage at Font’s Point, Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, California. From Universe Today: Eric created this time-lapse by using a star-tracker with his camera. A star-tracker rotates the […]
In the journal Nature, University of Melbourne researcher Michele Acuto argues that what happens in our cities after dark has a tremendous impact on energy, sustainability, waste, and inequality “yet scholarship and policy often neglect these dark hours.” According to Acuto, we need a coordinated and cross-disciplinary “science of the night” to gather data and […]
Every year, the nonprofit Neural Correlate Society, an organization “that promotes scientific research into the neural correlates of perception and cognition,” holds a competition for the Best Illusion of the Year. This year’s winner is the above “Dual Axis Illusion” created by Frank Force (USA). “This spinning shape appears to defy logic by rotating around […]
Wine is great, but wine poured with an aerator is even better. It’s true that a jolt of oxygen does wonders for the flavor of a wine just before it’s poured. This Electric Wine Aerator & Dispenser makes sure that every pour gets its fair share of air, delivering oxygen over a wide surface area. […]
How many times a day do you wipe your glasses clean? If you actually care about your specs, you’re using a microfiber cloth and not your shirt. In which case, good for you. But even so, you’re just removing the surface dust on those lenses – not the grime and oil that accumulates on a […]
When you’re doing long-term workouts, you know the recovery can be just as important as the exercise itself. And when the intensity gets to a certain level, a simple stretch won’t cut it. From there, you’ve got two options. Either head to the spa for a professional massage, or take matters into your own hands […]
