Yeast Beasts in Actions

What is the problem in this investigation? Which will yield the most reaction when mixed with yeast; acid (soda), base (antacid), or neutral (milk). What I thought is that the acid would be more reactive with yeast, with prior knowledge that acids in past labs have been highly reactive. Results?

We started with our acid and put the yeast in. In the first 30 seconds it went up and down and right after that it started going up. It didn't really stop after that, in fact when we stopped pressing down on the stopper, it popped up. That's a sign that it didn't stop aside from the graph.

After that run, we did the neutral liquid. This was by far, the least reactive with yeast. We put the yeast in and the liquid just sat there and didn't even fizz like the soda did. As you can see from
the graph, it gradually went up but barely.

Last but not least, the base reaction. This really surprised me, it turned out to be the most reactive of all three, therefore my hypothesis was incorrect. I mean just look at the graph, it just shot right up, no hesitation. It fizzed higher than any other liquid.

I concluded that because the base (antacid) is used for stomach relief, it deals with acids and can be just as reactive as an acid.

Conservation of mass Lab Investigation

What we saw with our pop rocks experiment is that even that we had a a large amount of liquid our balloon did not blow up very big. Well that isn't what we thought at first. We didn't start questioning this until we saw the vinegar with baking soda. This caused a bigger reaction even though there is far less liquid. How come the blue balloon with vinegar got bigger than the orange balloon with Pepsi? Turns out that Pop Rocks and Pepsi together are not a true chemical reaction. It is just the release of carbon dioxide that is already inside the candy. Nothing was changed. My hypothesis did not work because the pop rocks with pepsi wasn't even a reaction. Just the release of Co2.

Chemical Reactions Tutorial Questions

1) Reactants

2) Products

3) Chemical change has taken place

4) rearrangement

5) breaking, forming

6) Same atoms

7) missing atoms, new atoms

8) rearrange the bonds

9) two, one, one, one

10) 2 H2 + 1 O2 → 2 H2O
Column 1 Column 2
4 hydrogen atoms 4 hydrogen atoms
2 oxygen atoms 2 oxygen atoms

11) Law of Conservation of Mass

12) atoms, mass

13) 1, 1, 1

14) Column 1 Column 2
1 1
2 1

15) CuO, O

16) O, Cu, Cu

17) 2 Cu+ 1 O2 → 2 CuO
Column 1 Column 2
2 2
2 2

18) 1 CH4 + 1 O2 → 1 H2O + 1 CO2

19) 1 N2 + 3 H2 → 2 NH3

20) 2 KCIO3 → 2 KCI + 3 O2

21) 4 Al + 3 O2 → 2 Al2O3

Summary

1) Breaking Bonds, making bonds or both

2) the same atoms present before and after the reaction

3) Coefficients, atom

Polymer Lab Group Investigation

Today we conducted another polymer investigation. We were going to use body paint (which includes our vital monomer, liquid latex) except there were no places around that sold body paint, so we decided to stick with what we have, which was vinegar, borax, and glue. The experiment went really well. Here is how it went and our results:

First our problem, will vinegar have a different effect with borax and glue then water? We thought it would. It did. The polymer wasn't really a rubbery ball. It looked like a blob of cottage cheese at first, but soon dried. It had a skin over it and on the inside was a real crumby rubber and borax would come right off. The vinegar didn't seem to hold the core together as much as it did with the skin. And for the record, it smelled really bad, it stung the nostrils. It didn't bounce either, it just plopped onto the ground. The best find of the entire experiment, is that when you puncture the polymer, it had a wound on it. When you add vinegar to the wound, it will heal up in an instant. That was our best find. Now I think, how can this be applied to the medical field? Can the polymer act as a synthetic skin, the vinegar acting as the liquid that heals the wound. If that were the case, this would be a huge advance. But since we don't have polymer skin , we can't heal our wounds.

Sodium Silicate Polymer Lab

Today we conducted a sodium silicate polymer lab. We were trying to find out how to make a sodium silicate polymer lab. My groups hypothesis: When ethyl alcohol is added to the sodium silicate, it will form a polymer. Happy to say, that is exactly what happened. When the ethyl alcohol was added, at first I thought we weren't seeing that much change, but then we stir it up which must have caused some sort of reaction and it started clumping together. Like the other day, our mixture went from liquid to solid in just a matter of seconds. A challenge came though. Making a sphere out of the sodium silicate polymer. This polymer was crumbier than the glue one and broke easier. However, once it was in its ball, it maintained shape the rest of the time. The picture with the white sphere in the hand, is the ball of the polymer when it was formed. It kind of reminded me of a bouncy ball, whereas the other one reminded me of silly putty. The rebound test was up next and here were our results for non-refrigerated rebound:

Test # Height (Centimeters)
1 13 cm
2 17 cm
3 13 cm
4 15 cm

Average Height: 14.5 centimeters

Obviously, this polymer is way bouncier than glue based one. Now, we refrigerated ours for nearly 10 minutes, but we noticed our ball did not retain a temperature. That's what we thought at first.

Test # Height (Centimeters)
1 16 cm
2 20 cm
3 21 cm
4 15 cm

Average Height: 18 centimeters

Whoa, that refrigeration made a difference. I am just guessing here but maybe while the ball was in the fridge, it got cold enough for the core to almost freeze and hold a shape, making the ball overall, more dense. That means it bounces higher.

Questions:

What characteristics are similar between your two types of polymers you have made? Differences?
Both polymers were bouncy. 2nd polymer was slightly bouncier though. I noticed the 1st polymer was more flexible. The 2nd polymer had a crystal look and was more translucent than number one.

The science of addiction

Neurons

Neurons are the cells in our brain that send messages to each other by releasing chemicals. In the center of the brain lies a pathway known as the reward pathway that holds about a fourth of the neurons in your brain. The objective of the reward pathway is to gather information from the outside and bring it in to transmit it into emotions and feelings.

Science of Drugs in the Brain

Although drugs like tylenol and advil are safe, there are drugs that are constantly abused. These drugs are known as: alcohol, steroids, cocaine (crack), dissociative drugs, ghb and rohypnol, hallucinogens, heroin, inhalants (everyday products like glue and paint), marijuana, MDMA (Ecstasy), Meth, and Nicotine (Cigarettes and Cigars). With these drugs, they produce a high that can lead to addiction and in the long run, overdose. Overdoses in drugs can lead to death, these drugs that can be overdosed are: Polydrug cocktails (multiple drugs mixed together), heroin (the most overdosed drug in the United States), alcohol (vomiting is the effect of overdosing), cocaine (overdose leads to hyperthermia or heart attack, after a low dose of cocaine, you are 24x more likely to have a heart attack), and MDMA and Meth (overheating, brain damage, and heart attack are the result of overdosing.)Not only is the overdose deadly but with some drugs similar to marijuana, motor skills are not at their best and that is for sure a tool for survival. So...how do these drugs do their dirty work? Well these dangerous drugs fool neurons into releasing
neurotransmitters they don't need to such as meth can fool neurons into releasing more dopamine. Dopamine is responsible for many functions such as sleep, motor skills, mood, and many more. So when extra amounts are put into the body, these functions become hyperactive. If you didn't know before, here is the bottom line: don't do drugs.